All or Nothing (bad boy romantic suspense) Read Online Free PDF

with those words she made it clear she knew Cassie was up to something.
    §
    Back out along the Crawford Notch Road, Marshall and Cassie barely spoke a word. They didn’t need to. Marshall knew, too.
    They came to the abandoned station wagon, and Cassie was relieved to see that nobody was there. It could have been reported already, for all she knew, but at least there weren’t cops sniffing around or a tow-truck to deal with.
    Marshall climbed out and did a slow circuit around the vehicle, kicking at the tires and pulling at the dented bodywork. Then he leaned inside and poked around at the airbag, which had deflated like a used condom over the steering wheel.
    Cassie waited in the Lexus, engine still running.
    “I’m really sorry, Marshall,” she said. “I’ll cover repairs.” She still had Denny’s roll of hundred dollar bills back in her room, untouched.
    “It’s nothin’,” he said. “Just a few scratches is all.”
    “You think it’s still drivable?”
    “No problem,” he said. “I’ll just unplug that airbag an’ it’ll be fine.”
    “You sure?”
    He nodded. “I am. Now you be on your way, Cassie. You’ve got business to deal with, haven’t you?”
    “Thanks, Marshall. You take care of Sally, okay?”
5
    S he drove. Out through Conway and Bridgton and on until she hit the I95, and then she headed north and east up into coastal Maine. She’d never been a fast driver before but that Lexus had some speed in it. Just had to be careful she wasn’t pulled over.
    She put the radio on loud in an effort to drown out her thoughts. She couldn’t bring herself to think any more about what had happened, or what she was going to have to do to put it right.
    It was too much.
    Way too much for her to deal with right now.
    In not much over two hours she was back on the coast road, heading north. A mile before Pappy’s Lobster Bar she swung a left into a gap in the trees that was easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there. The gap became a rough track, not much wider than the Lexus and she had to slow right down to negotiate the ridges and potholes without grounding. The guy’s been kidnapped: last thing he wants is for her to trash his car, too.
    She pulled up in front of her cabin and cut the engine. The place was little more than a shack, with wood-panel walls and a tin roof that sounded like a snare drum in even the slightest of rain.
    Out in the open air she paused. Listened to the wind rippling through the trees, the cawing of some crows in the treetops. Nothing else.
    The front door was shut, the windows either side of it intact. The ground was wet mud in front of the cabin, soft from the rain. No footprints or tire marks, and no other signs of disturbance.
    Since when had her life become like this?
    Checking her own home for danger before daring enter?
    Since Denny McGowan had walked into her life is since when.
    She went to the door, wincing at a stab of pain from her ribs. She fumbled with the lock, opened the door and stepped inside and everything was as she’d left it.
    In the one bedroom there was a cabinet by the bed, and in that a small wooden box.
    She took it out, put it on the bed, sat and opened it. A few photos of her mom. A sapphire ring that was something in the family, but Cassie had never paid attention to the story then and now it was way, way too late. A lock of her mother’s hair.
    And the letter. The one Billy Ray had sent her just before he was released from jail.
    So Cassandra. I’m sorry. I’d do it differently. I’ll be out soon. I’d like to meet up someplace and get to know you. I’d like you to find it in yourself to get to know me. I’ve changed. Jail does that to a guy. Just give me a chance.
    She’d read that paragraph over and over, but she’d never allowed herself to believe it. She’d been let down far too many times, by Billy and by others. He’d had his chances, back when Mom had still been alive and before he’d been put in jail. She owed him