“Anything I can do?”
“No. I’m good. I’m not the only one up. What has you calling?”
“I can’t call just to talk to you?”
“Yes, if that’s why you’re calling.”
“There might be another itty-bitty reason why I’m calling.”
“Which is …?”
“I’m about two and half hours away from Treepoint.”
Gavin shot her a glance for giving the information when he didn’t knowing whom she was speaking with.
Ginny gave him an okay signal with her fingers, then went back to listening to Silas.
There was a pause from the other side of the phone.
“We thought you would be in Nashville for another week.”
“I had a change of plans.”
“I’ll get your room ready, then.”
Ginny had to blink back the tears that came to her eyes at the offer. The years spent away from them couldn’t be made up in the few hours she spent with them before having to leave to catch the plane back to Nashville, but it had been a start.
“I wish I could, but I can’t stay there.”
“You wanting to stay with Willa?”
The disappointment in his voice echoed her own. She wanted to stay close to Gavin, afraid she would lose the headway she was making with him, but Ginny would have enjoyed spending the time renewing her family ties just as much.
“No, I can’t stay there, either. On our way into Treepoint, we may have become exposed to CP. We’re going to stay at the hotel there until we find out we’re not contagious.”
“Come home.”
Ginny was familiar with tone of voice he used on her.
“I want to be on the safe side. I’ll call you when I get settled in my room.”
If she kept talking to Silas, she would give in to his demand. It would be easier to explain about her not wanting to leave Gavin without him listening. Her wild man would barricade himself in his room and not come out.
“I’ll talk to you, then.”
“Don’t be mad at me. I’m doing it for everyone’s safety.”
“I’m not mad. I understand.”
“You sound mad.”
“I’m not … Just get here safely, okay?”
“Will do. I love you.”
“I love you back.”
Disconnecting the call, Ginny put her phone back in her pocket.
“You make a habit of telling men you love them?”
Ginny rolled her eyes as the hint of jealousy coming from Gavin. She wondered if that was another emotion he wouldn’t admit having for her.
“When they’re my brothers, I do. You’re the only man I’ve told I love you.”
“It’s none of my business who you talk to.”
“Okay,” she mocked.
“I thought you had no contact with your brothers.”
“You mean, there’s something Shade doesn’t know?”
“Cut it out.”
So much for the sweet man she had been appreciating before the phone call. It had lasted a whole whopping forty-five minutes.
“I went to see them before I left for Nashville. We were able to heal our breach.”
“Was that right before the brother you were talking to quit his job?”
“You have a suspicious mind. My brothers won’t take any money from me. Well, except Fynn, but he’s only fourteen,” Ginny corrected herself.
“You’ve tried to give them money?”
“Ever since I was old enough to start working. They never cashed one check. My brothers don’t have much, but what they do have, they achieved on their own. Our father didn’t have a dime to his name when he died. All he owned was our home and property. We barely had enough money to pay for his and Leah’s caskets. Silas had to borrow money from his mother to pay for them. When I found my first job, I went to her to give some money to pay on the loan, but Silas had already paid her back. He had worked sixteen hours shifts for two years to pay her off. Silas works for his stepfather, who treated him like dirt. He wasn’t the only one. My family has been treated like trash going back as far as I can remember. My father had an eye for women, and he made a lot of enemies in town. They took it out on his children.”
“Did they take it out on you?”
“Oh yes. That’s the reason Silas let me go. He didn’t want me to be raised with the stigma of being a Coleman. His attempt was a miserable failure for me. You can take the girl out of the mountain, but you can’t take the mountain out of the girl. I missed my mountain. I still do. When I find out who my stalker is, I’m going to build my home on the spot that me and Leah used to watch stars from.”
“If you’re going to build a house there, why did you buy the house in town from Willa?”
“No one in town would give me a loan, but Willa. When I had enough equity built in that house, I could have sold it and built the one I dreamed of having. My children will be raised on the same mountain I was,” she warned Gavin.