Holding onto Hadley (Chasing the Harlyton Sisters Book 3) Read online

  A look of understanding crosses his face, but then he suddenly tenses, his gaze darting to the rearview mirror. “Shit.”

  I twist around to see what he’s looking at and my muscles ravel into knots.

  The car is no longer tailing us, but is in the other lane and pulling up beside us.

  “Should you maybe try to outrun them?” Rhyland asks with a hint of worry.

  Blaise chews on his bottom lip. “I’m not sure…” He trails off as the car zooms by and swings in front of the SUV.

  As the brake lights of the car flash on, Blaise curses and slams on his breaks, the tires skidding as he struggles to get the SUV to stop.

  “Mother fucker,” Blaise growls as he steers the SUV to the side of the road and skids into the gravel.

  Dirt laces the air as he gets the SUV to a stop. As the car pulls off to the side of the road in front of us, Blaise shoves the shifter into drive and reaches for the door handle.

  “What the hell are you doing, man?” Rhyland asks as Blaise pushes the door open.

  “I’m going to go kick the driver of that car’s ass,” Blaise growls, moving to get out.

  But Rhyland reaches forward and grabs Blaise’s arm. “More than likely that’s one of dad’s lackey’s and if you go pick a fight with him…” He shakes his head. “It’s not going to be pretty.”

  Blaise grits his teeth, glancing from Rhyland to the car in front of us. Then, slowly, he moves back into the driver’s seat.

  I release a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Why do you think they did that…” I start to ask but then trail off as the back door to the car swings open.

  My jaw nearly hits the ground as Austin climbs out of the car, a smile rising on his lips as he strolls up to the passenger side and raps his knuckles against the window.

  “I’m going to kick his ass,” Blaise mumbles, moving to get out of the car again.

  I place a hand on my arm and shake my head. “Don’t.”

  He gapes at me. “Why not? He just about made us wreck.”

  “I know, but…” I think about how Austin may know where the bags are. “Let me hear what he has to say, okay? In case it’s about the bags.”

  Blaise rubs his lips together then shakes his head. “Fine.”

  Rhyland makes a whipping sound and Blaise blasts him with a dirty look, but Rhyland only grins.

  Mentally rolling my eyes, I roll down the window. “May I help you?” I ask with indifference.

  His lips quirk into an amused grin. “Actually, I’m here to help you.”

  “Help her how? By making her almost get into a car accident?” Blaise glares at him.

  Austin rolls his eyes. “Don’t be overdramatic, Blaise.”

  Blaise’s glare deepens. “I’m not being overdramatic. You seriously about made us wreck and it was completely unnecessary.”

  “But completely amusing,” Austin quips.

  Blaise clenches his hands into fists, but before he can say anything, I interrupt, wanting to know why the hell Austin is here.

  “Did you find the bags?” I ask him, telling my heart to settle down, that it’s pointless to get excited just yet.

  His smile grows as he rests his arms on the windowsill. “I did.”

  I still don’t let myself get too excited. After all, this is Austin we’re talking about.

  “Okay, so where are they?” I ask as calmly as I can.

  With a devious glint in his eyes, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded up piece of paper. “I talked to the surveillance guy and with a bit of bribery, I managed to get the locations of all six bags. And FYI, one of them is located in your backyard.” Relief starts to trickle through me as I reach to take the slip of paper from him, but the feeling is quickly stifled as he moves the paper out of my reach. “That’s the only location I’m giving you until we make a deal. Once we do, you can have this paper.”

  “No fucking way,” Blaise and Rhyland say simultaneously.

  I ignore them, though. “How do I know that the addresses on that paper are really where the bags are hidden?” I ask Austin.

  He smirks. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

  I snort a laugh. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

  Austin wavers, biting on his bottom lip. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll make the deal and then I’ll give you twenty-four hours to check and make sure the bags are located at the addresses. If they’re not, you can back out of the deal. If they are, though, you’ll have to follow through with it.”

  Okay, that doesn’t sound too bad. At least to me. Apparently, Blaise doesn’t agree with me, though, and places a hand on my cheek, steering my face in his direction.

  He carries my gaze. “Don’t trust him. Even if the bags are located at those addresses, it’s not going to be worth whatever he wants.”

  “You don’t even know what I want,” Austin chimes in.

  Blaise’s gaze cuts to him. “Whatever it is, she’ll be in debt to you.”

  “Only for a while,” Austin quips. “And being in debt to me is nowhere near as bad as being in debt with my father.”

  Blaise shakes his head, his gaze returning to mine. “I don’t want you getting mixed up in this world.”

  As sweet as his remark is…

  “It’s already too late for that,” I utter. “And Austin is right. I’d way rather be in debt with him then with his father.”

  Blaise smashes his lips together and shakes his head, his fingers stiffening on my cheek.

  “Maybe one of us can make a deal with you,” Rhyland says to Austin.

  “No way,” I quickly say. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know that,” Rhyland assures me. “But it might be better if Blaise or I did this for you.”

  “Why?” I question, but he only shrugs.

  I blow out a sigh then I lean away from Blaise’s hand, even though the feel of his palm against my cheek was bringing me a tiny drop of comfort. “I’m going to make the deal,” I tell them. They both frown, but I disregard their looks of disapproval and turn back to Austin. “What do you want?”

  He bites back a smile. “I want you to be my date to my sister’s party on Saturday.”

  “That’s it?” I question in skepticism.

  He nods. “And that’ll give you plenty of time to go make sure these locations are where the bags are.”

  Just a date with him? That doesn’t sound too awful. Or well, it sounds better than what’s probably going to happen to me if I don’t get these bags to Axel.

  “Had,” Blaise starts to protest, but I hold up my hand in his direction.

  “Fine, it’s a deal,” I tell Austin, then reach to grab the paper from his hand.

  But he moves it out of my reach again. “We need to shake on it first.”

  I grimace, my lip twitching in annoyance. “Fine.” I stick out my hand and he places his in mine.

  But instead of shaking it, he lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles.

  “Gross,” I say, wiggling my hand from his. “I’m seriously going to need like a gallon of hand sanitizer now.”

  Austin smirks as he backs away from the SUV. “Pretend all you want, Hadley Harlyton, but we both know you secretly like it.” With a wink, he spins around to leave, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll be in touch about the party. I’d like to coordinate our outfits beforehand.”

  “No effing way!” I shout at him. “That wasn’t…” I trail off, grimacing as he climbs into the car and shuts the door.

  “That’s why it’s a bad idea to make a deal with him,” Rhyland tells me, resting his arms on the console. “There’s always strings attached.”

  “Yeah, well, it might be worth it if these locations check out.” I unfold the piece of paper and skim over the addresses. I don’t know this town well enough, though, to know where any of them are, except for the one in my backyard.

  “Most of them are in pretty conspicuous places,” Rhyland mutters, leaning over
my shoulder to look at the paper. “You’re probably going to have to wait until dark to check them out unless you want to risk getting busted digging up bags of cocaine and drug money.”

  He’s probably right, but tonight I’m supposed to be driving for their father. I’ll have to find time, though, to check out the locations, at least one of them, so I’ll know if Austin is telling the truth before I go to this party with him.

  “I still can’t believe all he wanted is for me to be his date to this party,” I mutter as I fold up the piece of paper and stuff it into my pocket.

  “I have a feeling there’s more to it than that.” Blaise reclines back in his seat and stares out the window with a contemplative look on his face. “Especially since Amelia blackmailed me into being her date for the same party.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.” I frown, realizing there might be more to this deal with Austin than I originally thought.

  But what?

  “I want you to be careful around him.” Blaise straightens in his seat and looks at me, his gaze intense. “In fact, it can be your favor to me.”

  “I thought you were giving me a break from those?” I joke.

  “Actually, I want to eliminate the deal completely, but after this one final thing.” Swallowing hard, he quickly brushes his fingers along my cheekbone. “Promise me you’ll be careful around Austin.”

  My heart is a lunatic inside my chest, mostly from his touch, but in Hadley style, I manage to sound perfectly calm. “Okay, I promise. But I don’t want to eliminate the deal—I don’t like freebies.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not going to ask you for another favor, so…” He shrugs.

  I sigh. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll be careful around Austin, but I’m still going to do you random favors if you don’t give any to me.”

  “What sort of favors?” Rhyland wonders with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

  “Probably not anything you’re thinking,” I quip with an eye roll.

  His eyes glint even more. “Are you implying I’m thinking something dirty, because I’m not, so you must be the one with the dirty mind.”

  Rolling my eyes, I face forward in the seat as Blaise steers back onto the road. “I think sometime tonight, I’ll go check out one of these locations,” I say to no one in particular. “I want to find out ASAP if Austin is telling the truth before I start coordinating outfits with him.”

  “Can you do it early in the morning?” Blaise asks as he flips on the blinker and turns into the parking lot of an old school looking diner lit up with neon signs and flashing lights.

  “I want to go with you,” he says. “But I have something I need to do tonight. We can get up before the sun rises, though, and go.”

  “You don’t need to go with me,” I start to protest.

  But he reaches over and places a finger to my lips. “Yeah, I kind of do. I mean, for all we know, this could be a setup.”

  “A setup for what?” I ask.

  Blaise shrugs as he steers into a parking space. “I’m not sure, and maybe it isn’t a setup, but it easily could be so…” He pushes the shifter into park, shuts off the engine, and lets out a stressed breath. “I know you’re not a fan of accepting help, but I’m more used to this world and I just think it’ll be better if I’m with you.”

  He’s right. I’m not a fan of getting help. But he’s also right about me not knowing this world very well. A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have cared that much, but with me now being responsible for my sisters…

  “All right, you can come with me,” I say, unfastening my seatbelt.

  He takes the keys out of the ignition. “Thank you.”

  I’m not really sure why he’s thanking me, and I should probably be the one thanking him. But he doesn’t give me an opportunity to do so as he hurries and climbs out of the car.

  “You two are disgustingly adorable,” Rhyland remarks as he shoves open the door.

  “Stop making it sound like we’re a couple,” I protest as I open the door and climb out.

  Rhyland smirks at me as he hops out and pushes the door shut. “You may not officially be, but you’re definitely becoming besties. You should probably start making out, though. You know, make this friends thing a friends with benefits thing.” He winks then dashes by me, hurrying for the door.

  “Oh, I’m so going to kick his ass for that remark,” I mutter, hurrying after him.

  But I hastily come to a confused halt as I spot an SUV parked across the street that looks similar to Blaise’s. But that’s not what has me confused.

  No, it’s the woman staring at me through the rolled down window.

  A woman with eyes so similar to mine…

  “Mom?” I start toward the SUV, my heart racing in my chest.

  But when I get halfway across the parking lot, the window rolls up and the SUV quickly drives forward.

  Scratching my head, I turn back and wander toward the diner, confusion flooding my mind.

  It couldn’t have been her… Could it?

  Blaise is waiting for me when I reach the entrance door of the diner, and Rhyland has already gone inside. Blaise takes one look at my expression and frowns.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear.

  Normally, I’d give him shit for the move, but right now I’m too lost in confusion.

  “I thought I just saw my mom in this car…” I shake my head, still a bit stunned. “But I’m sure it wasn’t her. I mean, there’s no way it could’ve been.”

  His frown deepens, his gaze straying to the street. Then his forehead creases as he sinks into deep thought.

  I want to go there too, want to over analyze this, but deep down, I know it’s pointless. There’s no way that could’ve been my mom, unless she somehow came back as a zombie. Which yeah, as much as I love imagining that kind of stuff is true, I know it isn’t.

  “You know what, forget I said anything,” I tell Blaise. “Lets go get something to eat. I’m starving.”

  He nods, but his brows remained dipped as he holds open the door for me. I refuse to allow myself to stay confused, to stress about this. Not when I have more important things to worry about. Not when there’s no way that woman could’ve been my mom.

  Not unless she somehow died and came back to life. And stuff like that is impossible.

  Blaise

  I’m not sure what to say or do as I follow Hadley into the diner. I mean, there’s no way it could be possible… and yet…

  “What did the woman look like?” I ask Hadley as we head toward a corner booth where Rhyland is sitting with a menu opened up in front of him.

  Hadley shrugs. “Long brown hair, the same color of eyes as me… She honestly looked a lot like me and a lot of people say I look like my mom, so…” She shrugs again, biting on her bottom lip. “When I really think about it, though, it’s not like my looks are that unordinary. I’m sure there’s a ton of women out there that look similar to me.”

  I try to bite back the words wanting to leave my lips, but fail. “Yeah, that’s not even close to being true.”

  Her brows furrow. “Um, yeah, it’s completely true.”

  I shake my head, words continuing to pour out of me. “You’re gorgeous, but what really makes you stand out are these.” I touch the tip of my finger to the corner of her eye. “When I first saw you, they nearly startled me.”

  “My plain green eyes startled you?” she questions in doubt.

  “Your big, bright green eyes startled me,” I explain. “Seriously, they’re so vibrant and big and…” I shake my head, feeling another soup moment coming on, you know the one where I once tried to flirt with a waitress by telling her she smelled like my favorite soup. “You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.” I bite down on my bottom lip to keep from saying anything else.

  Hadley has made it pretty clear she wants to be friends with me and nothing more. And I should probably feel the same way, with everything I have on my plate right no
w. But I’m drawn to her in a way I can’t fully understand, a way that makes me very uncomfortable and apparently, sprout cheesy lines.

  I wait for her to give me a lecture about flirting with her, but instead her cheeks flush a bit and she quickly turns around.

  “But yeah, anyway, the woman looked a lot like me,” she mutters as she starts toward the booth again. “And that’s why, for a moment, I thought she was my mom.”

  My stomach drops as she says this, worry filling my mind.

  While I’m not sure what Hadley’s mom looked like, I saw the woman in the SUV that she thought resembled her mother and she looked very similar to the woman in the photo that was in the file my dad gave to me this morning. The woman we’re supposed to be robbing tonight.

  What that means, I don’t have a clue, but it has me extremely worried, not only about Hadley, but about the heist tonight. What if the woman caught on to what we’re going to do? Could that be why she’s here?

  I need to inform my father, but I worry he’ll dismiss my concern. And then what? Rhyland and I just go through with the plan tonight and hope we don’t get caught.

  Dammit, I need to figure out a way to get us out of this somehow or else we might end up in jail.

  Or worse.

  About the Author

  Jessica Sorensen is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author who lives in the snowy mountains of Wyoming. When she’s not writing, she spends her time reading and hanging out with her family.

  Also by Jessica Sorensen

  Chasing Hadley Harlyton:

  Chasing Hadley

  Falling for Hadley

  Holding onto Hadley (Part 1)

  Untitled (coming soon)

  Enchanted Chaos Series:

  Enchanted Chaos

  Shimmering Chaos

  Iridescent Chaos

  Untitled (coming soon)

  The Breathing Undead Series

  Breathing Lies

  Shadowed Whisperers (coming 2019)

  My Cursed Superhero Life:

  Grim

  Untitled (coming soon)