Inappropriate - Vi Keeland Page 0,85
glass of wine at the start of a two-hour dinner was my limit.
“So…” Mia picked up her glass and brought it to her lips. She looked across at Grant. “What would you think about going to Maui for the week between Christmas and New Year’s? The four of us. I mean, not me and you—I’m a married woman now.”
Grant chuckled and looked at me. He reached for my hand under the table and squeezed it. “What do you think? A week in Hawaii?”
My heart raced. Making long-term plans warmed my heart. Lord knew giving most of my exes a dry cleaning ticket to pick up two days later would have freaked them out.
I smiled. “I’d love that.”
After we got up from the table, the four of us stood around talking out front for another half hour. I overheard Christian invite Grant to a baseball game, and Mia winked at me with a huge grin. We never got to do things together as couples, and it felt so good to enjoy time with them together.
When it started to mist, it was time to finally go. I hugged Mia and Christian goodbye, and Grant walked me to my car. “It’s late. You want to just leave your car here, and we can swing back tomorrow and pick it up?”
“No, I’m fine. I’m actually going to stop back at my apartment and pick up some work I need to do in the morning. I meant to bring it, but I forgot it on the kitchen table. So I’ll just meet you at the boat.”
“You feel like having wine? I’m out, but I can stop and pick it up on the way.”
I pushed up on my toes and planted a soft kiss on his lips. “That sounds great. I’ll see you in a little while.”
“Be careful driving. It’s getting foggy, and the mist will make the road slick.”
“My aunt would love you. For all the years I lived with her, not an evening went by that she didn’t warn me to drive carefully or tell me about the weather.”
Grant opened my car door and held onto the top before shutting it. “Go, smartass. I don’t want you to get caught in dense fog. It rolls in fast down by the marina sometimes.”
After I stopped home and got back on the road, it actually was getting pretty foggy. I’d teased Grant for warning me to be careful, but it was becoming harder and harder to see. The roads leading down to the marina were winding, and I put on my high beams to get a better look up ahead. But after a few seconds, the headlights of an oncoming car flashed, so I turned my low beams back on. After the car passed, I hit the high beams again, but again an upcoming car approached, so I had to flick them back down. I gripped the steering wheel a little harder during the moments the low beams were on and relaxed when I could switch again. The fourth time an oncoming car passed, I was relieved to be able to return to my brights. But when I did, I was met with two big eyes.
Shit!
A huge deer with giant antlers stood in the middle of the damn road. He’d seemed to come out of nowhere. Suddenly there he was, only a hundred feet in front of me. We stared at each other, frozen in shock, until I thankfully jerked the steering wheel to the right.
Everything after that came in slow motion.
I missed the deer.
But the mist on the road made the blacktop slick, and I started to spin. I pulled the steering wheel in the other direction in an attempt to counter the motion, but it did no good.
My car went off the road and into the dirt.
I pushed all of my weight onto the brakes, and the car slid sideways down the side of the road.
With no lights shining anymore in the direction I was going, I got confused as to whether I was still on the side of the road or had gone back onto the pavement.
I held my breath as the car slowed.
Headlights from the other direction illuminated the street.
Thankfully, I wasn’t on the road anymore.
But there was a tree up ahead.
I braced.
And everything became eerily quiet.
Until impact…
Chapter 31
* * *
Grant
I wasn’t a worrier.
Or a nervous person, in general. But I checked my watch for the tenth time in an hour and stood on the back deck of Leilani, watching the dock