When Romance Prevails (The Dark Horse Trilogy Book 3) by Cynthia Dane Read Free Book Online Page B

animals, and she could even go on a trip to Europe… as long as they said so. It had never dawned on Kerri to simply make arrangements and pack her bag to go somewhere. She supposed that most people would at least tell their families they were going, whether they liked it or not. Kerri didn’t have that luxury. By now she and Hunter were probably plastered all over the news as both conveniently being missing at the same time. Kerri was glad she had left the cell phone her parents gave her back in that boutique bathroom. They couldn’t bother her, nor could they trace her.
    There was no telling how long they would be able to hide there. Hunter said they weren’t even in their state anymore, but when the two most high profile political children of the region went missing, people were going to look. They weren’t Romeo and Juliet making plans to escape Verona in a time when cameras didn’t even exist. Juliet never even made it out of Verona. Not alive. And not with Romeo.
    Regardless of their fates together, Kerri became determined to make the most out of this. Even if she and Hunter parted ways sooner rather than later, she would still come out on top as a better, bigger person than she ever was before. Love had both ruined her life and enriched it in ways she could have never expected. She embraced Hunter now, refusing to cry more tears of a wounded little girl who was lost from her mother. It was time to be someone who did what she wanted. And right now she wanted to be with Hunter, the only man to make her realize how stunted her growth had been all along. From the way he kissed her, full of vigor, she garnered that the feeling was mutual.
    A long, hard road lay before them. The only way to traverse it was together.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 5

     
    Perhaps the most difficult thing Hunter found to accomplish in this endeavor was convincing Kerri that he had everything under control. “Trust me,” he said more than once. “You’ll be safe with me. No one will find us until we’re ready to be found.”
    He had to project that protective aura if he was going to keep Kerri calm and content. She was always on the verge of breaking down if Hunter did not assert himself as the one in charge in this situation. It wasn’t about dominating her or making her into a kept woman. He would have been just as happy – perhaps even more so – if Kerri’s bearings were together and she had a plan of action as well. For in truth Hunter barely knew what the hell he was doing, and he was afraid of letting it show, lest Kerri give up all hope. He couldn’t bear to see her just as down as she was in her prison cell of a bedroom back at the Governor’s Mansion.
    But Hunter could only do so much to make sure their tracks were covered. This cabin, for one, was only a temporary solution until he could figure out a way to get them out to California or somewhere else far away from here. He had connections there, and even if they were found it would be that much harder for their parents to make a stink – especially when locals wouldn’t give a damn about another place’s internal politics. Money wasn’t an issue, but keeping a low profile was. The only person who knew they were here was the old gentleman who rented the place to Hunter under an assumed name. (The only place he could do so.) Serial killers probably hid out here a time or two. So far there were no blood stains anywhere.
    Hunter was the only one who left the cabin, and he did so for no longer than an hour if he could help it. There was a motor scooter out back that he rode into the nearest town to pick up food with cash. He bought newspapers too – he was afraid to turn on his phone – to keep up with what was happening, but kept these from Kerri unless she asked for them, which she never did. The news was usually a day or two old, so it took a few days for them to finally see the fallout of their running away.
    “Governor’s Daughter Missing” was the major