“Shit. You’re probably on the east side of town. You said there are no houses?”
“No houses, but I passed some new construction about fifteen minutes ago.”
“I’m going to have Griffin come get?—”
“No!” I cut her off. “Please, no. I’m good. I’m great actually. I was really just calling to see how things were going. And to maybe give me a general direction I should go to get home. You know… East. West. Up. Down? Anything will work.”
“If you give me…” Her voice trails off and I hear the sound of wind through the speakers as if she just stepped outside. Quickly followed by the front door to the bar chiming in the background. “Griffin. Are you off yet?”
No. No. No.
Please don’t tell me this is happening.
“Can you pick up Blair on the east side? I think she’s on Redwood,” she says to him.
“No, Lily! He doesn’t need to—” I attempt to stop her, but they continue having a whole conversation in my ear.
“Griffin is on his way,” she tells me. “Stay where you are.”
And then she hangs up.
I groan. So loud that I think I heard it echo in the mountains.
Realization dawns on me and I feel my heart rate reach running speed again.
What if a bear found me out here? Or even worse…a moose.
Do they have those in Wyoming?
I should have looked that up.
I know moose aren’t known to be mean like bears, but those are some scary looking creatures with those big antler-looking things. I’m picturing one of them bull rushing me and impaling me right in the chest. I do not want to die at the head of one of those things.
I contemplate figuring out how to get back myself beforehecan find me. One, I don’t want to wait around and see if there are really bears or moose around here, and two, I don’t want to see Griffin.
I already feel weak after the way he saw me with the power washer.
He thinks I can’t handle myself.
I can’t stand that feeling.
Turning around in the direction I came from; I send a silent prayer up that something will spark my memory.
Just three minutes later, a truck barrels down the dirt road at a high speed, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. Griffin comes to a halt right in front of me. The beat-up Chevy must have some power behind it, which surprises me because it looks like it’s about to fall apart right in front of my eyes.
He turns off the engine and in no time, he’s already on the other side of the truck, standing right in front of me.
“Okay, Batman. That was quick. But you really didn’t need to come.”
“I wasn’t leaving you out here by yourself with the sun going down soon.”
I feel my eyes wanting to widen in shock as he pretends to care, but I make a conscious effort to keep my gaze level andsteady on him. At the same time controlling my breathing in an effort to bring my heart rate down to normal.
“I would have found my way back.”
“Or you would have found yourself in a ditch,” he replies a little too quickly.
I look around us. “I don’t see a ditch anywhere.”
