Page 86 of All Wrong
Michael frowned. “I did what I could, but you need to be treated in a medical facility.”
“Pine Ridge has a hospital.”
“Yes, but it’ll take several hours to get there.”
“Are a few hours going to make a difference?”
“Medically speaking, no, but you’ll be more comfortable if?—”
“Fuck that. Take me home.Please.”
More looks were exchanged.
Then, Nick said, “You heard the woman. Take her home.”
Corinne grittedher teeth and tried her best to keep quiet as they bumped and lurched over the rough terrain. Shane was doing his best to take it easy, and Nick was doing what he could to keep her from getting jarred. Which was kind of a mind-bender. He was being so … well, he was acting like a man who cared. It was more than her brain could process.
She breathed a shallow sigh of relief when they finally came out on smooth pavement.
Shane cleared his throat. “Rinn, can you tell us what happened?”
He hadn’t saidwill you. He’d saidcan you, which said a lot in itself.
“I wasn’t sexually abused,” she said, wanting to clear that up right away, and the tension in thevehicle eased immediately. “But they were definitely going to kill me.”
She told them everything she could remember—from waking up with the feeling of someone being in her room; to being held somewhere, tied to a chair; to being bound in the back of her own SUV; and ending with her shittyJack and Jill tumbling down the hillimpression. By focusing on the events themselves and not her confusion or terror, she was able to relay everything as if it’d happened to someone else. Calmly. Methodically.
“One guy’s dead,” she said. “I passed him on my way back up the hill. It’s his clothes I’m wearing because my pajamas were ripped to shreds. I don’t know what happened to the other guy. All I know is, I stopped, and he didn’t.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
NICK
Nick’s blood boiled as he listened to Corinne talk about what had happened. He wanted to rage. Hit something. Kill someone.
Feeling her warm weight in his lap and stroking her skin were the only things keeping him from completely losing his shit.
“What about Buckman?” Nick asked when she finished.
Her face turned up to his, her brows furrowed. “Brett? What about him?”
“He disappeared the same time you did.”
Her brows pulled together further, and then hereyes opened wide. “Oh shit! They must have been following us and think he has something to do with whatever all this is about.”
“Following you?” Shane asked.
“I ran into Brett when I was leaving the Katarskys’ going-away party. We spent the day in the mountains.”
Just that quickly, the tension was back in Nick’s body. Now, he knew where she’d been. Who she’d been with while he was waiting like a sap on her back patio, wanting to make sure she was okay.
“That’s why you didn’t show up at Maggie’s,” he muttered.
“It wasn’t planned,” she said. “It just happened.”
The words were like a dagger to his chest.
Thankfully, those pain meds Michael had given her finally started to take effect, and she fell asleep shortly afterward. Holding her, knowing that it was the last time he would ever do so, was agony.
