Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“You don’t understand,” Ren said, and she began tearing her napkin into small pieces. “My parents—well, Steve and Gloria—they barely let me go away to college. They have strict rules about what I can and can’t do while I’m away. They want me home every weekend. They don’t want to hear about school. They don’t want to talk about it. They’re just looking for a reason to tell me I can’t go back in the fall. If, after only a few weeks at college, I came home and started grilling Gloria about the possibility of a secret biological father being out there somewhere, they’d lock me down so fast I’d be on the homestead forever.”
“You’re an adult. They can’t keep you there against your will.”
“I know. And I shouldn’t say it like that. I mean, I do plan to return to the homestead. I want to, after college. But with all of this…it’s hard to not wonder, what else did they keep from me? Or keep me from?” She dropped her head into her hands, groaning. “But, no, I love them. I mean, whatever their reason is for keeping this from me—if this is even true—I’m sure it’s a good one.”
“How can you say that?” he asked, as heat seeped under his skin. What she was experiencing—the emergence of blood relatives from this technology? That was his dream. She had no idea. He wanted nothing more from that assay than to find family. “If this is true, your mom kept you from your dad.”
“Maybe he’s a criminal.”
He pointed at the photo. “This guy? He looks about as dangerous as a guide dog.” Fitz leaned back, gusting out a breath as understanding hit him. “That’s why you broke into the lab.”
“I was making sure my results hadn’t been mixed up with someone else’s.”
“Why don’t you just call him?” he asked. “Or—I don’t know—email?”
“I need to see him for myself. And yes, okay, it was impulsive of me to leave, but I was upset and confused.”
“You have sixty dollars in that coin purse of yours and nine states to cross,” he said as gently as his lingering annoyance would allow. “It wasn’t just impulsive, it was stupid.”
“Actually, I have fifty-five dollars and seventy-two cents. Doughnuts are expensive.”
“Still enough money for a bus ticket back to Spokane. If you left now, you could get back to your dorm room and be on the phone with this”—he sat up again, squinting down at the name in the lower corner—“this Chris Koning within a few hours.”
Ren nodded, and then kept nodding. For a minute, he was elated, thinking she agreed.
But then she said, “I know you’re trying to get rid of me—”
“Of course I am.”
“—but you have secrets, too, Fitz. And not just that I caught you cheating.” She leaned in. “Your turn. Tell me what’s in Nashville.”
He laughed and sat back. “Nope. I don’t do backstory.” She stared at him and her eyes softened, as if she was trying to be appealing. Honestly, it worked, but not enough. “Don’t bother trying to charm it out of me. It’s not happening.”
Ren frowned. “Why? I just told you all this stuff about me.”
“This isn’t a quid pro quo moment. Am I taking you to the bus station or not?”
“Not.”
“You’re really going ahead with this?”
“I have to get to Christopher Koning and find out the truth.”
“You might not like the answer,” he told her.
“I have to try, right?”
Standing, he collected their plates. “That’s what everyone says before they do something really stupid.” She was so naive; she didn’t even know what she didn’t know.
And it was precisely that realization that made him think he had a shot at convincing her to give up on this wild-goose chase.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
REN
Ren had never studied animal behavior in any official capacity, but she could confidently say she was an expert anyway. She knew the second she saw Steve’s grouchy old mare whether she was in a kicking mood and how to read the different squeals and grunts of each of their pigs. She knew when their milk cow was going from impatient to pained, when a fight was about to break out in the chicken coop, and how to lure their shyest cat out from the shadows.
She also knew that while Fitz didn’t necessarily like having her tag along, he wouldn’t abandon her in the middle of nowhere, either. He’d hovered close, protecting her in line at the restaurant. He carried her bag to the trunk and unlocked her car door first. Once they were seated inside, he looked over at her, saying simply, gruffly, “Put your seat belt on,” before falling into silence.
But the silence wasn’t tense, at least not for Ren. With her secret out in the open, a weight was lifted. She felt like herself for the first time in days.