Page 3 of Hunted

“A grumpy asshole?” she asks with a frown.

“Don’t you…” I trail off, unsure how to ask the question. “It seemed like you knew each other.”

She nods her head, staring into the ocean over my shoulder as I continue walking us towards the beach. “We do. We did. But the Maurice I knew was never grumpy. Or mean.”

I try to imagine Reece without the attitude problem, but it’s difficult. What worries me more is what connection they have and how it fits in with what the rest of us have with her. My heart clenches in my chest, afraid of what’s to come.

Needing to know who they were to one another, I finally ask the question that’s been plaguing me since he first said her real name.

“How do you know each other?”

“She’s my girlfriend.”

Chapter two

Darla

“She’s my girlfriend.”

I swing my head around at the sound of Maurice’s voice, my eyes wide as I take in his stern expression and rigid posture, his arms crossed over his chest.

Weston stops a few steps from them and helps lower me to my feet as I adjust my skirt to make sure it’s covering me.

He’s here.The only person besides my dad that I ever truly cared about and the only other person who really knew me. And he’s standing right in front of me.

I can’t take my eyes off him. He has the same brown eyes and tousled brown hair that I remember. But the rest of his face is almost unrecognizable. Gone are the soft features of a thirteen-year-old boy. In its place is the sharp jawline of a man. A rather handsome man, too. He grew uprealwell.

Seeing him in a light blue dress shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows and black dress pants… it’s so out of place. Not just on this island, but on him. The boy I remember loved band tees and jeans. He hated dress clothes.

He takes a step towards me, his arms in front of him like he doesn’t know if he should touch me or not.

“Are you real?” I whisper, my eyes continually scanning his face for any more signs of the boy I once knew.

“Me? I feel like I’m dreaming right now. I… I don’t understand. How are you here? Where have you been?” His eyes scan me just as much as I scan him.

“Reece,” Kingsley says carefully, making him jerk his attention to him in question. “She’s been here this whole time.”

Maurice frowns, looking back at me as he shakes his head. “No… No, that doesn’t make any sense. It’s been fifteen years. She hasn’t been—”

“She has,” Bower says, stepping up on our other side as he looks down at me, sadness written all over his face.

I turn back to Maurice and watch as his confused expression turns shocked, then that gives way to fear before his face completely pales.

“No… Darla, you… You’ve been stranded here all this time? Just you and your dad? Wait—Where is he?”

I squeeze my eyes tightly shut as the thought of losing him makes my chest constrict with pain. Weston’s warm hands grip my shoulders, his thumbs rubbing gently, reminding me he’s here.

I open my eyes and look back up at Maurice. “He’s gone. I lost him four months after arriving here.”

“Fuck, Darla, you’re telling me you’ve been alone here since you were thirteen?” he asks, his face a mixture of disbelief and fear.

I just nod my head because there’s nothing else to say to that. He finally reaches forward, no longer able to hold himself back as he pulls me against him, one arm wrapped around my back, the other holding my face to his chest.

“I’m so fucking sorry, darling. I didn’t know, I didn’t know!”

I wrap my arms around him as he gently sways us side to side, gripping me so tight it’s as if he’s afraid he’ll lose me again if he doesn’t keep hold of me.

“My dad made it sound like there was no chance you could have survived. If I had known—”