Seeking Sanctuary

by Annie Anderson

  “I love you,” I breathed.

  My words brought a wave of relief to her face, and I didn’t give a shit if we were in public, I was kissing her as if my life depended on it.

  When we came up for air in a sea of wolf whistles and catcalls, she said the words I was dying to hear.

  “I love you, too, Levi. So much.”

  If I could have frozen time in that one moment, I would have. But I didn’t see what was coming.

  No one did.

  20

  ISLA

  I eyed one of my favorite skirts like it was a viper about to strike. There it sat on my bedroom floor exactly where I’d thrown it two minutes ago after it refused to go past my hips. I felt betrayed by a piece of cotton.

  Cotton was supposed to be stretchy, right?

  My eyes moved from the deceptively pretty coral skirt to the three more discarded ones next to it, to my growing belly. Shirts didn’t fit, pants didn’t fit, bras were a contraption meant for unending torture. I needed to figure out an outfit for today, and then I needed maternity clothes STAT. My wardrobe – or lack of one – was getting dire. Plus, summer was quickly ending, and I only had my pre-pregnancy Florida summer clothes. I was going to freeze my pregnant ass off.

  “Sugar? You ready, baby?” Levi called from the hallway before perching a shoulder on the doorjamb.

  I turned – still in my ill-fitting bra and underwear – and gave him a ‘what do you think?’ look. Levi’s lips crooked, his eyes glittering with a barely contained laugh and a little bit of lust.

  I crossed my arms, shooting him a glare. Hell, I’d almost stamped my foot. “This isn’t funny.”

  “Of course not, Sugar,” Levi said, his voice serious even though his smile got bigger. The fucker was trying not to laugh at me, but he was failing.

  “I never thought I’d say this in my life, but…” I trailed off as I plopped on the edge of the bed in a huff. “I have nothing to wear.”

  That wasn’t it either. Somehow, I’d lost my favorite bracelet – it was a silver number that I’d had forever. My mother gave it to me when I was about four, back when I’d only had two charms on it – a mermaid and a book. The main bracelet was newer, replaced over time when the original one became too small, but I’d kept all the charms. But today, I couldn’t find it no matter where I looked.

  Levi crouched by my feet, his work-roughened hands resting on my knees as he peered up at me. He wasn’t laughing now, either because I was close to tears, or my dramatics just weren’t that funny. Either way, I wanted to skip work altogether and tackle him on the pile of my discarded skirts.

  That’ll show ‘em for not fitting, the bastards.

  “I’m sure we can find something in your closet that will get you by for a few days, and maybe we can head into Denver this weekend to get you some maternity clothes. All else fails, you can wear one of my flannels. That’s a thing, right? Wearing a guy’s flannel over leggings or something?” he offered, and I swear the fact that he was trying to fix this for me was freaking adorable.

  So adorable, it was a while before anything other than how to get his clothes off even crossed my mind.

  * * *

  “I’m driving. You can’t be all alpha male and drive all the time. I’m going to have to learn how to navigate the switchbacks whether you like it or not,” I insisted around a bite of eggs, my voice garbled through my food.

  I’d given up on my wardrobe and poached one of Levi’s flannels, pairing it with an extra-long tank and black leggings. The leggings were a little tight, but they would do until I could either order clothes online or make it to Denver. The flannel shirt was enormous on me, landing about mid-thigh. I cinched it in just under my bust with a belt and thought I actually looked cute. But Levi’s flannel shirts wouldn’t last me forever.

  “You act like I throw you over my shoulder and carry you to the passenger seat. Isla, you were passing out all the time. Of course, I was on tap to drive. If you’re feeling better, I see no issue in you driving, babe. Alpha male, pfft,” he scoffed before shoving another bite of bacon in his mouth – bacon that I cooked because he was still hopeless in the kitchen.

  Once our breakfasts were consumed and I had a smoothie for the road, we finally made our way outside. The late summer air was crisp, and I was glad for Levi’s thick shirt. I knew it would warm up later, but the morning in the mountains was cooler than I was used to. But before Levi opened the driver’s side door for me – something I didn’t think I would ever get used to – he stopped.

  “Did you hit a curb or something?” he asked.

  I tried to remember the last time I actually drove anywhere and drew a blank. “Umm, probably not? I can’t remember the last time I drove anywhere, you wheel hog.”

  Levi pointed out a slight gouge to one of my lug nuts, and I shrugged. “Maybe? But I don’t think so.”

  “I’m going to check your tires to make sure they’re safe to drive on. I don’t like the look of that gouge,” he said, his face a mask of worry and protectiveness.

  “If it will make you feel better. I’d rather not fly off the mountain.” I said it like a joke, but the look on Levi’s face told me he didn’t find it funny one bit. “Okay, fine. Check the tires. Sheesh.”

  Levi held out his hand for my keys, snatching them from my hand as if I’d jump in the car and speed away before he got a chance to check the lug nuts. He double tapped the unlock button, and hauled out my lug wrench and jack from the back of the SUV and checked every single lug nut on each tire. Once he was satisfied, he grudgingly handed me the keys.

  Not an alpha male, my ass.

  * * *

  The day had been quiet and strangely comfortable now that a skirt waistline wasn’t digging into my belly. The boys had hit a lull in the shop, and I was catching up on ordering parts. That was the thing I liked the least about my job – scouring for parts on the internet. Most of the time, I could order them from the supplier, but when it came to Mrs. Peterson’s Buick, well, there weren’t enough parts in the world to keep that sucker running.

  I was waiting for a call from a junkyard in Newberry hoping they might have some ’78 Buicks in their inventory when that goddamn loud as shit phone rang. Honestly, I was amazed I hadn’t thrown the thing through a wall by now. That ringer was the fucking worst.

  “Grady’s Garage. This is Isla, how can I help you?” I sounded off by rote only to not get an answer on the other end. I’d been getting more and more calls like this over the last month, almost daily, but today, this was the fifth.

  My first thought was the reception, but as long as I’d been here, there hadn’t been a problem with my cell service, so I didn’t think that was it. Could it be Pippa? As far as I knew, there was no one else who had a grudge against me, but even then, she’d been gone for weeks.

  No. Pippa might have hated me, but she’d lost her father. She had bigger fish to fry.

  My second thought was Smitty, but then I quickly dismissed it. Smitty knew where I was, knew my phone number, and hell, we talked ages ago when I knew I was going to stay in town. Smitty would just call me if he needed to speak to me.

  Unless something was wrong.

  The thought screamed across my brain as I returned the receiver to the cradle. Something could be wrong. Someone could know where I am. For fuck’s sake, I answer the phone with my goddamn name. How fucking stupid am I?

  Then another thought, probably the worst one I could have streaked across my mind like a bullet.

  Cole.

  I never checked his pulse. I never made sure he was dead. Even Smitty didn’t see a dead body. As far as he knew, there wasn’t one recovered from the scene. It didn’t matter if there was a cover-up. It didn’t matter if the law was looking for the Montgomery’s. I. Didn’t. Check.

  Then the puzzle pieces started falling into place in my mind. The missing bracelet, the things around the house that I thought I moved and forgot, the weird phone calls. I didn’t know if it was true. Maybe it wa
s just pregnancy hormones messing with me, but I knew a sure-fire way to check.

  The money.

  If – and that was a big if – Cole was alive, and if he was in my house, he would have taken the money back. He would have. I needed to get home. I needed to check my closet. Hell, it was in the same damn suitcase I’d packed it in when I left.

  But Levi couldn’t be with me when I did it.

  I sprang up from my chair, not even bothering to shut down my computer or clean up my desk and poked my head into the garage bay.

  “Hey, Graham?”

  “Yeah?” he yelled back underneath the hood of a car.

  “I feel like crap. I’m going to head home before I blow chunks all over my computer. Can you tell Levi and maybe take him home today?”

  “Wha—”

  “Thanks, Graham,” I called, and ducked my head back into the office, high-tailing it out of there and into the parking lot. I had to get out of the lot before Levi came back with lunch. If I didn’t, there was no way in hell he’d be cool with me leaving without him especially if I ‘felt bad.’ Levi was protective in the extreme, and if he thought for a second I was impaired, he’d snatch those keys out of my hand so fast my head would spin.

  I bleeped the locks, hauled myself into the driver’s seat and started the SUV, throwing it into reverse as soon as the engine turned over. I didn’t fully brake before tossing it into drive, and blew right out of the lot.

  Had I taken the time to think, had I stepped on the brake and just taken a breath, what happened next wouldn’t have happened at all. Everything – and I mean everything – would have turned out differently.

  But I didn’t do that.

  Instead, I was almost to the curve of Bear Creek Road before I noticed anything was wrong.

  The curve in the road wasn’t too steep, but the speed I was going, made something very, very clear. Every time I pressed on the brake, my car wasn’t responding. I wasn’t slowing down, and the more I pushed the pedal, the less and less resistance I got from the brake.

  Forcing myself not to panic, I tried to think of anything I could do to slow myself down. There were runaway truck ramps everywhere, but those were for the descending lanes, not for the ascending ones, and either way, those weren’t an option right now. I could try the emergency brake, but who knew if that still worked or if it would roll the SUV.

  But I didn’t have the time to decide the best course of action. Even though I was going up, I was still headed for the first set of switchbacks – the big yellow sign screaming at me to lower my speed for the almost U-turn that was coming my way.

  I was going way. Too. Fast. Even if I let off the gas, I couldn’t get from seventy to twenty. If I took the turn at this speed, I’d fly right off the mountain.

  At the last second, I did the only thing I could. I stomped on the parking brake, skidding painfully before the bottom dropped out of my stomach as the SUV rolled.

  The squeal of metal and crunch of glass was the last thing I heard for a long, long time.

  21

  ORIN

  My radio squawked at me as I stepped out of Connie’s diner. Layla, the county dispatcher, knew I was at lunch so this had to be good.

  “This is Grady, come back.”

  “There is a major vehicle accident on Route 71. Silver Ford Explorer. Boss says he needs you to secure the scene ahead of fire rescue and paramedics.”

  As soon as the words silver Ford Explorer fell out of Layla’s lips I knew.

  Isla.

  “On my way.” I jumped into the cruiser parked right outside the diner, flipped on my lights and siren, and hauled ass.

  I’d seen my fair share of accidents. In my line of work, there was no shortage of them. But I’d never been on this side of the fence with someone I knew.

  The bystanders were few, but more were coming behind me. Route 71 was the main road connecting our little mountain town to the rest of the state. I was the first uniform on the scene, so it was up to me to assess the damage, and god, it was bad.

  Isla’s SUV was on its side half hanging off the mountain, the detritus of her vehicle littering nearly a hundred feet of blacktop, the guardrail a pitiful crumpled thing. The driver’s side was in the dirt, the wheels still spinning as it teetered on the edge where the land just fell away to the valley below.

  I couldn’t get her out – I didn’t have the tools or the knowhow – but I could make sure she didn’t go over. I saw a few big men in the crowd, and together we pulled the SUV back a few feet – not enough to get her out – but enough that maybe, just maybe she had a shot.

  LEVI

  My cell went off as I was juggling the takeout containers and the front door to the office. I didn’t get a chance to answer it before it clicked over to voicemail, but I saw the main number for the shop was calling as soon as I got the door open. Graham was standing at Isla’s desk, his eyes pointed to me, his face like granite, the phone in a white-knuckled grip.

  A pit of dread yawned in my gut, a sucker punch if there ever was one, and I knew something was wrong. I’d had that niggling feeling all goddamn day. And that pit of dread only got bigger the longer Graham looked at me and didn’t say a word, his mouth pinched flat like he didn’t want to say whatever it was that I needed to know.

  Isla should be sitting at that desk. Isla should be ordering me to cough up her lunch. I should be kissing her right now and asking if we have enough space in the schedule to cut out early because I didn’t get enough of her this morning, and I wouldn’t get enough of her that night. I was supposed to let her know how much I craved her so she never forgot, so she knew how fucking special she was every single time it flitted through my head.

  So she wouldn’t forget it.

  But she wasn’t there, and Graham was calling me.

  “Where is she?” I barked.

  Graham’s wince was a thing nightmares were made of. “I don’t know,” he answered, “She yelled into the garage while I was under the hood of a car. Said she was feeling bad and then tear-assed out of here like a bat out of hell.”

  That made exactly zero sense. “She said she was going home?” I clarified.

  Graham dropped the phone back in the cradle. “Yeah, man. It seemed suspect, so I called you.”

  Give it to Graham to know when bullshit was afoot.

  “When’d she leave?”

  “Not ten minutes ago.”

  I turned on my heel, dumping the containers filled with food into a nearby chair and booked it to Graham’s truck. I reached for the driver’s side door only to realize I didn’t have the keys, but one look up to Graham had them sailing from his fingertips and the pair of us hauling our bodies into the cab.

  I didn’t make it to the edge of the lot before a fire truck and ambulance screamed down the street right in front of me. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t look both ways. I didn’t do anything but squeal out of the lot, tailing the speeding emergency vehicles, praying it wasn’t what my gut was screaming at me it was. They stopped outside a cluster of cars, and I was out of the truck cab before I’d fully put it in park. I made it past the ring of emergency vehicles, and bystanders who were gawking at the same thing I was.

  Isla’s SUV – or what was left of it – balancing precariously on the edge of the mountain. My feet did the thinking as I started running, screaming Isla’s name, knowing if I made it to her, if I could see her face, she’d be okay. I’d be okay. We’d be okay.

  The baby. Jesus, shit, fuck. The baby.

  Then Orin was there, blocking my way, keeping me from her. At first, I didn’t even see him, too intent on my goal to make sense, but he got right up in my face, making his presence known.

  “Levi! You can’t go in there, brother. I need you to stand down!” Orin yelled in my face probably not for the first time.

  “Is she… Is she alive?” Alive. That word burned like acid on my tongue.

  “Yes. From what I could tell, she is, but her position is precarious, brother. You have
to let the professionals do what they do. They’ve got to get her safe before we can help her, okay?”

  He was right, my big brother, but I didn’t like it. Each second she was hanging off that mountain, each minute I couldn’t see her face was a form of torture I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

  * * *

  Hospital waiting rooms were the fucking worst. Sitting in the surgical waiting from hell of St. Luke’s, I picked apart the Styrofoam remains of my coffee cup waiting for word of Isla’s condition. They’d been in there for hours already trying to fix the damage she sustained in the accident.

  My dad and Constance sat across from me, whispering back and forth about something. I couldn’t be bothered to pay attention. Especially since Orin would not shut the fuck up about this whole situation smelling fishy.

  When he got a phone call from the station, I almost wept with joy. I didn’t want to talk about the accident. I didn’t want anything but to sit here and mentally will a nurse to come out and give me some fucking news.

  I about lost my mind when Orin told me they were airlifting her to Denver. It took Graham and Orin both to lock me down – especially when I was told I couldn’t go with her. The only reason my brother’s face isn’t busted to shit is because he had the foresight to ask what hospital they were taking her to and the wisdom to call our dad.

  Where Orin and Graham struggled to lock me down, my father simply looked me right in the eye and asked if I wanted a ride to Denver. What was I going to tell him? No? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

  “You’re not going to believe this shit,” Orin hissed, his fingers clenching his phone so tight I thought he was going to smash it.

  I sat up in my awful plastic chair, my body alert. “What.” Not a question, a barked demand.

  Orin’s eyes flicked to the doorways to the waiting room, scanning our surroundings, before sitting down next to me, silently motioning for dad to listen.