Clean Break by Melissa F. Miller

Author:Melissa F. Miller [Miller, Melissa F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brown Street Books

16

Aroostine typed Ryan Hawk’s address into the map application on her phone. She didn’t want to leave a record on the rental car’s GPS. She wished she’d had the foresight to pick up a burner phone before she’d left Utah.

“That’s silly,” she told herself aloud.

She hadn’t known she’d be going off the books to do some Rue Jackman work. How could she have?

“True.”

She realized she’d fallen into a habit of talking out loud. Ostensibly, she was speaking to Rufus, but given that he was currently standing next to Pat and not in the car, it was time to call it was it was: she talked to herself.

She started the car and lifted a hand to wave goodbye to her dog and her … whatever Pat was. She could worry about Pat later. Right now, she had a promise to keep.

She hadn’t lied to Pat. Not exactly. She was going to see Sienna at the reservation’s gas station. Ryan had assured her Sienna would be working today. But she also was going to see Ryan’s mother. She’d promised Ryan she would let Mrs. Hawk know that he was okay—or at least alive. Aroostine didn’t see any reason why Pat would need to know about that promise and she could think of several good reasons not to tell him.

She thought through her next steps as she followed the windy roads from the park to Fredonia. Ryan’s brush with death had done nothing to shake his resolve to find Julia. And Aroostine had found herself vowing to help him. In part, it was a pragmatic decision. Ryan swore he would refuse medical care so that he could continue on his foolhardy quest to find his secret bride. Aroostine recognized the set of his chin and determination blazing in his eyes and knew he meant it. So they’d agreed: he’d go to the hospital, and she would pick up Julia’s trail.

Pat would be incensed, she knew. But, she rationalized, her role in the search for Ryan Hawk had come to a successful conclusion: she found him, and she had a lead on how he’d come to have her name. She’d done what Pat had asked her to do. The fact that he would definitely ask her not to do what she was about to do was why she hadn’t told him: to avoid putting him in that position.

She snorted at her line of thought. “Nice, Roo. Really nice. Very lawyerly.”

A memory of a long-forgotten disagreement she and Joe had gotten into during her second year of law school bubbled up from some deep recess in her mind.

It had been late spring, just before final exams, and he’d been commissioned to create a custom bookcase for a country doctor in rural Virginia. He was working long hours in his workshop in the barn, and she was spending every waking moment in the library in town. Each morning, he’d drop her off so she’d be waiting on the sidewalk when the librarian arrived to open the building.

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