I can’t quell the panic. I remember my own mother at eight, brushing my hair at night, singing me to sleep, helping me with homework. In my memory, she is beautiful and otherworldly, so much older than I am now. Wise, with crinkles around her eyes when she smiles, and a few gray hairs starting at her temples.
I leave the room, and thankfully, no one notices. Sprinting upstairs, I shove things in my bag, glancing out the window to watch where Thayden is going, toward one of the back fields, where there must be a landing strip. He pauses to talk to Gavin’s father, giving me the time I need to finish up.
As quietly as I can in the creaking old house, I speed down the stairs, out the front door where no one sees, and sprint to catch up with Thayden.
When I call out his name, he turns, shocked. A laugh bubbles out of him. “Zoey? What are you—”
“I need to hitch a ride back to Austin. And I need help with the contract I made to be Ella’s nanny. I can’t finish the weekend. I’ll give the money back. I just … need to go.”
For a moment, I think he’s going to protest. Or perhaps pull out that dimple and try to charm me into staying. But he must recognize the desperation and determination in my eyes, because a moment later, he nods.
“If that’s what you want.”
It’s not what I want. But it’s what I need. What Gavin needs, what Ella needs. Maybe it’s just the fear talking, and I suspect it is, but right now, I can only see one way out, and it’s this. Cutting my losses before I can lose any more of myself.
“Take me home.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Zoey
I keep expecting Thayden to rebuke me or try to get me to change my mind, all the way up until the wheels lift from the ground on the flattened grass runway. But he doesn’t say much, other than telling me how to buckle into the small plane. He tells me to sit anywhere, but I feel safer somehow next to him in the cockpit.
My stomach dips as the plane lifts higher and higher. I tell myself not to worry. He said he has a license. The flight can’t last more than an hour. I can finally breathe as the ranch grows smaller and smaller. I watch until it’s a tiny speck in the distance. Then it’s gone.
“Will you at least text him? Tell him that you’ve left?” Thayden asks.
“How do you know I didn’t?”
Thayden gives me a brief glance, then turns his gaze to the instruments on the dash. I almost don’t recognize this serious, dimpleless version of him without the charm dialed up to maximum volume.
“I recognize a runner,” he mutters.
“From personal experience?”
My words are intended as a jab, and his wince tells me that it hit home. I immediately feel guilty. I got a terrible first impression of Thayden, but he’s being nice enough to smuggle me home, no questions asked. He also slid into a more professional, more caring version of himself while helping Gavin with Ella. I could see that underneath the outward show he puts on, there’s a decent human.
“Something like that,” he says, focusing back on the sky ahead.
“Will my phone even work from up here?”
“Our altitude is low enough that it should still work.”
“Oh.” Disappointed, I play with my phone, spinning it around in my hands, wishing for an easier out. “Maybe we could fly a little higher?”
Thayden gives me a sidelong glance and a tiny hint of a smile. Somehow, this one looked more genuine than all of the others I’d seen on his face. Maybe because he wasn’t trying to charm me with it.
“Advice from one runner to another: don’t leave in such a manner that there’s no way back.”
I draw in a breath, feeling like his words were tiny blades slicing into my torso. I wondered about his past, what he’d run from, and why he was being so forthcoming with me, especially when his shiny surface had seemed so important every time I’d seen him.
With his warning in mind, I type and retype a message to Gavin, finally settling on something simple, even if not particularly forthcoming. I can’t quite explain the intensity of my panic and need to bolt to myself any more than I could explain it to him.
Zoey: I’m sorry, but I left with Thayden. I can no longer be Ella’s nanny. I’ll return