Page 44 of For Always
“Nope,” Jagger said. “Can’t go back there yet.”
“What? Why not? If you’re talking about the sale of your shares, we can discuss that later. I’ll sell them back to you. It doesn’t have to be this way now. Not between us and not about the ranch. Now come on.”
Tyler leaned down and was prepared to help Jagger up, but Jagger pushed him away.
“No. I can’t go back until I help you catch her. She was my mistake and I gotta fix it.”
Sighing heavily because he was tired now, Tyler stood up straight and ran a hand down the back of his head. He needed to get back to the ranch to check on Gabriella and he was still waiting for a call.
“What mistake are you talking about now, Jagger?”
“Brooke, man. She was nutso. And when I sold you my half of the ranch she really went bonkers. Talking about how it was Gabriella’s fault. If she weren’t whispering in your ear to save her job, the ranch would have been sold. She said she was gonna get her back.”
“What? When did she say this?”
“She’s been saying it for days, but that bank lady called me yesterday morning and when Brooke finally got back in here it was past three in the afternoon. I told her I caught her and took my ring back and she said she was gonna tell our boss. I told her I was gonna tell you that she had it in for Gabriella.”
Tyler cursed.
“Where is she now, Jagger?”
Jagger shrugged. “Don’t know. She left crying and screaming about scheming bitches. I thought that was pretty hypocritical of her. But then she came back here last night. I was totally wasted by then. She was cursing and walking back and forth talking about getting paint in her hair or something. She said she’d finally gotten some payback on Gabriella and when I heard about what happened at the resort on the news this morning, I knew it was her. But all her stuff was gone when I came out of the room to look for her.”
“Dammit! So she’s gone?” Tyler asked.
“Nope,” Jagger said laughing again. “Her phone’s got a GPS chip in it and the phone is in my name. So all you gotta do is have the sheriff put a trace on it and you’ll find her.”
“Get up!” Tyler said pulling Jagger by his shirt. “Get up! We’re going to the police station right now.”
And if Brooke Radison had already left Hobbs Creek, Tyler was going to use the private investigator he’d called earlier to find her scheming ass pronto!
Chapter 12
Her hands were still shaking. Gabriella wanted to scream. No, what she really wanted to do was pack her bags and get the hell out of this town. But where would she go? Back to Connecticut? Austin lived there. His ex-wife lived there with their two children. He worked at one of the largest real estate firms in the city and his father was a city councilman. So how was going back home going to be better?
Gabriella dropped her head into her hands and cursed. She closed her eyes and thought about everything from last June up until this point. A little more than a year, and this man had torn her life apart.
She hated the thought of giving someone that much control over her, but there it was. She’d trusted Austin. Fallen in love with him and had begun to plan her future with him. And he’d let her down. He’d hurt her physically and mentally and despite all of the daily motivational sayings she read online and prayers she whispered at night, Gabriella didn’t feel like she was anymore healed now, than she had been on the worst night of her life.
Tilting her head back, she let the tears flow in hot streaks down her face. She sat still longer than she thought she probably should have and then she sighed heavily. Opening her eyes, Gabriella climbed off the bed and found her phone where she’d tossed it into the recliner across from the bed. When she’d come up here—she didn’t even know how long she’d been closed in this room—she’d intended to call Adriana and finally tell her sister everything. Adriana would understand why she’d kept the secret and why she’d thought she could handle this on her own because not only was she Gabriella’s big sister and best friend, but because Adriana had gone through something horrible in her life too. Her sister had also kept a secret, for her own personal reasons. And when Adriana decided it was time, she told her story. Gabriella didn’t have the luxury of time.
She was holding the phone when she heard the quiet knock on the door.
Until this moment, nobody had come to see about her. A part of her had expected Dessie, with all her mothering ways, to march up the steps and demand Gabriella stop being foolish and open that door. But she hadn’t. And another part thought—or rather hoped—that Tyler would come up with a key and simply unlock the door. That he would walk into the room and lift her into his arms and carry her off into a happy ending. She chuckled at that thought because Gabriella always considered herself stronger than a woman who needed a man to rescue her. Still, when the knock came again, she wiped her face and slipped her phone into the back pocket of her shorts. She crossed the room and unlocked the door, pulling it open to see Tyler standing on the other side.
He was carrying a tray with two covered dishes, a couple of bottled waters and a glass vase with a long stemmed pink rose.
“It’s dinnertime,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting into a smile. “Dessie and I thought you might be hungry. Especially since you only had that smoothie early this morning.”
It was the strangest thing. Considering all that had happened today and the thoughts that had been running through her mind as each hour passed with her sitting alone in this room, it was the last possible reaction Gabriella imagined she would have to seeing Tyler. But butterflies danced in her stomach and a nervous chuckle escaped.
“I thought that smoothie was supposed to provide an unlimited energy boost.”
“I didn’t say you were tired, probably just hungry,” was his reply.
He was too cute for his own good. And she was too smitten with that cuteness.
“I could eat,” she said and stepped aside to let him in.
