Price was my rock.
After Cole’s death, he’d never mentioned once about dissolving our fake marriage.
And I learned what real love meant.
I learned that the love I’d thought I felt for Cole was something fickle. Something dark and morose. Something that had no life or substance to it.
Even with him spending only the nighttime hours with me, the hours of twelve midnight to six in the morning, for the last month and a half, I felt more love and affection from him than I’d ever felt from Cole.
Which led me to now.
I was bringing him lunch to a jobsite.
My dad had just finished his round of chemo and I’d dropped him off at his house—which he’d told me to leave because he just wanted to be by himself—and had my first day off in what felt like forever.
Which led to me grabbing lunch and heading toward where Life 360 said he was.
Life 360 was actually quite comical at first.
One day, I had a new app on my phone, and the next I was finding random Crow brothers showing up at my location to eat with me so I wouldn’t be alone when I ventured out of my cocoon.
That, mostly, was Price’s doing.
He wanted to make sure that, as my dad fought his cancer and I had to make a lot of hospital visits with him, that I wasn’t ever alone.
My dad went to his visits and his treatments, while I hung out at the little café down the street until he was done.
The first time Bram had showed up, I’d thought it was a coincidence.
But when it kept happening, I’d realized that it wasn’t a coincidence, and things were happening way too frequently, and timely, for it to be anything but someone following me.
I hadn’t realized that Life 360 was so fun.
I mean, it worked both ways, didn’t it?
Eventually, I started showing up where they were, which they didn’t find anywhere near as funny.
And eventually, even the other wives started to do it.
All but one, Dorcas.
Bram’s wife, Dorcas, was an enigma to me.
She wasn’t mean, but she wasn’t nice either. And I had a feeling that had a lot to do with the fact that the Crow boys didn’t treat her the same way as they treated the other wives.
Which had me curious, and wanting to question someone.
And Price was it.
After I found him, that was.
I looked at my phone, then up at the neighborhood that only had what looked like a large purple dot over like three houses.
Then decided to go with my gut—which was the house with the front door standing wide ass open—and headed in that direction.
I had to step over pieces of roof that’d blown off either by the hurricane, or by Price’s workers.
I heard laughter inside, and walked in with my spoils tentatively, eyes wide at the damage done by the hurricane.
The wallpaper was peeling, there was insulation all over the floor of the house, and one main wall that led to the back of the house was completely gone.
Like, nothing left but sunshine.
And in the middle of that sunshine was Price, in dark wash jeans, work boots, and a tool belt with no t-shirt on.
My mouth watered as he pulled the cap off his head, twisted it around, and readjusted.
The move didn’t affect any of the men, but I started fanning my face due to the rise in body temp that the hat switch just caused in my body.
The movement of my hand caught some of the men’s attention, causing them all to look my way eventually.
I ignored them until one man in particular turned my way.
The moment he saw me, a huge grin spread over his face.
“Hey, baby,” he called to me. “Whatcha got there?”
I held up some food. “Some food, because I was hungry, and I wanted to see you.”
Price’s face softened, and he turned and said a few more words to a member of his crew before heading my way.
When he was close enough, I leaned into him and pressed one palm against his pec, while the other hand with the food hung limply at my side. Going up on my tippy-toes, I placed a chaste kiss against his cheek and said, “That hat flip thing was hot as hell.”
His brows rose. “What hat flip thing?”
I tugged lightly on the bill of his cap, making his head move backward slightly. “That thing.”
He leaned forward and sucked a piece of my flesh, right under my chin, into his mouth, causing me to squeal. “Don’t do that, you’ll give me a hickey! And I have to see my dad today!”
He chuckled and pulled back, but not before some of the crew behind him started jeering and taunting him.
“Yeah, boss. Not anywhere her dad can see,” I heard one guy say just as another said, “How will anyone know you’re taken? No ring? That means you get a hickey.”