Shift (The Disciples' Daughters #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

played on low. I mustered up the courage to ask the question that had been plaguing me all night.
    “Does Gabe know I’m coming?” I didn’t look his way when I asked. I didn’t want to see whatever his expression might tell me.
    “They’ve told him by now,” he answered.
    “But he wasn’t part of that decision,” I said, filling in the missing information.
    “No, he wasn’t.”
    I nodded without conviction, still looking out the window at the passing world.
    “Best you know now, too,” Roadrunner put out there. I turned to look at him. “He doesn’t go by Gabe anymore. Won’t answer to it at all. Got his road name and hasn’t looked back. He’s Sketch now.”
    Sketch. A new name for a man I no longer knew.

Pulling up to the farmhouse on the outer edge of Hoffman, Oregon felt like stepping back in time. Just the sight of the old house made me feel like I was a kid again, driving up with Dad ready for a cook out or a day in with one of the brothers watching me. It made me flash back to my teenage years with another man next to me—or maybe he was still just a boy—when we would drive beyond the structure and find places to disappear for a few hours.
    “Where are we, Momma?” my reminder that I was definitely not the younger self I was envisioning called from the backseat.
    I turned to look at Emmy, who was using her little fists to make an uncoordinated attempt at rubbing the nap she’d just taken from her eyes. “This is where we’re staying,” I told her.
    “Where are all the other buildin’s?”
    My poor, sheltered city girl. Emmy had only left the Portland city limits a few times in her short life and those were still trips to the suburbs. She’d never been anywhere where only one building stood in the entirety of the visible landscape.
    “They’re all far away,” I explained. “Roadrunner and his friends own all this land.”
    “Wow.” Her little face was the picture of childhood wonder.
    “There’s plenty of space for you to run around,” Roadrunner put in.
    Emmy swung her head around, looking out the window at every angle she could, taking in her new domain. “I can play anywhere?”
    “Same rules as the park,” I said, waiting for her to reiterate the rule I’d made her memorize. She didn’t disappoint.
    “I haft’a be able to see you.”
    “Good girl.”
    At least that was one worry out of the way. The other couple thousand rioting around in my head would just have to keep at their torture for the time being.
    As Roadrunner pulled up in front of the three-story house, I focused on the bikes and a couple cars parked in the tamped down grass out front. I tried to place a rider to each bike, but it had been too long to be sure. The only one I was certain of was the Harley FXR. That one belonged to Roadrunner. It was obvious by the emblem of the cartoon character that shared his name, the same image adorning the back of his prized car.
    “Are you living here now?” I asked.
    Roadrunner had always been the type to spend most of his hours at the clubhouse, but he’d also owned a small house in town. It was just a block away from the house I’d grown up in.
    “Nah,” he answered. “Had the boys haul my girl over here on one of the flatbeds from the garage. Means I can leave the truck with you so you’ve got a way to get around until we figure out something better. I’ll have her and the bird until we sort you out some wheels,” he explained.
    “The bird” was his 1972 Plymouth Roadrunner. His first love. I couldn’t say how many times I’d heard him tell the tale of finding the beaten up thing and the labor of love that was restoring her to pristine condition. There was a reason his road name was what it was. That car was a part of him.
    The prospect of driving the pick-up intimidated me since I’d only ever been behind the wheel of smaller cars, but I was far from a crap driver. Dad wouldn’t have stood for that. By the time I was sixteen, I was proficient