Run to You Page 3

  “That’s great.” She turned away and rummaged in the cabinets again, this time for a glass. Then she reached into the fridge for the pitcher of filtered water and filled it for him.

  “Thank you.” He took a long drink, still standing way too close. “If all our permits come through, we hope to open by the end of the month. The zip-line course is complete. You should stop by. I’d love to take you out on it.”

  “Oh.” She took a step back. “Thank you, but I’d rather keep my feet on the ground.”

  “Not a fan of heights?”

  Or of risk-taking in general. “No.”

  He grinned, a cocky grin that should have sent her running, but didn’t. “How long are you in town?”

  “Through the end of the summer.” She’d have to go home to Charlotte sooner or later, but for now, hiding out in Haven seemed as good a plan as any.

  “I’ll get you in a harness by then.”

  She frowned. “Don’t be so sure about that.”

  “Oh, I’ll get you up there. It’s a great way to conquer your fear.”

  * * *

  Gabby crossed her arms over her chest, chin up. “I never said I was afraid.”

  Ethan felt an uncomfortable tug in his stomach. He’d just been teasing, but now she did look frightened, and he felt like an ass. “No, you didn’t. Well, we’ve got lots of other things on the docket. Rock climbing, hiking, an outdoor survival skills class taught by my buddy Mark that should be really kick-ass.” Although he didn’t like thinking about Gabby out in the woods with Mark, nor did he like the idea of them playing King of the Desert together.

  The truth was, Ethan liked her, so much that he was toying with the idea of asking her out. By all appearances, she was the type of girl he shied away from: the type of girl who would eventually want something more than he was able to give. But if she was only in town temporarily, a casual relationship might be just what she needed right now, too.

  She eyed him cautiously. “Well, the survival skills training does sound interesting.”

  Damn him for mentioning it. “I think it’s going to be great. Mark is former special ops so he definitely knows his stuff. Good skills for anyone to have.”

  “You never know when they’ll come in handy.” She glanced at the clock above the sink.

  “I should let you get to work.”

  “I suppose so. Thanks again for stopping by, and for the flowers. That was really sweet of you.”

  Sweet. Now there was something he didn’t get called every day. “You’re welcome.”

  She followed him to the front door.

  He turned toward her, allowing his fingers to brush against hers. “So I’ll see you around then.”

  She nodded. “See you around.”

  He walked out to the Jeep, already thinking of excuses to see her again.

  Ryan was waiting when he pulled in the driveway at Off-the-Grid Adventures.

  “You ready to see this place or what?” Ethan asked.

  “Ready.” Ryan took off his helmet and swung off the bike. “I get to help test the zip-line course, right?”

  “Damn straight.” Ethan fell into step beside his friend as they walked down the path behind the house. “And how ’bout some rock climbing afterward?”

  “Last one to the top’s buying lunch.” Ryan gave him a smug smile.

  “I know better than to take that bet.” Ethan stopped in his tracks. The ground below the zip-line platform was littered with beer cans, cigarettes, and other trash. One of his brand-new harnesses lay tangled in the mess. “What the fuck?”

  “You have a party without me?” Ryan said.

  Ethan raced up the steps to the platform. Gear was strewn about, mixed with yet more beer cans. Worse, the hand trolley wasn’t clipped to the safety line. “Someone’s been up here.”

  “Ya think?” Ryan stepped onto the platform behind him, surveying the mess.

  “The zip-line’s been used.” Ethan strode to the edge of the platform and looked toward the other end of the line. The trolley hung halfway between platforms, an empty harness dangling from it. “Someone was out here last night.”

  “Or a bunch of someones.” Ryan kicked a beer can. “Drunk someones.”

  “Teenagers.” It had to be. Getting drunk and riding a zip-line in the middle of the night without proper training—or any training—was stupid and dangerous and exactly the kind of reckless thing he would have done when he was a teen.

  He went back down the stairs, headed for the second platform. Ryan fell into step beside him. “We’ll need to start locking up the gear and maybe post some NO TRESPASSING signs, too,” Ryan said.

  “Yeah.” Something Ethan should have done already. It was nothing but dumb luck that whoever had been here last night hadn’t gotten hurt out on the course. He and Ryan came up to the second platform, finding more beer cans. The ground below the platform was all scuffed up. Several deep gouges had been carved into the earth.

  Something darkened the dirt at one edge, and there were droplets on the nearby leaves. It almost looked like—

  “Blood,” Ryan said, his voice gone deadly serious.

  A trail of blood drops led from the platform into the woods. Cursing a blue streak, Ethan took off at a jog with Ryan at his side. They followed the blood all the way to the road. Muddy tire tracks marred the grassy edge of the pavement where a car had been parked.

  Ethan yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the Pearcy County Sheriff’s Office.

  * * *

  Gabby spent the morning deeply imbedded in computer code, weeding through line after line to find the piece that was making her action sequence buggy. “Aha!” She clapped her hands when she finally spotted the problem—someone had inserted the wrong reference type into one of her parameters.

  She fixed it, then stood and walked into the kitchen to refill her water glass and contemplate lunch. She had just opened the refrigerator when she heard a knock at the front door.

  Again? No visitors for two months and now two in one day? This wasn’t Ethan. The knock was quieter, less insistent. Slowly, she walked to the door and pressed her eye to the peephole.

  An older woman stood on the other side. She wore sunglasses, her silver hair styled in a short, spiky ’do. She looked vaguely familiar, but Gabby couldn’t quite place her. She pasted on a friendly smile as she turned the lock and swung open the door.

  “Hi,” the woman said. “I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Dixie Hunter. We met at the garden store last month.”

  “That’s right. Nice to see you again, Dixie.” Gabby stepped back and invited the other woman into her house. Both she and Dixie had been selecting flowers for their yards, and Dixie had struck up a conversation. Gabby had left with a mixed selection for the hanging baskets on her front porch. It was probably silly buying flowers for her rental house, but seeing the pretty blooms outside each morning made this place feel more like home.

  “Your flower baskets look great,” Dixie said as she followed Gabby into the living room. Despite her age, she exuded a kind of energy and vitality that left Gabby feeling a bit wilted in her presence.

  “Thank you. Is there something I can help you with?” she asked, because she still had no idea why this relative stranger was here in her living room.

  “Well, I heard what happened yesterday, and I came to make sure you were okay. It must have been terribly frightening with the wasps attacking you like that.” Dixie shuddered.

  “It was pretty bad.” Gabby fought a shudder of her own. “But I’m feeling much better today. How did you hear?” Small towns, man. They boggled her mind.

  “A friend of mine saw you at the clinic, and she said my grandson was with you, so I got the scoop from him.” Dixie’s eyes twinkled mischievously.

  Gabby pressed a hand to her mouth. “You’re Ethan’s grandmother?”

  “I sure am. I brought sandwiches from the deli on the chance you haven’t eaten lunch yet.” She held up a white paper bag
in her right hand.

  “I haven’t, and wow, thank you. That was very nice of you.” Gabby motioned toward the little table in the breakfast nook. “Would you like some iced tea?”

  “Love some. Thank you.”

  Gabby poured two glasses and sat with Dixie at the table.

  “I brought two Havenly Ham specials,” Dixie said. “It’s got ham, Swiss, lettuce, mustard, and pickles.”

  “This is delicious,” Gabby said after she’d taken a bite. She’d mainly eaten at home since she’d arrived in Haven, believing—perhaps mistakenly—that she was keeping herself off the local radar. Apparently she’d been missing out on some seriously good sandwiches.

  “Best sandwich in town. Do you like to read? We local ladies have a book club that meets the second Thursday of every month. You should come, get to know people.”

  Gabby chewed and swallowed another bite of her Havenly Ham sandwich. “I do like to read. I’ll definitely keep that in mind.”

  “I’m hosting this month. We’re reading The Girl on the Train, but it’s very casual. Come even if you don’t get a chance to read it.”

  “I’ll check my calendar and let you know.”

  “Those flowers are lovely.” Dixie nodded toward the bouquet Ethan had brought over that morning. “Who are they from?” The twinkle in her eye made it clear she had already guessed.

  “Ethan brought them. He came by to make sure I was okay, too. I’m afraid I made quite a spectacle of myself yesterday.”

  “Nonsense. I’m just glad he was there to help. Did he get a chance to show you the new facility he’s building? It’s going to be quite the new local hot spot, I imagine.”

  Gabby shook her head. And she had no intention of seeing it either. “Ethan and I—we’re not—”

  “You don’t need to explain a thing.” Dixie glanced again at the flowers on the countertop. “My grandson has a bit of a reputation, I’m afraid, but don’t let it frighten you off. The girls, they still see him as somewhat of a local celebrity. You’re different. I can see that.”

  “A local celebrity?” That nagging feeling was back…

  Dixie grinned broadly. “Well, he brought home two Olympic gold medals and one silver from Beijing in 2008. Men’s fifty-meter freestyle, men’s one-hundred-meter breaststroke, and the men’s freestyle relay.”

  Yeah. I swim, Ethan had said with humor in his smile.

  Gabby’s sandwich slipped from her fingers. No wonder his name sounded familiar. An Olympic champion. Holy shit. Yeah, she remembered him now. He’d been the hottie all the girls—herself included—were swooning over that summer. “I hadn’t made the connection.”

  “No reason for you to. He’s a good boy, my Ethan. I’ll get going now because I’m sure you need to get back to work. So I’ll see you next week at book club?”

  Gabby stood. “I’ll think about it.”

  “I’ll leave you my number.” Dixie pulled a piece of paper from her purse and wrote her number on it. “Great seeing you today, Gabby.”

  “Thank you so much for stopping by, and for bringing lunch. I owe you one.” She walked with Dixie to the front door.

  “No you don’t. But I’d be happy to lunch with you again anytime. Just give me a ring.” With a wave, she was gone.

  Gabby stared after her from the front window, watching as she got into her SUV and drove away. What a cool lady. Despite dropping by unannounced—something Gabby would have normally said she didn’t appreciate—she liked Dixie a lot. Maybe she’d go to her book club. Maybe it was time to get out of the house and meet some people in town.

  She ran her hands up and down her arms. She’d gotten awfully comfortable living like a hermit, but this wasn’t her usual style. With a sigh, she walked back to the kitchen, pausing to press her nose into the flowers Ethan had brought her. Nice. The flowers, the man, and his grandmother.

  But she wasn’t here to make connections. She was just here to heal.

  Still, the house seemed to echo with emptiness after having had visitors. The afternoon dragged on as she worked out the final bugs in her code and put it through a series of tests.

  The house was definitely too quiet. And she knew the perfect way to fix it. After she’d shut down her computer for the day, she headed straight for the car. There was just an hour left before the Pearcy County Animal Shelter closed for the day.

  She tapped the address into her phone, and the automated voice of her GPS app guided her through downtown Haven and out onto the winding mountain roads beyond. God, she lived so far out in the middle of nowhere! Such a far cry from the hustle and bustle of Charlotte.

  After ten minutes on a winding road leading down the mountain, she came to a lonely traffic light, then a handful of stores, and finally the animal shelter. It was a nondescript white building with several fenced dog pens jutting from its sides.

  She walked inside, greeted by a boy with short-cropped black hair who didn’t look a day over eighteen.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  She nodded, her stomach tingling with either excitement or dread, she wasn’t quite sure which. “I’d like to adopt a pet.”

  The kid behind the desk perked up. “Great! Dog or cat?”

  “A dog, I think. A small one. Maybe someone who’s been here awhile.”

  “Oh, we have plenty of those.” He stood and extended a hand. “I’m Logan.”

  She shook it. “Gabby.”

  “Nice to meet you, Gabby.” He led her down a hall behind the reception desk and into a bright room lined with dog runs on either side, fronted with something similar to a chain-link fence. Behind each one, a homeless dog waited.

  A large dog that more closely resembled a bear barked at her, lunging forward against the gate. She took an involuntary step back. “Definitely smaller. Maybe even a cat.”

  Logan showed her a beagle named Lucy, a terrier mix named Tootsie, and a Pomeranian named Leo (probably because he looked like a baby lion). In the next kennel stood a tiny brown dog with enormous ears. He took one look at her and ran to cower in the back corner of his kennel.

  “This is Sir Lancelot. He’s a Chihuahua mix. He’s been here almost six months.”

  Gabby stared at the little dog. “Sir Lancelot, you do not look like anyone’s knight in shining armor.”

  “He might not be a fighter, but he’d make a great companion,” Logan said.

  And right now, that sounded exactly like her idea of a knight in shining armor.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ethan’s fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly they were starting to go numb.

  “Honey, calm down. It’s going to be okay,” Dixie said from the passenger seat. She reached out and touched his arm. “Thank you for insisting I get a second opinion and for coming with me. But we both knew it most likely wasn’t going to be good news.”

  It was not going to be okay. His grandmother, his only real family, was dying. And it was not fucking okay. “There has to be something they can do, Gram. We’ll get another opinion. We’ll find someone who’ll operate.”

  She made a tsking sound. “Well, I’d rather not have my brain cut open anyhow. But Dr. Haskell is one of the best in the country, and if he says my aneurysm is inoperable, I believe him.”

  Ethan had brought her to see a specialist today hoping for a miracle. Instead, this morning’s MRI showed that the aneurysm had grown since her first scan. It was so large now that Dr. Haskell felt certain Gram didn’t have much time left. It was rare that they’d even found it before it burst, but she’d started having terrible headaches and gone to have them checked out. Now they were stuck in some kind of hellish limbo waiting for her to die.

  Ethan slammed his fist against the steering wheel. “There has to be a doctor out there who can do something.”

  “Nonsense. Honestly, I feel blessed to have found out about it ahead of time. Now I can live these next weeks knowing they’re my last and make sure I don’t put off anything I’ve been meaning to do. I’m
an old lady now, Ethan. It’s my time.”

  “You are not that old,” he said through gritted teeth. Seventy was not old enough to die. Not his Gram.

  “Maybe not, but I’ve lived a full life.”

  “You lost your only child when she was twenty-nine years old, and then you gave up your dreams and your freedom to raise me. You deserve better than this, Gram.” He glanced over and saw the grim set of her mouth. He rarely mentioned his mother. Losing her had been bad enough for him, but surely it had been even worse for his grandmother.

  “Raising you was an honor, Ethan. I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Life is too short for regrets. We make the best out of the cards we’re dealt, and that’s all we can do.”

  “And sometimes that’s not good enough.”

  “No, it’s not, but it’s out of our hands. I can think of a lot worse ways to go. I feel great, except for the headaches now and then, and that shouldn’t change. If I’m lucky, I’ll pass in my sleep and never feel a thing. Stop strangling the steering wheel.”

  If he could have, he’d have ripped the damn thing right out of the Jeep and smashed something with it. He couldn’t lose Gram. Couldn’t speak over the painful clog in his throat.

  “You’ll get through this.” Her voice had gone soft.

  He turned off Highway 321, beginning their ascent into the Pisgah National Forest. The Smoky Mountains smudged the horizon ahead of them, dark and hazy like the emotions flooding his brain.

  “I made a bucket list,” she said, her voice stronger again now. “There are only a few things on it. I want to try out your new zip-line course.”

  He shook his head with a bitter laugh. “You got it.”

  “I’m so happy Mark and Ryan are coming back to town. It’ll be great to see the three of you guys working together.”

  They fell silent for a few minutes. He couldn’t wrap his brain around the things he’d heard from Dr. Haskell that morning. He and Gram had so much to talk about when they got home. So many decisions needed to be made, decisions he did not want to think about.