Page 63 of Range
Red roses greeted me on the passenger seat. So did two orange bags. Flabbergasted, I covered my freshly glossed lips with my palm.
For a moment, I was unmoving. The gesture was my permission to pause for a second. To gather my bearings, finally. To relax. To recenter. To tell myself what Josiah had been trying to signal from the moment we met.
You’re okay.
I slid into the driver’s seat and was immediately dazzled by more roses. They filled my backseat. I placed my head between my hands and allowed my smile to spread across my face. There was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. There was nothing I wanted to do, either.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh. I screamed inwardly.
I twisted my body for a better view of the roses covering my backseat. When my eyes returned to the front seat, I grabbed the smallest of the two bags.
I removed the first small box and was presented with a brown Hermès bracelet. It was accented in gold. The second bag revealed a cream bracelet. And, then a black one. And, lastly, an orange one.
In the large bag, I removed a large box. I untied the same bows I’d been untying since I was a young girl. Still, I was thrilled. The adrenaline sped the timeline by minutes at a time, leaving me staring in awe at a Croc Niloticus. The leather was stunning.
I ran my hand down the beautiful Birkin, quietly estimating it’s retail value. At minimum, seventy thousand dollars had come out of one of Josiah’s accounts. My fingertips grazed the hardware. There wasn’t a thread out of place.
“Mr. Blackwood, you’re a very generous contender.”
I unclasped the hardware and peeked inside of the stunning bag. Waiting for me was a letter. Hastily, I removed it andlaid the paper on the steering wheel to straighten it completely. There was only one sheet. There were only a few words. I was already dreading the end of them and was hungry for more.
He feeds me too little, leaving me starved. Leaving me parched.
Nevertheless, I trained my eyes to the sheet of thin paper, yellow in color with far too many lines to fill for him to have utilized only four of them.
Sunshine,
I wish we’d met under different circumstances, but I’ll never complain about the moment you walked through that door. It was the greatest day of my existence. I replay it in my head a hundred times a day. Understand that cuffed wrists mean nothing when both my head and my bread are free. Take yourself shopping. You deserve it. You deserve everything.
Siah
P.S. Made it even.
I double-checkedthe bag the box had come from. Beneath the gift paper was neatly stacked bills, held together by paper strips with $10,000 printed on each of them. There were six.
Made it even.
“How? How’d he–”
My brain was flipping as I tried better understanding Josiah. His attention to detail was awakening.
He’s too good. He’s too good to be true. He’s too good to be more than a figment of my imagination.
This man can’t be real.
I clutchedmy waist at the sound of movement. The lock box fell from my hands as I straightened my spine. On the other end of the porch, a squirrel stood tall in the bed of rocks. Sighing, I lifted the lock box, again.
2266448
Josiah’s voice lingered in my head. So did the numbers he’d called off. He woke me from my sleep at eight o’clock sharp. Taking his advice, I drove home and spent the first two hours burying my thoughts with my workout.
After a long shower, avocado toast and eggs, email scrolls, and thirty-two ounces of water, rest welcomed me with open arms. And, for six hours, I slept like a newborn on her father’s chest.
Urrrrrrrrn.
The lock turned, allowing me to push the small door upward, revealing a set of keys. I ran my fingers across the metal, unsure which one would help me gain access to the beautiful home that sat on eighty-three acres of land and was completely isolated from the rest of the community.
I tossed caution to the wind and shoved the first key inside and tried turning it.
