Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69610 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69610 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“Why would you let her out on a horse alone?” Scarlett demands, throwing her hands on her hips.
“Pipe down, tiger,” Maverick says, stepping up beside her. “Amalie is an adult, and she made a choice to go for a ride. Not Mason’s fault.”
“She can hardly hear, Maverick!” Scarlett says, glaring at him. “He knows this. Which means he knows if anything happens out there, she is in even more danger than the rest of us.”
“She was upset!” Mason says, throwing his hands up, face tight. “Fuckin’ cryin’ her eyes out. What did you want me to do? Crash tackle her? Like Maverick said, she’s a fuckin’ adult. Wasn’t my place to throw down and stop her from goin’. She was on your land, which I assumed was safe enough.”
She was upset? Crying? About what?
Whoever fucking upset her, I will fuckin’ make them burn.
I will fucking stomp all her demons until they’re bleeding.
I will fix her, and I will bring promise back into her eyes.
“Not about safety,” I growl at him, crossing my arms. “It’s about common sense.”
Mason glares at me, and I hold his stare. Making my position loud and clear. He looks away first, and I turn to Scarlett. “Got any off-road motorbikes around here that have lights?”
She nods. “Yeah, the people renting my house use them all the time. In the barn.”
I nod. “I’m goin’ to take one, see if I can find her. She probably got distracted, but now it’s dark she has to be panickin’. I gotta get to her.”
“We’ll stay here, look around the property close by and see if we can see anything,” Scarlett agrees.
“Anyone tried her phone?” Maverick suggests.
Scarlett pulls her phone out and tries Amalie. She wouldn’t answer, she never does, she can’t hear us speak over the phone, but if she at least picks it up then we’ll know that she’s okay, at the very least. Scarlett calls three times and it goes to voicemail.
“She often doesn’t answer, I’ll send her a text.”
She punches out a text, and I stride into the barn and over to the motorbikes parked against the wall. I pull the closest one off, wheeling it out, and then I look to Scarlett.
“Where would she most likely have ridden her horse? Explain it to me.”
“She would have started in that paddock, am I right, Mason?”
Mason nods at the paddock and I glance at it, it is lined with white wooden fences and disappears into the darkness. It’s a massive paddock, lit up by arena lights, but I imagine they only go so far before darkness hits hard and heavy.
“That’s where most people ride, but she would have gotten to the end and outside of the fences. I told her about trails I had put in through the woods down there. My guess, knowing Amalie, she wouldn’t have gone too much off the track. She would have gone to the first one, you won’t miss it, it starts just outside the gate, try that one, it connects with some of the others.”
“Okay,” I say, throwing my leg over the bike and kicking it to life.
Been a long time since I’ve ridden anything off-road. I give it some gas and yell out over the angry, rumbling sound, “She comes back here, text me.”
Then I speed toward the paddock. I push the gate open when I reach it, taking the bike through, and then I close it behind me.
It’s dark, so I can’t ride as hard as I want to, and believe me, I fucking want to. Thinking of Amalie out here, alone, in the dark, possibly injured has my chest clenching with something unfamiliar. It’s a panic I haven’t experienced when it comes to women. She has me, I don’t know why, but she does, and I need to know she’s safe.
It doesn’t take me long to make it to the end of the paddock, and I see the gate Scarlett was talking about. I also see a horse standing on the outside, snorting and pawing the ground. It’s fully saddled up, but it has no rider. My heart fucking drops out of my chest, and I put the stand on the bike and climb off, opening the gate at the end.
“Whoa there, fella,” I murmur, approaching the horse.
It prances from side to side, but eventually lets me catch it. I rub its nose. I’m not much of a horse person, but it’s an animal all the same, and I’m not a fucking dick. I take whatever is on its head, and pull it toward the gate. When it walks through, I let it go and it bolts. At least it’s confided in here until the morning.
I get back on the bike and ride out, closing the gate behind me.
I see the trail Scarlett was telling me about straight away. It’s fairly open and obvious. I can’t see Amalie, and I pray to fuckin’ God she isn’t injured somewhere, or worse. I ride hard, entering the track and going flat out down it. Slowly, it gets thicker and thicker, and fuck, if she came in this far, she could be anywhere.