Right Where We Belong (Silver Springs #4)(53)

Savanna’s eyebrows shot up. “Nashville! How soon?”

He had to leave Silver Springs, he realized. Right away. Even if Aiyana wasn’t ready to marry Cal. He’d been trying to wait, but his peace of mind was at stake. He could never be the kind of husband he wanted to be to Heather—the kind of husband he’d always envisioned himself as being—when he wanted Savanna instead. And that would impact the kind of father he was, too. So he had to get far away from her. “In the next couple of months,” he replied.

That was fast to plan and execute a move, especially because he had to find a replacement for himself at New Horizons before he could leave town. Even still, as he remembered Savanna arching her back to meet his thrusts, her hands fisted in his hair and her mouth open and receptive beneath his, he wasn’t convinced it would be fast enough. Two months would equal sixty nights he’d have to overcome the temptation to return to her bed...

“We’d better get over to the park,” he told the kids, putting his guitar in the house and locking up before helping them into his truck.





15

Why hadn’t Gavin mentioned that he was planning to move?

Savanna felt sucker punched. The news had come out of nowhere. Hadn’t he just bought his house? Why would he purchase a property knowing that he’d be leaving the area in such a short time?

It didn’t make sense. The Gavin who’d come to dinner last night and the Gavin she’d spoken to this morning were somehow different from the Gavin who’d built the makeshift bridge and spent the night in her bed. The old Gavin had been easygoing, unguarded, and made no secret of his interest in her. This Gavin seemed to be backing away in spite of that interest.

Was it the sex that’d changed him? Made him decide to leave town?

It was ridiculous to even speculate that could be the reason. He’d told her, in so many words, that he’d enjoyed being with her. And yet...it was that night that seemed to have changed everything.

Suddenly bereft—as if she was about to lose her only friend, since that was sort of the case—she stood in his yard, forcing herself to wave and smile while he drove off with her children. Then she stared down at her phone. Without the brief flash of joy Gavin had brought into her life, she’d be left with nothing but work. The work involved in rebuilding the farmhouse. The work involved in rebuilding her family. The work involved in rebuilding herself. And amid all of that work she’d probably learn more and more about Gordon’s crimes. She might even be called upon to do more of the same type of thing the detective had asked her to do today.

She was about to call Sullivan to tell him she couldn’t get involved, after all. She wanted out. But the memory of Emma Ventnor’s parents clinging to each other on that news clip she’d watched, begging for anyone with information to come forward, made her resist canceling. She wasn’t doing it for Sullivan. She was doing it for them, for two people she wished she could help in any way possible.

She’d just started for home when her phone rang.

The call was coming from the county jail. Gordon. Here he was. Apparently, his mother had been able to pass along the message Savanna had asked her to.

Instead of finishing the walk home, Savanna returned to the shade of Gavin’s porch, drew a steadying breath and answered. “Hello?”

After the usual rhetoric about the call being collect and recorded, she heard her former husband’s voice.

“Savanna, thank you for taking my call.” He sounded slightly surprised and yet relieved that she’d broken down.

She took the chair Gavin used when playing his guitar. “I only accepted because I read something that has me totally freaked out, Gordon. And I want to hear you say you didn’t do it.”

Leery now—she could feel it in the sudden tension between them—he paused before responding. “What are you talking about?”

“Another case.”

“Oh, give me a break!” His emotions switched to irritation. “The police are going to try to pin anything they can on me. But I’m innocent, like I’ve told you. Look at it practically if you don’t believe me. There’s no way one person could do everything they claim.”

She wondered how many wives of other serial rapists or murderers had heard similar logic. “This isn’t a rape.”

“Then why’d you bring it up?”

“Because a girl, only sixteen, has been missing for almost a year.”

“Emma Ventnor. I should’ve guessed. I don’t want to talk about her.”

He should’ve guessed? What did that signify? And why didn’t he want to talk about her? Was he ashamed, guilt-ridden?

Savanna gripped the phone tighter. “Then you’re aware of the case.”

“Of course. She lived in Bingham, not far from Kennecott Copper. When she went missing, it was all over the news. But I didn’t hurt her. They won’t be able to pin her death on me.”

“Death?” she echoed. “How do you know she’s dead?”

“It’s been a year since they found her car on the side of the road. Where do you think she is?”

“They haven’t found her body.”

“If it’s been this long, they’re not going to find it. She’s probably out in the woods somewhere—or a lake—fully decomposed. Whoever got her was smart.”