Free Shades of Deception by Amanda Meadows Page B

phone call,” she suggested.
    Hunter swallowed and stared at his hands.
    “Okay, I was with a client when my phone buzzed. I looked down, hoping it was you with one of your silly messages. It was Caleb.”
    Hunter sighed. “Caleb doesn't text me a lot. And certainly not when he knows I'm working. So I was worried from the very beginning. I excused myself and let Isabelle know that there was an emergency.”
    He grimaced. “Of course I had no idea how bad of an emergency. I called Caleb and he filled me in. And then my parents arranged for the company's private jet to fly me here immediately.”
    Amber studied him. He was still holding something back. What was he so afraid to tell her?
    "I thought that the police would be able to track the Range Rover fairly easily. I had no idea that you wouldn't be with it. But once I got back and they found the cell phone in the woods, I knew that I could help find you,” he said carefully, avoiding her eyes.
    “Um . . . Are you part bloodhound or something?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood.
    Hunter sighed again. “Promise me you won't start yelling when I tell you? Please? I want you to be able to go home. If they come in here and your blood pressure is off the charts, they might say no.”
    “Tell me, Hunter.”
    “Promise me, first.”
    “I can't promise you I won't be angry because you clearly think you've done something that would make me angry,” she said slowly. “But because I am anxious to get out of here, I promise that I won't yell.”
    She considered him for a moment. “At least until we get home.”
    “Fair enough,” he said, swallowing hard. “On the bright side, what I did helped us find you rather quickly,” he reminded her.
    “Hunter,” Amber said through clenched teeth. “Just tell me what you did!”
    “I . . . um . . . I sort of chipped you.”

Chapter 12
     
    “Chipped me? What the hell does that even mean?”
    “Well, not you, exactly, but your bracelet. I . . . um . . . Your bracelet has a tracking device on it. That was how we found you.”
    Amber's mouth fell open.
    Hunter leaned forward anxiously.
    “Baby, without that I don't know when we would have found you. I would have turned the whole state upside down looking for you. But it was so damn cold last night and even then I was afraid . . .”
    Amber was staring down at her bracelet. Her beautiful, sparking bracelet was a tracking device? What the hell? Was he ever going to tell her? Was this a matter of trust?
    She started to speak and then simply shut her mouth.
    Hunter was looking at her with such anxiety. His green eyes were stormy. Her demented control freak. She thought for a moment what it must have been like for him, stuck in Paris while she had simply disappeared. What would have gone through his head? Anyone would have panicked. But for a control freak, the stress was probably even more intense.
    She also had to admit that she was alive right now, probably thanks to him being a control freak. Demented or not, she had survived thanks to him. Hunter was right. She wasn't sure how long she could have survived in that freezing cold shed. It could have taken days or even weeks to locate her.
    “Why?” she asked suddenly.
    Hunter was staring at her, biting his lip nervously.
    “Why what?” he asked, clearly surprised.
    “Why did you put it on the bracelet? What were you thinking when you did it?”
    Hunter's eyes got misty. “I was thinking that I couldn't live with myself if you got one of your fainting spells one day and passed out somewhere.”
    He rubbed his eyes. “When I saw you that day, passed out naked in the bathtub, I was so damned scared. I worry about you so much.”
    He held up a hand. “I know I can be controlling. I'm working on that. But I've wanted to protect you since the first time you collapsed at my feet in front of the art building.”
    Amber swallowed, seeing him raw with emotion for the first time.
    “Hunter, you didn't fail me when you went to