Finding It (Losing It, #3)(66)

As expected, I had over twenty unread messages from my father’s secretary. I didn’t have the patience to read them all. Except for the last one.

That one was from my father. Or at least my father’s e-mail.

I hesitated. Then opened the message.

Kelsey,

Your mother and I are very disappointed that you’ve neglected to answer our e-mails during the last few weeks. We expected you home for the charity event, and you caused your mother and me both great embarrassments with your absence.

You might also think of your mother. It’s not good for her to worry about you.

If you’re going to waste your life and spend all my money, you could at least have the decency to let us know you’re okay. If I don’t hear from you, I’m hiring a private investigator, and he will bring you home.

Sincerely,

Richard N. Summers

That was my dad. Good ole Richard N. Summers. Gotta love being treated like an employee by your own father. I almost hit reply. I had so many things I wanted to say to him, “I’m alive, douche-bag” being just the first.

But I believed him when he said he’d hire a private investigator. We’d gotten in the habit of paying in cash because they hadn’t really taken cards in Cinque Terre. I don’t think I’d used my card since Florence. He’d have a hell of a time finding us. His patience had run out, and if I told him where I was now, the odds were he’d have someone here tomorrow to drag me home.

Or I could keep going, and maybe it would take him another week or two to find me. I’d stopped using my card to pay for things after that last e-mail in Prague. I only withdrew cash from an ATM when we were leaving a city and moving on. So, other than the occasional ATM transaction, he wouldn’t have much to go on.

Tomorrow, I told myself. I’d take care of it tomorrow. I didn’t want him dragging me home, but I was also tired of running. If I had learned anything on this trip, it was that running from something didn’t mean it stopped chasing you. And I was tired of living life with all my problems nipping at my heels.

Today, I would talk to Hunt and find out where this was going. And then depending on how that went, I’d e-mail my father tomorrow. Either to tell him I was coming home … or to tell him something, anything that would let me hang on to this paradise a little longer.

“You ready?” Hunt asked over my shoulder. “What are you reading?”

I closed the window and logged off the computer.

“Just an e-mail from my father. Still trying to control me even with an entire ocean between us.”

He frowned, and I linked my arm with his. “It’s fine. I’m done letting him interfere with my life.”

It took several long moments for his eyes to clear, but then he smiled at me.

I asked, “Did you find a place for us to stay?”

“I did. It’s kind of a trek from here, so we should get whatever we need for our stay now so we don’t have to come back to the city center unless we want to. But the good news is it’s not far from a harbor where you and I have a reservation for a boat tour around the island.”

“Sounds perfect.”

We gathered our things, did a bit of shopping (including a new swimsuit for me), and found a taxi to take us to the bed-and-breakfast where we were staying.

I closed myself in the bathroom to change into my bathing suit, a simple black bikini top to go with the old black bottoms that I hadn’t lost in Cinque Terre.

I looked in the mirror, trying to gather my courage. Instead, I marveled at the way I had changed in the last few weeks.

In that bathroom in Heidelberg, I’d looked in the mirror and been disgusted with myself. I had looked sad and small and pathetic and ragged. Now … I looked happy. I mean, sure, I was tired from all the traveling and lugging my backpack around. My brow was lined with sweat from the non-air-conditioned taxi that had brought us here. And I was wearing just a dash of mascara, and nothing more. I had definitely looked prettier. But happier? Never.

That was all the pep talk I needed.

I pulled on another sundress, opened the bathroom door, and located Jackson sitting on the bed. I took a running leap, and threw myself at him.

His reflexes were too fast for me to surprise him, so instead he caught me, and rolled me underneath him.

I laughed, and he looked at me with such tenderness in his eyes. He propped himself up on one elbow, and ran his fingers through my hair splayed across a pillow.

“Someone is happy,” he said.

I nodded, and pulled him down for a kiss. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he lowered himself down on top of me.

I hummed into his kiss and said, “It appears someone else is happy, too.”





27


WE WERE FIVE minutes late for our boat reservation.

Totally worth it.

We rented a boat and hired a man named Gianni to captain it for us. Gianni was a plump, older man with a near-permanent frown and white eyebrows so bushy they looked more like a patch of whiskers. But even his grouchy, broken English couldn’t ruin this moment.

Gianni set off in silence, leaving Hunt and me toward the back of the boat just to enjoy the ride.

We rode straight out of the harbor first, the small inlet filled with boats disappearing quickly behind us. Then when we were far enough out that we could only see a few boats like ours out on the water, he turned and began circling the island.