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No really. She was curious. He was going to drop her off somewhere and set her free. That’s what his plan was. And she would have to rebuild from scratch, and he could go back to his Cold Foot Crew, with his friend, and whatever life he’d been building there for the past nine months.

He stood and walked away. She thought he was angry, but he stopped at the front kiosk and pulled out his wallet, then paid.

“Come on,” Cash muttered.

She felt nauseous, and didn’t want to eat another bite, so she stood up easily enough and followed them outside to say her goodbyes.

Cash had parked his truck here and flown into Sister’s Edge, so the guys both headed toward their separate trucks.

“It was wild to meet you,” she called after them.

Kade turned and cocked his head. “What are you doing?”

She clutched her purse against her chest like a shield and looked down the road at the first buildings of the main drag. “This place is as good as any other.”

“For what?”

“For you to drop me off.”

“You’re an hour away from Sister’s Edge,” Cash pointed out. “They’ll pull you back in so fast. You’ll be back with Connor by tomorrow.”

“Well, maybe I’ll travel east. Or west. Or…I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears. Her eyes were doing that stupid burning thing again.

Kade inhaled deeply and then twitched his head for Cash to go on without him.

“Nice to meet you, lady.”

“Jess,” she said. “My name is Jess.” She cleared her throat. “Thanks for getting me out of that house.”

Cash did a little salute and then gave a two-fingered wave to Kade before he got into his truck and pulled out of the parking lot. He floored it on the main road and black smoke billowed out of the back of his loud pickup.

Kade scratched the scruff on his jaw and pulled out his phone. “You can stay in Cold Foot territory until you get back onto your feet.”

“Oh yeah? You mean I can stay in your house, and we can have a plan and then you can fuck it up and leave me all alone again?” She got louder as she said that sentence and yelled the last part.

Kade winced and squeezed his eyes tightly closed. “You’re mad.”

“Disappointed, but it’s nothing new. I do appreciate that you signed the Promise contract right before you did all that stupid shit. At least I was able to avoid another contract until now.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“Prison sounds lonely too,” she threw back at him.

“You didn’t write me,” he gritted out.

“I did! I did! I wrote to you for weeks, and they all came back to me in a bundle with a typewritten note that the prisoner had refused them. You refused them, Kade! So, I stopped writing, and I swallowed all the things I wanted to say, and all the confusion, and all the fear because I was the Promised of a man who killed one of our own! Sister’s Edge couldn’t take it out on you. You were gone. Guess who was still there? Me! What was the point of writing a stranger who didn’t want me to?” Oh, she hated that shake in her voice. He had no right to see her emotions up right now.

“You don’t have to stay with me.”

“You couldn’t pay me enough,” she gritted out. “You’re a let-down man.”

He flinched and walked away, shaking his head. “Fine. Suit yourself. Settle here or go back to Sister’s Edge. It’s not my business either way.”

“I don’t need anyone!”

He slammed the door and headed back for her. “You shouldn’t talk about things you didn’t witness.”

She held her ground and he stopped a few paces away. She didn’t know what he meant, so she crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin higher, didn’t say a word.