The Good Chase Read Online Free PDF Page A

that he’d been expecting one. He hadn’t gotten a response in nearly five years.
    Didn’t mean he was going to stop trying. The most important people in his life needed this, depended on this. So did he.
    Only one person in the Contacts folder. He tapped the address and started a brand-new email. It had been a couple of days since he’d sent one.
    Elbows crunched awkwardly into his sides, he typed a short and to-the-point message, careful not to use the same subject or text so as not to get shuffled into their spam folders.
    He closed the email the same as always: “Please let me know if and when the property becomes available.”
    He hit Send.
    No one had ever accused him of giving up easily.
    *   *   *
    T he delightful people Byrne had sent into her tent finally left, a little buzzed, a lot happy, and with napkins scrawled with the names of several price-friendly whiskies stuffed into their pockets. Now that the entertaining hour was over—and since no other tasters seemed to be wandering in—Shea was left to wonder again about her muddy, rugby-playing benefactor.
    As she wiped off the bar, her phone chimed with a text.
    Still in bed
. Willa.
    Still? It’s 3
, Shea thumbed back.
    Dying for a kilted man to bring me Gatorade and ibuprofen.
    A big laugh bubbled out of Shea’s mouth.
There was one hot guy, but no kilt.
    That’ll do. Send him over.
    Hmm, Shea did not know how she felt about that. About just handing over Byrne to her man-eating best friend.
    Still working,
Shea replied.
    Still hungover.
    A figure appeared at the tent entrance, fuzzy and indistinct in Shea’s peripheral vision. Funny—and horrible—how she recognized the shape and stance and general oily presence of the man she deliberately hadn’t seen in four years. Not wanting to, but knowing she had to, she looked up to confirm what the shiver down her spine had foretold.
    Oh fuckity fuck
, she furiously typed to Willa.
It’s Marco. He’s here. FUVCKKKK.
    Quickly she shoved the phone back into her pocket like she was in high school and not thirty-two years old.
    Marco said something to the old man checking wristbands at the entrance, clapped the elderly volunteer on the back with an expansive grin, and then stepped over the velvet rope to come inside. Because such rules had never applied to Marco Todaro, oh no.
    He took his time crossing the empty tent. Shea didn’t move, refusing to come out from behind the bar for him. Though she was standing in her place of work, where it was easy to become who she needed to be, her ex-husband’s unexpected presence threw everything out of whack, and she hated it.
    â€œHi, Shea.” Marco’s smile was blindingly, falsely white.
    â€œHello.” She would be civil, cordial. “You look”—
orange
—“tan.”
    He seemed so pleased she noticed. Gross.
    â€œGreece,” he said. “Remember that yacht off Santorini?”
    Yes, she did remember. And no, she didn’t want to. She crossed her arms. “What’re you doing here?”
    He did that thing she’d grown to hate: cocking his head and making a face like
she’d
been the one to do the confusing thing, that her emotions and actions were wrong, and how
dare
she not realize this?
    He spread his arms, and in one hand he held the program for the games. “Saw your name in here. Came to do the gentlemanly thing and say hello.”
    â€œNo, I meant what are you doing here, at the Highland Games? You never used to let me be involved in stuff like this, and now here you are.”
    He made an indignant sound. “That’s not true.”
    It was very true. She’d always wanted to get involved with the New York City Scottish Society, but every time an event had come up and she’d expressed interest in going, he’d book something else for them to do. Something obnoxious and lavish on the opposite side of the globe.