Falling for the Billionaire's Daughter - Lori Ryan Page 0,36

by pushing me away.”

“It was stupid.”

Kaeden turned to see Logan standing behind them. The other man carefully moved around him to stand next to his wife and Kaeden had a feeling he was being careful to make sure Kaeden didn’t feel trapped.

Logan ran a nonprofit that helped veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury. Though they had several counselors, Kaeden would guess that Logan had seen and heard a lot of the methods they used there to help people in crisis.

Well, that wasn’t him. He wasn’t in crisis. He didn’t have PTSI or TBI. He was fine.

Logan wrapped his arms around Samantha from behind, pulling her tight against him and Kaeden was struck with the near debilitating desire to wrap himself around Joy like that.

“When you’re ready to move on from what happened,” Logan said, “we’re all here for you. Or you can come over to my office and meet with Ernie. He’s our head counselor and he knows what he’s doing. He’s a veteran himself so he isn’t going to blow smoke up your ass.”

Samantha elbowed Logan. “Language, baby. We’re not back in the military.”

Logan grinned at her.

Kaeden wanted to run. Needed to run.

As if the couple saw that, they both turned back to the fire.

“When you’re ready,” Logan said as they walked closer to the fire, leaving him standing alone again.

Chapter 23

Turner watched his stepdaughter make her way down the hall. Two days of showing her picture to front desk clerk after front desk clerk and he’d finally found her in one of the lodges on the bus route.

When he walked into this lodge, he hadn’t even had to ask for her. He’d seen her in an ill-fitting housekeeping uniform, pushing a cart down one of the hallways that led off the main lobby.

He looked around the building, knowing there would be cameras in a place like this. It wasn’t a very big lodge, but it was the type of place that would take the security of its guests seriously. He couldn’t take a chance being caught on camera talking to her. Not with what he had planned for her when he got her alone.

That was okay. Now that he knew where she was, he could wait to get her alone. Then he’d grab her and they would have a nice private talk about what happened to people who tried to take what was his.

Chapter 24

Evan didn’t like the fact that the auburn-haired woman smiling at him was a warm and welcoming person. She was beautiful in an understated way. She didn’t wear makeup and her hair was streaked with silver, but her brown eyes danced and her smile was genuine.

She was thin and had a frail look that he had a feeling came from the car accident.

When he’d approached the woman he was sure was Turner Carson’s wife, she had turned and smiled without any hesitation. She’d also bought his story that he was touring the facility for his mother.

“I like the art classes the best,” she was saying as she gestured at the easel in front of her. She was sitting in a wheelchair, but he knew she had some mobility. He’d read it in her file, but she’d also moved her feet several times since he’d started their conversation.

Debra Carson had introduced herself as Emma Lawson, though.

“They have pottery and sewing,” she said, “and a lot of exercise classes for old farts like us, but the painting and sketching classes are my favorite.”

“It’s really beautiful here,” he said, looking at the garden they were sitting in. “Are you from the area?”

He knew her brother lived two hours away and that her family had lived two hours in the other direction when she was growing up so the area was familiar to her.

He saw the flash of a shadow in her gaze and she shook her head. Her first lie.

Still, she looked almost pained by it as she floundered to move the conversation to something else.

“She’ll love the food, too. The breakfasts are usually just cold cereal and fruit or maybe oatmeal, but lunches and dinners are quite a thing here. Everyone comes out of their rooms if they can, and there are desserts with every meal.” She patted her middle. “I’ve put on some weight since I got here.”

“Have you been here long?”

She dabbed her brush to the flowers on the canvas she’d been working on when he approached her. “Oh, quite a while. I like it here. Your mother will, too.