A Very Merry Bromance (Bromance Book Club #5) (81)

“I guess I can’t blame you, on the one hand,” Evan said. “You get access to the Winthrop name and money without actually having to do anything.” He shrugged. “Although now that I think about it, you could’ve gotten the money without the hassle of dealing with Gretchen. No piece of ass can be worth that.”

What happened next was outside Colton’s control, outside his consciousness. He watched, detached, as if someone else were in charge of his body as he stormed across the room, grabbed Evan by the lapel of his jacket, and slammed a fist in his face.

Evan careened backward and fell on his ass, blood spurting from his nose. Glass broke. Whiskey spilled. Chaos ensued.

Jack grabbed Colton around the chest and hauled him back just as Diane raced forward to check on her son. Frasier crouched down on the other side of him and helped him sit. Evan held a hand to his nose and bellowed that he was going to sue.

Colton’s hand began to throb as the adrenaline crashed.

He turned around.

And that’s when he realized.

Gretchen was gone.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


She stole Blake’s car.

It had been completely unintentional, which is what made it so perfect. She’d grabbed the first set of keys she found by the back entrance, beeped the key fob until she found the right one, and climbed in. It wasn’t until she’d been driving aimlessly for a half hour that she realized which family member the car belonged to.

Even then, she kept driving. She went down dark country roads and onto the freeway. She took exits she didn’t recognize. Sat in a McDonald’s parking lot. Bought a slushy at a gas station. Stared at the lights over the river.

On the passenger seat, her phone buzzed incessantly with texts and phone calls and voice mails. Colton. Her mother. Jack. Colton. Blake’s wife. Which was weird. Probably she wanted the car back. Colton again. Jack again. Her mother again.

She ignored everyone.

An hour passed.

And then another.

The road beckoned. The urge to run until the pain was gone was the navigation system in her mind. But when she began to drive again, it seemed to steer itself here, back to the place where she’d started. Down the same dark country road.

Somehow, she’d unconsciously known she would end up here.

Somehow, she’d known he would too.

The moonlight above was just enough to guide her to the path to her tree house, but she would’ve known the way even without it. She emerged into a clearing and paused to stare at Jack sitting alone on the swing, his hands hanging onto the rope and his eyes staring at the ground. The ends of his bow tie hung loosely around his neck, the top button of his shirt opened to the cold.

The crunch of her heels on the stick-strewn ground brought him to his feet with a surprised but then relieved breath. It puffed around his face in a misty cloud.

“Jesus, Gretchen. Where the hell have you been? I’ve been going out of my mind. Everyone has. Colton’s out driving around looking for you.”

“I needed to think.” She hugged her torso and shivered. “How did you find me?”

He winced.

Of course. “Blake reported the car stolen?”

“He called the vehicle assistance service and asked them to locate it.”

“How clever.”

“He’s not mad, Gretchen. He’s as worried as everyone else.”

She tried to roll her eyes, but another shiver raced through her instead.

Jack scowled. “Where’s your coat?”

“In the car.”

“Here . . .” He took off his tuxedo coat and set it around her shoulders. It chased away some of the night chill but did nothing to thaw the block of ice in her chest. He studied her face for a moment, opened his mouth to say something, and then apparently thought better of it. He backed up. “I need to let everyone know you’re all right.”

As he turned away with this phone, she hobbled on her heels to the tree. With a fingernail, she picked at the chipped edge of one of the old boards that Jack had nailed to the trunk so she could climb as a child.

Behind her, his voice was muffled as he spoke into his phone. “I found her . . . Blake can give you directions . . . I don’t know . . . Okay, I’ll tell her.”

His footsteps drew near again. “Colton is on his way here to get you. He’s a good man. I didn’t think there could ever be anyone good enough for you, but he is.”

Flick. She chipped off another sliver of wood. “That’s a very dad thing to say.”

“I’m sure your father feels the same.”

“We both know that’s not true.” Flick. Another sliver gone.

“It’s too cold out here,” Jack said. “We should wait for Colton in the car.”

“All the times I used to hide out here, did you know what I used to wish for?” Flick. A stubborn chip of wood clung to the edge. “I had this crazy fantasy that maybe I would find out someday that you were my real dad.”

He let out a breath. “Gretchen . . .”

“I almost convinced myself of it too. There’s the age difference between my brothers and me, you know? So I built this whole story in my head that my mother was a stranger or some woman who died or something and you decided that maybe I would be better off being raised by them. Stupid, huh? But it was better than believing that my parents just simply didn’t give a shit that their son was actively abusing their daughter.”