“Now, I likethatway of describing it.” He leaned over her and kissed her softly.
It took no time at all for her to deepen the kiss. Before she knew it, she was straddling him on the couch.
“Mason,” she whispered against his mouth. “Don’t hurt me, okay?”
He shook his head and cupped her face in his hands. “You are always gonna be the person I want to be with, Lila. Forever. I would never hurt you.”
“I feel the same, Mason. I do.”Don’t you ever leave Half Moon Key.“Is it okay to tell you I love you?”
“Never hold that back, darling. Tell me you love me every hour, every minute. I’ll always say it right back.” He placed her hand over his heart. “I will always love you, Lila Ford. Always.”
Lila placed her forehead against his and took a deep breath. She let his words settle inside of her, and she sensed it in her soul. Mason meant it.
She was finally home … right where she already was. Mason had changed everything.
SEVENTEEN
MASON
Mason’s car sputtered to a stop right in front of the diner. It certainly wasn’t because the car was an old clunker that was on its last legs. Actually, the car was basically new, but this was Half Moon Key. Out here, even the newest and best vehicles sputter when that strange electricity thing decides to happen. It made everything and anything in town glitch out if it relied on electronics.
Mason knew he should ask more questions about that peculiarity of Half Moon Key, but no one in town seemed to mind. It was just a part of life out here, and he was used to it by now. He killed the engine and hopped out of the car. He grabbed one of the boxes from the trunk and carried it to the house. There, he would divvy up what was for the diner and what was for the house.
He placed the box on the floor in the entryway, but before going to grab the rest, he called out, “Lila, I’m back.”
He expected a response, but even Nana didn’t respond from the living room. That was weird. “Nana?” He tried again. “Lila? Anyone here?”
There was only silence in return. Not the kind of silence he recognized, but the strange and heavy kind that made his wolf perk up with apprehension.
Something was wrong.
He placed the box on the kitchen counter and ran toward the diner. He pushed through the door and scanned Moony’s. Rita, the young waitress, was serving the patrons like she was trained to do. She frowned in confusion, but it quickly turned to concern.
“Hey, Mason. Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
“Where is Lila?” he asked without even answering Rita’s question.
She frowned. “She was going for a walk with Nana. They were going to take flowers to their family gravesite in the woods.”
“How long ago was this?” he pressed. It was inching close to Nana’s afternoon nap, and he still had that feeling that something was wrong.
“A couple of hours ago. They should be back by now, actually. Isn’t it Nana’s afternoon nap time right now?”
Mason nodded and pulled out his phone. Of course, there was no signal. The tower was still down, thanks to the current glitch. He mumbled a string of curse words on his way out of the door. He went back to the house and ran through it, looking for any possible clue.
There was no sign of his mate or her grandmother.
That’s when he spotted the fresh flowers sitting on the kitchen counter, hidden by the box he had left there earlier. How had he missed that?
If Lila was going to the woods with Nana to visit their family, they wouldn’t have forgotten the flowers. Something was definitely wrong, and it had nothing to do with the electricity glitch.
If there were panic and a bad feeling in his gut before, it was full-on fear now. There was no foreign scent in the house, but his wolf was losing its mind, sure that something was wrong.
He checked his phone again, and thankfully, the signal was back. He immediately called his brother. Maybe Lila had run into the Sheriff. There had to be a simple explanation for this. He was paranoid because Cohen brought up the panther smell, but it was just a coincidence. Nothing more. Lila and Nana would be fine. They had to be.
“What’s wrong, little brother?” Cohen said instead of the usual greeting.
“Lila and Nana are missing.” He blurted as he started to run toward the woods, and more specifically, where the rest of the Ford family was buried.