Page 52 of Where You Go (Whisper Lake 5)

Grady rested his forehead on hers as they both caught their breath. “Call me when you get home.”

“Why?” she asked. She didn’t mean to sound surprised, she was just excited that he’d wanted to hear from her again, and so soon.

He grinned as his thumb trailed along her jawline. “So I know my girlfriend got home safe.”

“Oh, right.” His mention of being his girlfriend reminded her that this might be part of the show since they were in front of the B&B.

She took a step back and opened the car door. Her knees were trembling as she slid into the seat. When she looked up at him, she was once again struck by just how gorgeous he was. If she had written a hero for herself, she couldn’t have come up with anything better. And it wasn’t just his looks, either. It was his work ethic, his values, his sense of humor.

Seeing him with his mom today had caused her to fall even more in love with him. Hearing them talk about Chrissy’s kids had made her ovaries tingle. If she saw him with them or a dog she’d probably spontaneously combust.

It was good that she was going back to the city, and in the words of Soul II Soul back to life, back to reality. If she stayed even one more day in Whisper Lake, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get out of this unscathed. As it was, her chances weren’t looking good.

“Bye,” she waved awkwardly as she pulled on the car door.

He reached out and grabbed it and for a moment she thought he was going to tell her not to go, to ask her to stay, to declare his undying love for her.

“Don’t forget to call me when you get there,” he reminded her before shutting the door.

“I will,” she agreed with a smile hoping that the disappointment she felt, thanks to her runaway romantic brain, wasn’t written all over her face.

She lifted her hand in another awkward wave as she pulled out of the parking lot.

Don’t look in the rearview, she instructed herself as she drove away from the B&B. But her eyes rebelled. They cut to find Grady standing beside his truck, his hands in his jean pockets, watching her car as it drove away. The entire scene had a very surreal-like feeling, almost as if it had all been a dream.

When she turned onto Lake Shore Drive and he was out of sight, she felt the loss in her entire body. She’d heard of people saying they had flu-like symptoms from missing someone, but she’d never experienced it before. Now, she actually ached. And she’d left him less than sixty seconds before. Her only hope for the future was that absence would not make the heart grow fonder. If it did, she might not make it.

Her phone buzzed inside her purse, and her heart jumped in her chest. Was he calling her? Did he miss her already, too?

She grabbed it and saw that it was Rasha. This was the fourth time she’d called today. Liv answered, “Hey, sorry I have—"

“Why haven’t you been picking up?” Her friend blurted out. “I was about to call the police to go looking for you!”

“Maybe I was sleeping in.”

“It’s one o’clock. You never sleep past ten.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“So, how was Bitchette’s wedding?”

“Um, well, do you remember the cop, the one I thought was a stripper?”

“Hot Cop? How could I forget?”

“Well, he actually went to the wedding with me.”

“He did?! Okay how, how did this happen?”

“Remember I told you I was meeting a friend, Chrissy, who I knew from when I used to come up here. Well, she met me for drinks at the rehearsal dinner and everything was going fine when Jordan walked in... with a plus one.”

“The J word Jordan?”

“That’s the one.”

“What?! Why? How?”

“Bridgette invited him.”

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