CHAPTER TWENTY

 

They stayed on the hill until the sun came up and filled the valley with its deep, burnished gold light. Thisbe’s breath was once again taken away by the magnificent sight, the way thin fog weaved ethereally through the trees and across the fields below. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn she had been spirited away to a fabled fairyland, not another human-filled world of cities and tabloids.

Shy stretched out on the blanket next to her and Thisbe smiled. Maybe this is a fairyland after all, she thought. My wildest dreams of romance could not compare to this woman.

“Good morning, sunshine,” she said softly. Shy made a sleepy mrrph noise and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands.

“I think this is the first time I’ve ever been camping,” Shy said between yawns.

“And the verdict?” Asked Thisbe, who had been glamping practically every year she’d been alive but had never before slept under the stars so openly and with nothing but good company and a decent bottle of red. Shy smiled up at her, squinting in the morning light.

“From where I’m sitting? Can’t beat the view, that’s for sure,” she said, melting Thisbe’s insides all over again. “The lack of coffee is… a problem.”

“Agreed. And I’m sure all the goats miss you terribly by now. Come on, let’s go home.” Thisbe’s eyes went wide as she realized what she was saying midway through saying it. She tried to stop the last word from tumbling out of her mouth, but it was too late. She’d said it aloud. Home. “I mean… your home, obviously. Starfall Ranch. I don’t have—”

Shy cut her off with a long, slow kiss that had the intended effect of setting Thisbe’s fears to rest—temporarily, at least. Shy had a way of kissing her that felt like a smoldering fire was being lit just under her tongue, snaking out from there to light up every pleasant nerve until she lowkey yearned for more of Shy’s touch on every inch of her skin.

“Yeah, let’s go home,” Shy said with a soft smile when at last they pulled away. And that was all that needed to be said.

On the way back to town, Thisbe rolled her window down and let the morning air whip through her unruly tangle of bedhead. No cutting edge workout class or luxury perfume on Earth had ever made her feel as sexy and alive as she did just then, her feet kicked up out the window, wind in her hair, Shy singing along to a song she didn’t know on the radio. This was heaven.

Or at least, it was, until she idly picked up her phone and scrolled through local news. A video of her parents at a podium, shedding crocodile tears and looking artfully distraught, popped up on her feed.

“It is a sad but true fact that sometimes, the pressures of corporate life can become too much for a person to handle. Over the years, we have come to rely perhaps too much on our daughter’s unmatched mastery of the business world,” her father read off a script to the camera.

His guilty frown was convincing, she’d give her old man that, but she knew all his telltale signs of lying to look good for the press. The way his eyes looked almost bored as they scanned the page ahead of the words coming out of his mouth. The one hand tapping a stylus almost imperceptibly on the side of the podium. He was counting down the seconds until he could get off-camera and get back to a nice glass of Scotch.

Her mother stepped in to take over the microphone. Oh, this ought to be good, Thisbe thought.

“We are working with local law enforcement to locate Thisbe and bring her home to us, where she can get the special treatment she so desperately needs. Our daughter means the galaxy to us, and though she puts on a high-functioning face to the world, we beg the public to understand that…” Jiao Vandergoss’ voice caught in her throat. She turned away to presumably gain control of her emotions before continuing and Thisbe snorted indelicately. What an absolutely abominable clown show.

“We beg the public to understand that Thisbe is not well. If you see her, if you hear from her, we ask that you not try to convince her to come back, as that will only drive her further into neurosis. Please simply contact your local authorities immediately and let the professionals do their job.

“We’re asking all of you: help us bring our daughter home. Thank you.”

She watched her parents step away from the podium, eyes down in the mob of camera flashes and raised microphones that followed. A cacophony of shouted questions from reporters drowned out all else and the video ended.

“Unbelievable!” Thisbe shouted. She didn’t like the way her voice rose to a higher pitch at the end of the word.

It was as if the wind had been knocked out of her and the sky had turned stormy all at once. How could I have been so stupid to think they’d stop at Earth to find me?

Her parents had been controlling every aspect of her life from the day she was born, all the way through adulthood. She thought back to a few years prior, when she had simply wanted to move to an apartment in a more artsy, bohemian neighborhood. Her mother was appalled, but Thisbe didn’t care. She’d found the perfect place.

Until suddenly the real estate broker called to regretfully inform her that the deal had fallen through, and that there were absolutely zero available units in that neighborhood for the foreseeable future. Her mother had been smugly generous with her for weeks after that bit of bad luck.

“Why don’t we find you a decent interior decorator to redo the home you have?” Her mother had said. “My treat.”

And then there was the time she adopted a kitten on a whim, starved for love and contact that wouldn’t judge her, and her father had become suddenly deathly allergic to cats until she, tearfully, got rid of it.

Thisbe balled her hands into fists as her mind raced through one improbable coincidence after another in which her parents just happened to get their way in her life. Every single time until now, when she had managed to slip through their grasp long enough to escape the entire planet. And now… now they were coming after her here, using the court of public opinion as their weapon. A tearful mother in search of her fragile, mentally ill daughter. Thisbe considered vomiting out the window of a moving truck.

“Hey.” Shy put a hand on Thisbe’s thigh and glanced over at her. “Fuck them, alright? Your parents, the reporters, Happy Hearts, all of them. We’re gonna get you back to Starfall Ranch and then we’ll figure out a plan there.”

“They could just walk right through the gates,” Thisbe said numbly. “Not my parents, but this story says they’ve hired a Meletian bounty hunter. And the agency’s declared my migration contract void. The local authorities are supposed to put me on a shuttle back to Earth to face charges for fraud.”

Fraud. The moment she said the word aloud, Thisbe started shivering uncontrollably all over. She had faced down titans of industry in their own boardrooms. She had once stayed up for five days straight putting together a now-legendary presentation that resulted in the Vandergoss family accruing nearly three billion dollars in properties and interests. Thisbe Vandergoss did not scare easily. She did not shiver like a frightened kitten in a rainstorm. Yet at that moment, she had to admit: she was scared.

Petrified, really. If they got her hands on her—if she was deported back to Earth—Thisbe knew there would be no second chance at freedom. Her parents would own her and every aspect of her life from then on out. They’d put their baby inside her, they’d force her into motherhood with or without her consent, and they would plaster images of her and her little sibling-child on every promotional advertisement they could, just to further the Vandergoss legacy and brand. It would be a living death.

“They’ll have to get past my drones first,” Shy was saying. Thisbe blinked slowly and stared down at her hands. What did drones have to do with anything? “Listen to me, Thisbe. It’s going to be fine, alright? But we need to work together.”

Shy pressed down on the accelerator and her pickup kicked up gravel behind them as they sped towards the ranch and the safety it could offer. She tossed her phone to Thisbe with another brief, worried glance before turning her eyes back to the road.

“Call Wallis,” she said. “Tell them to meet us there, if they aren’t at Starfall already. If they aren’t, have them use the service road through the orchard.”

The shock of being so casually handed intimate access to Shy’s handheld jolted Thisbe out of her panic spiral. In her world, the only people who touched your phone other than you or your immediate family were paid assistants who had signed extensive NDAs. Never had she even considered just handing her phone over to someone she was romantically involved with. Not in a million years would she have thought to use someone else’s.

“It’s an antique piece of junk, I know,” Shy said apologetically, mistaking Thisbe’s hesitation for unfamiliarity with her older model. “The contact list is in the upper left corner.”

“Ah, yeah, I see it.” Thisbe pushed past her mild discomfort and awe and dialed Wallis. She put them on speaker phone, though, handling the phone delicately, as though pawing at it would somehow physically affect Shy.

“Well good morning, sunshine,” Wallis said when they picked up. “Did someone forget that today is my day off?”

Shy frowned.

“What if I’m just calling socially?”

“Boss, are you calling me from the bottom of a well? I can barely hear you.”

Thisbe winced and held the phone up.

“Shy’s driving,” she said. “This is Thisbe, I’ll talk for her. She said, first of all, she really appreciates everything you do for the ranch and for her, and that you don’t get nearly enough credit for all the hard work and love you put in to the place. And second of all, she’d like to pay you double wages if you have the time and means to come to the ranch today with some groceries.”

There was a long, crackling pause and then Wallis burst into peals of laughter. Thisbe and Shy exchanged glances, waiting for Wallis to get over their disbelief.

“Excuse me, Thisbe Vandergoss, is calling moi, on behalf of Shiloh Kerridan, to ask that I please come bring the two of them some groceries to their little love nest?”

“It’s not a love nest!” Thisbe exclaimed at the same time Shy shouted, “We’ve got to keep her safe, you ass!”

Thisbe looked at Shiloh, aghast, and added quickly, “Shy is very sorry for calling you an ass just now, Wallis.”

“No she isn’t,” Wallis replied drily. “But you sound so posh when you say it that I forgive her by default. At any rate, it sounds like things are about to get so very interesting at the ranch. A little shopping trip is a small price to pay for a front row seat. Send over your list, babes.”

“Thank you, Wallis, you’re a life saver,” Thisbe said.

And Wallis playfully shot back, “Every damn day,” before hanging up.

“Did Wallis just call me babe?” Shy mused.

“Um, what do you want me to put on this groceries list?”

Thisbe tried to sound casual, but she couldn’t keep the beam of delight off her face for long.

“General food stuff, I suppose. Why are you smiling like that?”

“You know,” Thisbe blushed. “I mean you do know, right? This is so… domestic. We’re planning a shopping list together. I’ve never done that with a lover before.”

It was Shy’s turn to blush, stammering over her tongue trying to find the right response. If Thisbe could fall in love with her ten more times in the same moment, she would have.

“I mean… fuck. Yeah, wow. But this is for… I mean, the circumstances. Not that I wouldn’t want to go get groceries with you! You just—you deserve more romantic relationship highlights than this.” Shy finished miserably.

Thisbe pushed away from the window and slid across the bench seat until she sat close against Shy, then she gently grabbed Shy’s free hand and draped it across her own shoulder, snuggling up against the stunned woman.

“We just camped out on a lonely hillside, like outlaws, had great sex and drank a bottle of stolen wine, and now we’re on our way back to your magical, breathtaking ranch because you want to keep me safe from larger-than-life forces who threaten to rip me from your extremely sculpted arms forever. Shiloh Kerridan, how is that not the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard in your whole damn life?”

Shy went quiet again, but a grin spread across her face and her cheeks went red, and she had to look out the driver side window for a moment to try to regain her composure. She squeezed Thisbe closer and kissed the top of her head.

“Well, when you put it that way…”