When Romance Prevails (The Dark Horse Trilogy Book 3) (6 page)

BOOK: When Romance Prevails (The Dark Horse Trilogy Book 3)
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However, Kerri had the scare of her life when she turned into the western alley and did not see a single soul there. Nor Hunter’s car.

Her heart racing and her adrenaline pumping like she was on drugs, Kerri pulled out her boyfriend’s cell phone and smashed her fingers against a few buttons.
“Where are you???”
she sent more than once.

The city pressed in on her. There wasn’t a safe place she could go, nor was there anyone she trusted enough to go to for help.
I’m alone.
Kerri held herself against the alley wall, her bags weighing down her shoulders as she looked around in helpless despair. Perhaps there was no other choice than to go back in the boutique and hope no one had noticed she was missing yet.

A car honked. Kerri glanced up and saw Hunter’s car squeezing down the alley, his hand waving at her from behind the windshield. Kerri picked herself up and sprinted toward him, her heels slapping against the asphalt while her tote bag bruised her side. The lock on the passenger side door popped open the moment she reached it.

“Hurry,” Hunter said, his foot ready to slam on the gas. “I had to ditch because I think someone saw me. Can’t be too sure. You okay?”

Kerri flung her bags in the backseat and climbed in so quickly that her leg banged against door and made her cry out in pain. “Been better than at this moment,” she mumbled as soon as the door shut. “We better go. They’re gonna notice I’m gone soon.”

Hunter hit the gas and wheeled out of the alley. They hit the first line of traffic they could find heading north, and once they were clear of the downtown intersections, Kerri relaxed into her seat and realized what she had just done. Thinking about it was already giving her a headache.

“You okay?” Hunter asked again. They caught up to some traffic as they headed out of town. “I…” He closed his lips again.

“I’m fine. Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe and secluded. Think of it as a romantic getaway.” Hunter put his hand on hers in between the seats. His eyes as they gazed at her were almost reassuring. “Nobody will bother us. I’ll see to that.”

Kerri held back what she initially wanted to say. A romantic getaway? Was he kidding? Kerri had just run away from her parents like a disgruntled teenager hell bent on teaching them a lesson.
No, I just want to be with him.
Still, the last thing she had said to her mother… had Brenda been crying as she stared at the floor? And now her daughter has disappeared. Runaway? Or kidnapping? Doubtless, a missing person’s report would be filed as soon as possible. Since she was the governor’s daughter, many resources would be spent at least on Raymond’s end to make sure she was found. Who was Hunter kidding? He couldn’t see to anything with the force of the state government backing up her father.

But she wanted to try. This was her first step in declaring her independence – as frightening as it was. Hunter took his hand out of hers as traffic picked up again.

It felt like they drove for hours, touring down the interstate and then taking a rural exit out to the middle of nowhere. Hunter was careful to not get too close to other cars around here, lest they were recognized in face or license plate number. They did not stop anywhere, although Kerri needed to go to a bathroom. “We’ll be there soon,” Hunter said more than once. After a while, Kerri stopped believing him.
He’s trying to protect me.
It should have soothed her, make her trust him more… and she did, but as the sun began to set she found it difficult to believe him.

They wound up into the mountains, far away from civilization. The sort of place a person would take their family camping for the weekend to get away from it all.
I always wanted to go camping growing up.
Kerri never had much chance to experience the outdoors. Her mother found it vulgar, and her father was always busy. The few summers she went to a camp as a kid, it was the sort of bourgeois crap that prevented anyone from getting dirty. Now that she was here in the mountains, looking at the sunset through large, sprawling evergreen trees, she didn’t know whether to be enthralled or not.

They finally pulled up to a cabin off the county roads. Kerri gauged that there were a few cabins around there, all isolated and forgotten. Hunters and outdoorsy honeymooners probably rented them at certain times of the year.
This ain’t no honeymoon.
Kerry was grateful to stretch her legs as she got out of the car for the first time in hours, but Hunter went straight to the door, a duffel bag over his shoulder. While he unlocked the door, Kerri reached into the backseat to grab her things. She and Hunter still had yet to chat about what was going on.

Inside, the cabin was sparse but pleasant. It was big enough for just the two of them, with a studio layout that was more cozy than claustrophobic. On one side of the cabin was a small kitchen nook, with burners, a small fridge, and a tiny microwave next to a sink. The living area encompassed tables and chairs, and a sturdy queen-sized bed nestled against a modest balcony, overlooking a clearing that hunters probably adored.

Kerri put her bags on the bed. “No TV or radio,” she noticed. Hunter locked the front door to the cabin and turned on the lights. Or light, really. A simple globe light hung from the ceiling in the middle of the cabin, illuminating only the space directly beneath it. Everything else was still in shadow.

“I thought it best we stayed away from the media. It would probably just upset us.”

“Yes.” Kerri sat on the edge of the bed and tried to think positively about this. “We need to talk, Hunter.’

After he finished closing the curtains and testing the front door handle, Hunter joined her on the bed, his extra weight making the weak mattress sink beneath their bodies. “What’s wrong? Are you regretting this?”

“Yes… no….” So much for talking. The moment Hunter put his hand on her shoulder, Kerri doubled over and let out the sobs she had been holding in since she ran away from the boutique earlier that day.

She didn’t mean to cry. She wanted to be strong and brave for Hunter, to prove that she was mature enough to handle this situation.
I don’t want him thinking I would rather be at home.
Quite the opposite. She wanted to be with him, here in his arms after he wrapped them around her, his heat and his love bringing her the solace she craved.

“I love you,” he said, his strength nearly crushing her as he tried to make her believe it. “I wouldn’t put us through this if I didn’t think it would be worth it. But we need to do this both for ourselves as individuals and as a couple. Remember, they don’t own you.”

No matter how many times he said something like that, Kerri still had trouble believing it. Perhaps her parents really had done such a number on her after all those years. She could go off to college, she could volunteer with animals, and she could even go on a trip to Europe… as long as they said so. It had never dawned on Kerri to simply make arrangements and pack her bag to go somewhere. She supposed that most people would at least tell their families they were going, whether they liked it or not. Kerri didn’t have that luxury. By now she and Hunter were probably plastered all over the news as both conveniently being missing at the same time. Kerri was glad she had left the cell phone her parents gave her back in that boutique bathroom. They couldn’t bother her, nor could they trace her.

There was no telling how long they would be able to hide there. Hunter said they weren’t even in their state anymore, but when the two most high profile political children of the region went missing, people were going to look. They weren’t Romeo and Juliet making plans to escape Verona in a time when cameras didn’t even exist.
Juliet never even made it out of Verona. Not alive.
And not with Romeo.

Regardless of their fates together, Kerri became determined to make the most out of this. Even if she and Hunter parted ways sooner rather than later, she would still come out on top as a better, bigger person than she ever was before. Love had both ruined her life and enriched it in ways she could have never expected. She embraced Hunter now, refusing to cry more tears of a wounded little girl who was lost from her mother. It was time to be someone who did what she wanted. And right now she wanted to be with Hunter, the only man to make her realize how stunted her growth had been all along. From the way he kissed her, full of vigor, she garnered that the feeling was mutual.

A long, hard road lay before them. The only way to traverse it was together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5

 

Perhaps the most difficult thing Hunter found to accomplish in this endeavor was convincing Kerri that he had everything under control. “Trust me,” he said more than once. “You’ll be safe with me. No one will find us until we’re ready to be found.”

He had to project that protective aura if he was going to keep Kerri calm and content. She was always on the verge of breaking down if Hunter did not assert himself as the one in charge in this situation. It wasn’t about dominating her or making her into a kept woman. He would have been just as happy – perhaps even more so – if Kerri’s bearings were together and she had a plan of action as well. For in truth Hunter barely knew what the hell he was doing, and he was afraid of letting it show, lest Kerri give up all hope. He couldn’t bear to see her just as down as she was in her prison cell of a bedroom back at the Governor’s Mansion.

But Hunter could only do so much to make sure their tracks were covered. This cabin, for one, was only a temporary solution until he could figure out a way to get them out to California or somewhere else far away from here. He had connections there, and even if they were found it would be that much harder for their parents to make a stink – especially when locals wouldn’t give a damn about another place’s internal politics. Money wasn’t an issue, but keeping a low profile was. The only person who knew they were here was the old gentleman who rented the place to Hunter under an assumed name. (The only place he could do so.)
Serial killers probably hid out here a time or two.
So far there were no blood stains anywhere.

Hunter was the only one who left the cabin, and he did so for no longer than an hour if he could help it. There was a motor scooter out back that he rode into the nearest town to pick up food with cash. He bought newspapers too – he was afraid to turn on his phone – to keep up with what was happening, but kept these from Kerri unless she asked for them, which she never did. The news was usually a day or two old, so it took a few days for them to finally see the fallout of their running away.

“Governor’s Daughter Missing”
was the major headline three days later. Hunter waited until Kerri was in the shower to read it. “Kerri Mitchell was last seen shopping with her mother, where she disappeared without a word.”
The article went on to say that due to no signs of a struggle, the police believed Miss Mitchell went missing on her own accord. In normal circumstances it would be dropped, but since her father was the governor…

“What does it say?” Kerri asked that night. She was curled up on the bed with a book. Whether she actually read it much was left to be known. “Oh, come on, I can see my name in the headline as clear as day.”

Hunter folded up the paper and looked the other way. “People are looking for you. It doesn’t say much more than that.”

“No guesses where I am? My parents not throwing up over my disappearance?”

“Something like that.”

Kerri huffed. “And let me guess. Not much of a peep about you.”

“It says I’m impossible to locate as well, and we both went missing on the same day. Granted our previous reveal… people are smart. They know we’re together somewhere. I think that’s why our parents are being hushed. Neither of them want to admit that we ran off together.”

“Because if they did…” Kerri didn’t finish her thought. She didn’t have to, with the both of them thinking the same thing.
Because then they would have to admit they screwed up. That this is reality.
“Well, at least they know we’re probably safe. But for obvious reasons they’re going to keep at it until they find us. Let’s just hope your parents find us before mine do. Because someone will.”

“We’ll be fine,” Hunter said for the millionth time. Maybe if he said it enough, he would start believing it. “I doubt they’ll find us anytime soon. And by the time they know we’re here, we’ll be somewhere else entirely.”

Kerri perked up. “Where are we going?”

“California. Or at least I hope.”

“California! What’s out there?”

“Besides distance? I have some job connections there so we could start a new life. Together, I was hoping.”

Although the cabin was quiet, it was not peaceful. Kerri looked at Hunter as if he were from another world, an alien come down from space to ask her to go with him back to Pluto. “When were you going to include me in this decision?” she asked with a scoff. “I’m not about to just up and move to California with anyone. Not that you’re
anyone.
But you get what I mean.”

Do I?
Hunter admitted that he did not anticipate Kerri saying no thank you to California. He assumed she would like the idea of traveling, getting away from her family, and starting over again where she could be her own woman. Sure, some media would follow them for a while, but soon enough…
I don’t know what I expected.
“Sorry. I’m not sure what else to do.”

BOOK: When Romance Prevails (The Dark Horse Trilogy Book 3)
4.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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