Falling for the Billionaire's Daughter - Lori Ryan Page 0,15

Things had seemed so simple when she went to a nine-to-five job and had concrete tasks and assignments as part of a team of software developers.

She logged onto the email account she and her mom used to communicate. With each of them using fake names she was pretty sure they were safe keeping tabs on each other this way, but it still made her nervous every time she logged on. She had to fight not to rub at the phantom tingling at the back of her neck or turn and check behind her for anything out of the ordinary.

It had been ten days since she’d checked the account, but her mom was faithful in emailing every day. They’d spent all the money they had to get her mom set up with a new identity so she could get the medical care she needed, so her mom kept an iPad and used it to communicate with Joy. Her mom was hiding but not running the way Joy was. Joy was the decoy. She kept very little and moved at least every six months.

She scanned through the subject lines of all of her mother’s emails first, making sure there was nothing out of the ordinary in them. When nothing popped out, she opened the bottom email and began to read, smiling as her mom described her days in detail.

Her mom was living in a care facility halfway across the country but she didn’t believe in sparing any of the details of her days. She spent most of her day in the garden where residents in the home were encouraged to tend to the plants and flowers as much as they could. The best part of these emails was the small glimpse of her mother she could see coming back. She was no longer the shadow of a woman she’d been when Joy got her away from Turner. Joy could see the mother she knew coming out bit by bit. The woman who’d taught Joy to bake. Who’d held Joy on her lap, guiding her to sew a dress for Joy’s doll to match the dress she was making for Joy. The woman who had always seen light and happiness everywhere she looked. Who didn’t let the world defeat her.

Joy had been afraid that woman was gone for good, that Turner had managed to chip away at her until nothing was left of the mother Joy loved.

She bit down on a laugh as she read her mom’s accounting of a pottery throwing class that resulted in her mom’s pottery piece flying off her wheel and smacking into the wall. Her mom had decided not to try that class again.

She had better luck with the painting class and Joy had to admit, her mother’s painting wasn’t half bad. She’d taken a picture of it and attached it to the email and Joy grinned at the picture. The sunset and ocean were pretty nice. Of course, the boat at the center of it was so lopsided only someone with a death wish would actually take it out on the water, but the bright blue and yellow colors of the boat were pretty.

The rest of her mom’s emails were chatter about people at the home with her and pictures of the flowers in the garden. There was one about a trip to the farmer’s market, which made Joy’s breath catch in her chest, freezing to a block of ice while she read the email. It made her nervous to know her mom was leaving the property of the facility and going out where someone might recognize her. Not that the chances of someone recognizing her in a place neither of them had ever lived before was high, but still. She’d prefer her mom stay as hidden away from people as possible.

When the librarian announced that the library would be closing in fifteen minutes, Joy turned her attention to figuring out where she’d go next. She planned to drive south. There was a used car lot an hour south of here, the kind with a lot of cheap cars she could buy for cash. She would leave her car here and take the bus down toward the car lot, then hitchhike the last three miles to the lot so she could get another car.

She clicked through the map looking for a place that was large enough she might be able to find work and a place to live. She needed to be someplace that wasn’t as much