Page 61 of Liam (Preston Brothers #4)

Addie

“He’s not here, Addie,” Liam says, his voice cracking.

I turn to him. “How do you know?”

He grips the steering wheel tighter, blinking away the fatigue.

It’s just after midnight, and he’d just fallen asleep when I forced him to wake up, get out of bed, and drive me around as if he was being paid.

He wasn’t. And while I feel horrible for doing this to him, it was something I needed to do.

My soul couldn’t rest until I did. “Because his truck’s not here. ”

“His truck is probably scrap metal by now, remember?”

Liam peers through my window toward the dilapidated house.

All the lights are on, music is blaring, and two men sit on the crooked steps, smoking what I’m positive isn’t cigarettes.

When we first pulled up, they both lifted their heads but lost interest within seconds.

“He got a new truck,” Liam says. “I’ve seen it around town.

And I’m telling you, Addie. He’s not here. Do you know where else he might be?”

Liam doesn’t ask questions when I tell him where to go. Not even when we pull up to the closed security gates and I give him the code for the panel. He drives through the undeveloped corner of the estate, where a lone truck is parked, the bed facing the cliff edge. “Is that his truck?” I ask.

Liam doesn’t respond, just pulls up next to it. Wyatt’s sitting on the tailgate, looking out at the town below.

“I’ll be back,” I murmur, opening the door. I pause halfway, turning to Liam. “Thank you.”

Liam nods, his eyes half-hooded. “Go talk to him, Addie.”

I close the door and round the minivan, my steps slowing the closer I get. Wyatt hops off the tailgate when he deems me close enough, his eyebrows lowered as he looks down at me.

I had so many things I wanted to say, but now that I’m here, I can’t come up with a single word.

But I don’t need to speak, don’t need to reveal a thing.

Whatever Wyatt sees when he looks in my eyes reveals it all.

His shoulders drop, along with his demeanor. “I was hoping that car accident took those memories from you.”

I release a sob. Just one. “What’s going to take them from you?”

He steps forward, or maybe I do, but it doesn’t really matter. We hold each other, like we did when we were kids. I cry into his chest, and he strokes my back, and he says the words that calmed the storm then, the same way they calm the storm now. “It’s okay, Addie.”