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Brett probably knew this place like the back of his hand. She traced her fingertip along one of the horse trails. A permanent campground was marked at the end.

The creak of the door at the front of the offices pulled her attention from the map. Heavy boots thudded on the wooden floor before Brett spoke.

“Morning. Is Thea here?” he asked.

“Ava’s office,” Stella replied.

Thea waited until Brett appeared and stuck his head into Ava’s office before she cleared her throat. “I’m in here.”

Brett changed course and stepped into Jameson’s office across the hall. “You okay this morning?”

“Better than yesterday. Sorry about all the tears.”

“No need to be sorry. You’ve been through a lot.” He propped his hands on his hips and looked up at the map. “So, do you see what I see?”

“You have a plan?”

“Of course, I have a plan. Don’t worry. I know where we’re going.”

Thea inhaled a deep breath, but it did nothing to calm her nerves. He thought they’d need to implement the plan, and that wasn’t doing anything for her fears.

“Don’t worry about it.” He rubbed a hand over her shoulder. “If you need to get somewhere safe, I’ll take care of everything. I’m sittin’ on ready, and the police department knows where we’ll be and what to do if we sound the alarm.”

Thea looked up at him, and a jolt of gratefulness surged through her chest. “You made a plan for me?”

“Of course.”

“Is there anything I should know?”

Brett shook his head. “Not really. You’d have to take a horse, but I think we can ride together on one of the stronger ones.”

Thea’s eyes widened. She wanted to get back on a horse so bad she’d had fitful dreams about it the last two nights, but she didn’t expect to get back in the saddle anytime soon. “You think I can?”

“If we don’t have another option, you’ll have to. Don’t worry about that either. I can get you on and off a horse. Maybe keep a few things packed just in case. And when I say it’s time, we have to go immediately. No questions.”

Thea nodded vigorously. “Got it.”

He’d come up with a solid plan, and she trusted him. The least she could do was make it easy to help her escape. He was doing all the heavy lifting–literally.

“I’ve been thinking about something else lately.” She hesitated, preparing herself for his reaction. “Hadley said she’d be willing to get messages to my mom.”

Brett shifted his weight from one side to the other but didn’t say anything.

“I was thinking, maybe she could get a message to Gage, and he could tell my mom I’m okay. I’m sure she heard about what happened. Tommy knows I’m here, and he would have asked her if she’d seen me.”

Brett stared at the floor for what seemed like a full minute before looking up. “I don’t like anything that invites trouble.”

“I don’t either, but she needs to know I’m okay. And maybe I could get an update about her latest appointments. If I could get some more information about her cancer, maybe I could find a hospital that would be able to help her. We don’t exactly have the world’s leading research team out here in the middle of nowhere.”

Brett rubbed the short beard on his jaw. He’d always been clean-shaven when they were younger, and the beard made him look older and much more rugged than he had when they were teenagers.

The new look took him from a solid ten to a twelve point five on the sexy scale.

“I promise to be careful.”

“How exactly were you thinking this would play out?” Brett asked.

“Gage told you he’s working at Beau Lawrence’s garage. Hadley could show up and pretend to be Gage’s girlfriend and pass along the message. She could drop off lunch for him and stuff. No one would question that, right?”