Expired Getaway (Last Chance County #7) - Lisa Phillips Page 0,30

day ever. He sniffed at Bridget’s pants until she crouched. Aiden caught her wince. She wasn’t pain free, just good at hiding the truth.

Aiden clenched his back teeth and watched as she petted the dog. Butch muscled into her personal space, and she toppled to her backside. Her smile preceded a sound that almost could’ve been a giggle. He’d heard that same sound from Sydney many times.

The woman she had grown into was…striking. The kind who turned heads, unless she worked to purposely downplay it. A woman he would have looked twice at even if they’d not had such a marred history.

But Aiden didn’t need to get distracted by her. What he needed was answers, and a whole lot of them. A million questions warred for superiority in his mind. Meanwhile, she stared at him, and he stared at her.

“Any-who.” Frees rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I’m going to go look around. Dog?”

Butch trotted after him.

Aiden yelled, “There’s a leash by the front door.”

“Copy that!” Frees called back.

Pain rolled through his chest, and he sucked in a breath. Ouch. He perched on the edge of the desk.

“Are you really okay?” For the first time today, she looked scared.

Affected by him? Maybe.

Aiden didn’t need to get swept up. He needed to focus on the issue at hand. “Who was that Clarke guy?”

“A coworker.”

“What does he want?”

“To ruin me. The company.” She shrugged one slender shoulder. “Take your pick.”

“Are you okay?” From the stiff way she moved, he figured she was still in pain. Not surprising, considering she’d been shot and hit by a car. Now a fight. “That guy didn’t kill you.” Not the way he’d killed her father.

“He could have.” She folded her arms. “Which means he needs me alive. I just can’t figure out why he didn’t try and take me with him. Or what he wanted with Tate’s computer. He didn’t have the code, and I wasn’t about to give it to him.”

“You know Tate?” It occurred to him then that she might’ve come here with that man, the one she called Clarke. The “coworker.” Maybe she hadn’t come upon him by accident, the way Aiden had.

Maybe they’d been together.

She blinked heavy dark lashes. “Tate helped me out when I left town.”

Aiden opened his mouth. He didn’t know where to begin asking about that day he thought she’d died and what on earth had happened.

“I wasn’t in a good way when Millie found me. She brought me here, and the two of them patched me up before she drove me to Denver.” Bridget glanced at the window, though she couldn’t see outside because the blinds were currently shut. “After everything that’d happened, I was barely coherent with all the shock. I don’t think I spoke for a week.”

“Are you going to tell me about that?”

Maybe if she did, he’d have a clue why she ran. Why she lied to him by not showing up. He figured withholding the truth was as good as lying. It wasn’t like she’d bothered to come back to set the record straight.

Then again, maybe that was the point.

She’d have come face to face with Sydney, the person she obviously felt just fine pretending didn’t exist.

“What’s the point?” She shook her head and glanced at him with a sheen of tears in her eyes. “My dad is dead. So is the fire chief. That means whatever it was, it’s over.”

“The fire chief?” Aiden frowned. “He was one of the town’s founders, doing whatever he wanted to the people who lived here. That guy lorded it over all of us with his criminal activity for years, not caring who he hurt.”

Frustration burned in his chest. Jessica and Ted had both been injured and traumatized because of the fire chief. Not just them, but so many others as well. And yet they’d come through it healthy and safe. Better, even. They were in love. He was pretty sure Mia was pregnant and figured it wouldn’t be too long before Savannah and Tate had a baby.

Dean was happier—lighter—than he’d ever seen. Even Ted smiled these days.

“I read in the paper that he was killed by police.”

“Did you know Pierce Cartwright?”

Maybe he’d hurt her, the way he had with Kaylee. The PD receptionist had since married a long-time covert operative who was now a cook at Hollis’s new diner. Or, Stuart would be a cook once her fiancé and his father finished rebuilding the place for her. Another pair of couples, moving on