Between one small town in Wyoming and the next, I lose Kier.
For several desperate minutes, I drive on, my hands gripping tight on the steering wheel, my gaze searching each road I pass for the elusive green truck I've been trailing for the last few hours.
My long hours on the road have taught me a couple of things. Mostly that TV lies about a lot of things. I've learned that car chase scenes make things look far too easy. In movies, it's like the chaser knows exactly where the chasee is going.
Is chasee even a word?
"Probably not, Hallee," I murmur.
In real life, when you're chasing someone with no idea where they're heading, you have to remember to keep your distance so they don't see you. But you can't stay too far back or you'll lose them, and you can't stop at a gas station or use a bathroom without fearing they'll get too far ahead and you'll lose them that way.
So, not only is my passenger seat practically overflowing with empty wrappers, I feel sick from all the greasy, salty, sweet snacks I've been shoving in my face.
It got progressively harder to keep up with Kier when we left rural Colorado behind us and headed into Wyoming. I thought it would be the opposite.
I thought that with more traffic on the road, it'd mean I wouldn't need to stay so far back, and that I could risk closing the distance between my small blue Hyundai and Kier's big green truck.
With more cars on the road, there was more chance of Kier glancing into his rearview mirror, which forced me further back, desperately hoping he hadn't seen me. It wouldn't have been so bad if he'd never seen my car before, but he has, which only added to the possibility he'd recognize me and then Operation Fluffy Handcuffs would be over.
But I lost him.
My eyes go to the sign proclaiming we've crossed into a town called… I frown. "Dexter? Who the hell calls a town Dexter?"
Still, it's a town, which is something, I guess. It's in Wyoming, that much I know, and the only reason I'm so sure is because I had another mini-freak-out when I realized I was chasing a guy across state lines.
Another call with the pack got me going again, though this time Dayne was a little less eager because, like me, I don't think he expected Kier to be leaving the state. But after Nathan and I argued, it spurred me on to continue.
So now I'm in a town called Dexter with no sign of Kier's truck.
"At least it's a small town," I murmur as I drive slowly down the main road, and after hesitating, I loop around and drive slowly back. I know he wasn't that far ahead of me when we passed through the last town, and with no big green truck in the distance, I know he has to be here in Dexter. Somewhere.
If he's not here, then I'll make a quick stop somewhere, grab some food and seriously think about how far I intend to follow Kier because the next state over is a little much. I'm not sure I'm ready to go that far even for… whatever this thing is that Kier and I have.
As I'm eyeing up a small pizza place, something green in the corner of my eye has me turning.
Slowly, I scan the quiet streets which, at around three in the afternoon, are mostly empty. Since it's a Sunday and this strangely named town is small, I guess most people go home after church and stay there.
It doesn't take long for my eyes to settle on the flash of green, which turns out to be a truck sitting parked outside the type of cheap, rundown motel you'd likely find in most towns all over.
It's a truck that could only belong to one person.
Well, it could belong to someone else, but the chances of someone in the tiny town of Dexter driving an identical truck to Kier are odds I wouldn't be able to calculate. But the odds are small. Microscopic.
I abandon the delicious-smelling pizza wafting toward me from the open door of the tiny restaurant in favor of a more attractive prospect. The heavily muscled, dark-haired, blue-eyed gorgeousness that is Kier Savage.
After parking beside Kier's green truck, I don't immediately get out. Not because I'm having doubts, but because after driving for five-plus hours, getting out without cleaning myself up first would be a bad idea.
So I turn to the mess that is my passenger seat and reach for the wet wipes I picked up during one of my few gas station stops.
I clean my face and my underarms because, again, driving for five hours on the back of a late-night drinking session without stopping in between to have a shower or change clothes doesn't leave you smelling fragrant.
With my limited supplies, I do the best I can, and after popping another mint, applying another slick of lipgloss, and running a hand through my hair which isn't as tangle-free as it was hours before, I send a quick text to Dayne letting him know where I am before I reach for the door handle.
I take two steps away from my car before remembering the most important thing in Operation Fluffy Handcuffs and have to turn back. When I have them in my possession, I use my nose to track down Kier's room.
I still don't know what I'm going to say, but that's okay; I'm confident that something will come to me when I have him standing in front of me. And if not, well, I have handcuffs. They can do my talking for me.
After taking a deep breath, I raise my hand and knock firmly on the door, wishing the curtains drawn over the window beside me were open so I could've at least peeked through.
Kier doesn't leave me waiting for long. Barely thirty seconds pass before I hear footsteps from inside approaching, and then the door swings open, revealing an attractive man in jeans, a red flannel shirt, and slightly too long coal-black hair. For several seconds we study each other in silence.
When no good words come to mind, I do the next best thing instead. I snap one end of the handcuffs to Kier's wrist so we're locked together. Since he's a big guy, over six feet tall, I count myself lucky that they fit him at all.
He lowers his gaze to take in the pink fluffy handcuff before lifting his head. His face is expressionless.
"Is that it? You done?" His voice is, as always, surprisingly smooth and calming for such a big, gruff-looking guy. At least, it's usually calming when he's not breaking my heart. Or growling at me. He likes to do that too.
Since none of this is going the way I was expecting, I take a second to think up a response. "Uh, what?"
Okay, so it's not the best response, but it is one.
"Now that you've done what you came here to do, are you ready to go home?" Kier asks.
He looks completely unperturbed by my arrival. His bright blue eyes aren't filled with fury that I've followed him across state lines, or that I'm disturbing his Sunday afternoon to handcuff us together.
He looks… calm, as if… "You're not surprised to see me here."
"You broke down and I helped start your car. Which means I know what it looks like, which means it's easy to spot when I glance into my rearview mirror and spot said car following me."
Right. Of course he spotted you because this isn't a movie.
I deflate. "How long?"
"Long enough."
"And the reason you didn't pull over when you spotted me?"
Kier blinks. "I wanted to see what you'd do. You're not like anyone else I've met before."
You just had to ask, didn't you?
"And now that you have? What next?"
"You go home." As he takes a step back, I take one forward.
"But I'm here now. We could take this opportunity to talk. You know, about us."
"Hallee, there is no us. I've told you that before. There never was."
Desperation spikes. "But there was. We were happy together." I keep talking when he looks ready to interrupt me. "And you can't say that you weren't. That there wasn't something there."
For several seconds, Kier studies me without expression, and then he sighs. It's a sigh I know well since every time I've heard it, it's been followed by him breaking my heart. Twice. And this third time proves to be no different. "There might've been, but there isn't now. Go home, Hallee."
Before I can speak, Kier twists his wrist, snapping the handcuff linking us together, and steps back into the motel room before closing the door in my face.
"Kier?" I call out, not loudly because shifter hearing means I don't need to. He'll hear me just fine.
"Go home, Hallee."
"But, I-"
"Go home."
As I'm thinking up something else I could try, my phone vibrates. I turn my back to the door before slipping it out of my pocket to answer it, knowing it will be my packmates checking if I'm okay.
I hear a football game in the background before anyone speaks. "Hales?"
"Oh, hey, Talis." I do nothing to hide my despondency. "Operation Fluffy Handcuffs was a bust."
"Operation what?" I can practically feel Talis' confusion through the phone.
"Never mind." As I head back to my car, I glance at the handcuff on my wrist, the twin of which Kier is probably still wearing on his. It looks like a fluffy bracelet, a new fashion accessory.
With the phone cradled between my ear and shoulder, I try to tug the handcuff loose. Getting a grip on it proves harder than I thought since it's so tight that I can't get my finger under the band to pull it off.
"Can you tell Nathan to go to my house? I'm going to need him to look for keys."
"What for?" Nathan yells.
"The keys for the handcuffs." I start telling him they're probably in my bedroom, but Nathan shouts over me.
"In the drawer beside your bed?"
I pause beside my car, ready to open the door. It's on the tip of my tongue to ask him how he would know that, given that I didn't even know where the handcuffs were in the first place. Only Talis beats me to it.
"Fluffy handcuffs in the bedside drawer, Hales? Okay. But how did Nate know?"
"Look, it isn't important," I say as I climb into my car.
"Move over, Talis. Operation Fluffy Handcuffs?" Dayne asks.
"Yeah, that isn't important either. Anyway, I'm going to grab some food and-" Midway through telling them I'm going to come back so we can have round two of staying up far too late and drinking far too much, I spot the faintest shadow under Kier's motel room door.
I stare at it.
He's standing by the door. Listening most likely. He didn't walk away, even though he acted like he didn't want me here.
Why would he be waiting at the door like that if he wasn't interested?
"Hallee, you okay there?" Dayne asks.
"Yeah, I'm good. I'll talk to you later." After saying a quick goodbye, I hang up and sit in the car, thinking.
He keeps telling me to leave, that he's not interested, but I'm always getting the sense he doesn't mean it. Like he's saying one thing, but his eyes are telling me something else.
I think about our all-too-brief conversation. If he knew I was following, why didn't he just tell me to leave, and what did he mean I'm not like anyone else?
"This, Hallee," I murmur to myself, "this is why it's impossible to walk away. I have to know."