Paige Merritt finished packing the two suitcases she was taking to Kansas and set them on the floor by the door. Kansas. In one way it was weird heading back to small town life after living in San Francisco for the past seventeen years ever since she’d left Nebraska for college and never looked back. On the other hand, though, she was kind of looking forward to it. Anything to get away from the press dogging her every move, trying to get an exclusive, and the dirty looks she got practically everywhere she went. Some were from those who thought she’d known what her husband had been doing and had been turning a blind eye to his crimes, while others looked upon her like she’d been a rat for turning her husband in to the feds.
All Paige wanted to do now was go where no one knew her or what her husband had done. It was one of the reasons she’d taken back her maiden name. It didn’t stand out as much as Winthrope did—as in California Governor Kyle Winthrope, Myles’s uncle, although the older man had managed to distance himself from his brother’s family years ago. Kyle and Peyton, Myles’s father, had had a falling out in their twenties and had rarely spoken since. Even though Myles loved to exploit the fact he was a blood relative of the governor, Kyle had barely acknowledged the relationship, especially after his nephew’s arrest.
With her parents gone, no siblings or children, Paige had no familial ties left—Myles’s family hated her for turning him in—so she had nothing keeping her in San Francisco. Nor did she have any reason to go back to Nebraska. The “friends” she’d thought she had in California had turned their backs on her, with the exception of Marcella Hartford, who’d worked for Paige the last few years.
Paige had felt awful when the FBI had seized her interior design business along with all the other assets she’d shared with Myles, because her twelve dedicated employees had suddenly been without jobs. Thankfully her name had still carried some weight before the whole sordid story about the Ponzi scheme had hit the papers, and she’d been able to help most of them find jobs within the same field. Marcella had been with Paige from the day she’d opened the doors of Zen Spaces, and the two had become fast friends. She’d been Paige’s moral support throughout the whole trial, having been worried sick while Paige had been incommunicado during her time in protective custody. At least she had one friend who’d stuck by her. Two, if she counted Quinn Alexander, the US Marshal who’d been in charge of her protective detail.
Talk about sin on two legs. Too bad Quinn was gay and in a long-term relationship with his boyfriend—not that Paige had been interested in getting involved with another man after what she’d gone through with Myles. Nope. Celibacy was in her immediate future, until she found somewhere to settle down and get past the insane zoo that had become her life over the past eighteen months. Even though Paige no longer was in the Witness Security Program, Quinn had helped her out once again, going above and beyond the call of duty. After stopping by Marcella’s condo, where Paige had been staying while trying to figure out the next stage of her life, to check on her yesterday morning, he’d called her several hours later with a job offer. His cousin’s cattle ranch in Kansas was in need of a house manager/cook/nanny. Shane Wilson and his husband, Tucker, were the parents of a six-year-old girl, and the woman who’d helped take care of them had resigned for health issues, and they hadn’t been able to find someone to replace her yet. Paige would be looking after the little girl during the day when she wasn’t in school, while the men tended to their ranching duties. The job gave Paige the weekends off, although, she wasn’t sure what she’d do with herself in the small town of Hazard Falls, population 3821 according to the latest census reports she’d found online. It was actually bigger than the town she’d grown up in. Johnsonville, Nebraska, had about fifteen-hundred people living there as of the last census. Paige had been surprised the Wilsons wanted her to start tomorrow, but there wasn’t anything holding her back from getting on a plane in the morning. Since she didn’t have many options and couldn’t afford to live in San Francisco much longer, she’d jumped at the offer, although she and her new employers had never even met, or, much less, spoken over the phone.
A knock on the spare bedroom door had Paige looking up to see Marcella. “All packed I see.” When Paige nodded, the other woman continued. “Are you sure you want to do this? You know you can stay here as long as you like.”
Standing, Paige closed the distance between them and hugged her friend tightly. “I know. But I think it’s best for me to leave California . . . at least, for a little while. Maybe when the press stops knocking on your door, I’ll come back, but for now, I need to get out of here.” Somehow, several reporters had figured out where she was staying, and they’d been hounding her for an interview following Myles’s conviction and suicide. She was still in shock he’d hanged himself in his prison cell using some pieces of a shirt he’d ripped and tied together. But she also wasn’t surprised. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Myles had thought he’d be found innocent or, at the most, receive a slap on the wrist—parole with time served during the trial. Mentally, he never would have survived a twenty-five-year sentence, even in the cushy federal prison he’d been sent to.
Leaning back far enough to look Paige in the face, Marcella smiled. “Well, then, since it’s our last night together for who knows how long, lets break out a few bottles of merlot and french kiss the pillows.”
Paige threw her head back and laughed. “You’re on. It’s the most action these lips are going to see for a long time.”
Arm in arm, the two women walked out to the living room to toast their friendship, and Paige couldn’t help but wonder if it was the last time they’d ever do so.