Her Own Best Enemy (The Remnants, Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

to cultivate would go up in smoke. Becca would never speak to her again.
    Grace instinctively reached for the cordless phone on the coffee table. Before her hand connected with the handset, she drew back. She couldn’t call Becca. How would she explain about Ryker without mentioning Keith?
    “Who was that?” Keith’s gruff voice made her jump.
    “My—my sister.”
    “She okay?”
    “No.” The admission dug beneath her skin and took root. “She’ll never be okay.”
    Thanks to you. The retort sprung on the tip of her tongue, but she squashed it. She couldn’t afford to alienate Keith.
    Grace pushed past him into the kitchen. Ryker’s Spiderman cereal bowl still sat in the sink traces of dried milk in the bottom. Her eyes welled with tears. She and Ryker had been running late that morning. Had she even hugged him goodbye? What if...
    She jerked herself away from the sink and her gaze snagged on his asthma medication. Beside his Albuterol inhaler, one Deltasone tablet sat in the dosage cup.
    “Oh, God.” She gripped the edge of the counter. Ryker had forgotten his medication that day. If he didn’t have any in his backpack, he was going on his third day without his pills or his inhaler.
    Three days. And how many more before she and Keith tracked him down?
    “What’s wrong?”
    She met Keith’s frown with one of her own. “Ryker’s meds. He didn’t take them. He needs this medication.”
    Keith’s lips tightened. “Grab what you can and lets get out of here.” He ducked his head and peered out the kitchen window.
    “You can’t think we’re being followed. That’s...” Ludicrous.
    Was it? This older, harsher, version of Keith...he didn’t strike her as someone who made foolhardy assumptions. And, yet, that knowledge didn’t comfort her. Didn’t make her want to trust him.
    She gave him a wide berth and made a beeline for her son’s room. She’d grab his duffel bag, his medication and a few essentials for when she found him.
    Keith followed hot on her heels. “Grace. We have to leave. Now.”
    Grace drew up short at Ryker’s room and grabbed the doorframe. So cold. So bleak. She sucked in a ragged breath. Even Ryker’s sweet little boy smell had begun to fade from the room. Her knees buckled and her palms stung as she gripped the wood tighter to keep from collapsing onto the floor.
    Ryker needed her to be strong. He was counting on her.
    But, oh, God, how she missed him.
     
     
    Keith instinctively reached out to steady Grace, but to his surprise, she straightened on her own.
    “Ryker’s obsessed with marine life.” Her reed thin whisper tugged at him.
    “I see that,” he said, taking in the muted blue walls that held a myriad of posters. Dolphins, sea turtles, whales. The boy even had stuffed animals to match, and a brightly colored dolphin splashed bedspread.
    The inviting room made Keith think of his own childhood bedroom. Stark and impersonal, just like his mother.
    He tightened his jaw. “It’s not a good idea to stay in any one place for long.”
    Grace nodded, but instead of turning away from the room, she stepped deeper into it, grabbing a large stuffed dolphin off the bed. Her fingers curled around it and sank into the tattered dark gray body; her eyes squeezed shut. “I bought this for Ryker when I was pregnant. Not a night has gone by that he’s slept without it.” A sob caught in her throat and she buried her nose in the dolphin’s stuffing.
    They didn’t have time for this. Keith needed answers, not hysterics. And it was clear he wouldn’t find them here. Regret churned in his belly. Why had he made a deal with this woman?
    He stepped forward and opened his mouth to tell Grace he’d have no problem leaving her behind if she couldn’t keep it together, but his lips fell closed without uttering a word.
    She was clutching that damn dolphin as if it were her lifeline. Her hair fell across her cheekbone, obscuring most of her face, but he had no trouble making out the