Chapter 21 #2
He’d never experienced this before. Never been so taken and infatuated with someone that he felt physical pain at her absence.
Smelling her scent on his sheets, in his home.
Finding an overlooked pair of flip-flops in the hallway by the garage.
Worrying about her safety and wellbeing.
Worrying about her emotional health, given she was out there on her own and had to be scared.
Wouldn’t everyone be scared on some level out there?
This feeling was hell, and he wondered if or when it would ever end.
If he was wrong and that night hadn’t meant as much to her as it had to him.
Dawson had given him Sloane’s other message.
“I still don’t do casual.”
Maybe she meant it. But it still didn’t mean she planned to come back. Why wouldn’t she trust him to help her? Allow him to be by her side during whatever mess she had to face? Wouldn’t that be better than facing it alone?
He wanted to fly to Chicago. Track the Harringtons down and find out for himself what kind of people threatened their own flesh and blood.
He wanted to confront them. Wanted to fight for her. Was willing to do whatever it took. But she obviously wasn’t willing to do the same. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have left the way she had. Like she didn’t believe in him—or them?
Was her goodbye—really goodbye?
“You okay there, son?”
Gage uncovered his eyes from the glare of the boardwalk lights and found Bruce Holloway staring at him from a few feet away, hand resting on his holster.
“Gage? Didn’t think the drunk call would be for you.”
Gage snorted softly. “I’m not drunk. I took a run and overdid it. And now I’ve been here in the cold so long my muscles have locked up.”
The older police officer Gage had talked to the first night he’d found Sloane sleeping in her car behind the rentals building chuckled at his complaint.
“That doesn’t sound like you. What’s got you taking midnight runs? Or should I guess? Is it a woman?”
Gage groaned as he forced his body upright on the hard bench and swung his feet to the ground. He stared at the wooden slats of the boardwalk and inhaled. “Do you remember the night I came to the station and asked you to keep an eye on the woman sleeping behind the rentals building?”
Bruce moved over and took a seat beside Gage on the bench. Gage glanced up and noted a curl to the man’s lips beneath his white mustache.
“I do. Did you two become an item?”
Another groan left him. “No. Because if we were, she wouldn’t have taken off and left like she did.”
“Ahh, so that’s it. I’m sorry, son. Love isn’t for the faint of heart.”
“I don’t love her.”
Silence followed his words, and even Gage heard the lie in them.
“Son, I hate to point this out, but you’re sitting on a park bench at midnight because you’re heartsick about her leaving.”
Gage ignored the knowing tone in Bruce’s statement and focused instead of defending himself.
“It would be stupid to fall in love with someone who couldn’t even be honest with me about her last name.
” Gage ran his hands over his head and tugged at the ends.
“That’s not love. And it’s certainly not love when she can take off in the middle of the night. ”
Gage rubbed his hands up and down the tops of his thighs. He’d worn winter running gear, but cold muscles were cold muscles.
“Doesn’t sound like the best way to start a relationship,” Bruce agreed. “You know why she lied about her name? Could be it wasn’t about her being dishonest but her wanting to distance herself from her past.”
“Same difference.” Gage fought the urge to snap at Bruce for giving Sloane the benefit of the doubt when he needed ammo to keep himself from losing his mind due to his turbulent emotions.
Gage shoved himself to his feet and began stiffly pacing in front of the bench. “I just don’t get it. I thought— I thought we had something. Something real.”
“Maybe you did.”
He rounded on the man. “Then why did she leave? Why not let me help her deal with her toxic family? Wolfe said he heard her brother threaten her, and so did I.”
“When was this?”
Bruce looked concerned now, more cop mode than friendly mentor. Finally.
But Gage couldn’t blame the man when he’d left out so many pieces to the story. “Thanksgiving Day. Wolfe convinced her to let him give her a ride back to my place, but later her brother—Noah—showed up there too. And again at the rentals building.”
“You got a last name for this Noah?”
“Harrington. Out of Chicago,” Gage spat. “Can you check into him for me? See if he’s got any kind of record or anything?”
“I’ll do that right now,” the man said, pulling out his phone.
Gage stared at the older man, wondering why he hadn’t already done the same search. It showed just how messed up he was about all of this, that he hadn’t even googled the guy.
“He one of them?” Bruce turned the phone around for Gage to see.
The picture was of three men in expensive-looking suits. An older man sat in a high-backed leather chair while two younger versions of the guy stood on either side. “Yeah, the one standing on the left.”
Gage pulled his own phone out and quickly typed in Sloane Harrington. An image of her appeared as a graduate of some prep school academy. A few more for various awards and athletic achievements. And there she was in an older picture of her and her family, mom included.
His jaw locked. Sloane came from money. The kind of money that owned second or third homes on Figure Eight Island. Not a townhouse stacked twenty deep in a little corner of Carolina Cove.
He kept clicking through photos, noting the Harrington mansion pictures taken at some sort of charity event. These people were—not the type to sleep in their cars or work as maids or salesclerks at a surf shop. But the realization brought more questions than answers.
What was going on? Who was she?
“You looking, too?” Bruce asked.
“Yeah, I—”
The sound of a diesel motor rolling up drew their attention, and Gage lifted his head as one of the Carolina Cove emergency vehicles stopped in the street behind the bench.
A door slammed, and Gabriel Wolfe appeared as the passenger side door opened and Gage’s youngest brother, Hudson, hopped out as well.
“Everything okay here?” Wolfe still wore the lower half of his turnout gear.
“Could ask you the same,” Gage said, taking in Wolfe and Hudson’s soot-smudged expressions.
His kid brother grinned and gave Gage two thumbs up. “Car fire. No major injuries but it exploded right as we got there. You should’ve seen it.”
Gage shook his head at Hudson’s excitement. “Pass, thanks. You’re enough of an adrenaline junkie for all of us.”
“What are you doing out here at this time of night? Something wrong?” Wolfe asked.
“Woman trouble,” Bruce said before Gage could answer.
Wolfe didn’t disguise his laugh while Hudson shot Gage a look.
“Does that mean things went bad with Sloane? Ah, man. I liked her. She seemed cool from what I heard about her,” Hudson said.
Gage ran a hand over his head and fought off a shiver as well as a curse. “Yeah, well, I guess she didn’t feel the same. I need to get home and out of these clothes.”
“I’ll give you a ride.” Bruce shoved himself up off the bench with a grunt. “You boys should head back to the station and shower off the grime.”
“Wait, aren’t you going to tell us what happened?” Hudson asked.
“Did her brother have something to do with it?” Wolfe asked next.
“What brother?” Hudson frowned, his head turning back and forth between Wolfe and Gage. “I thought she was homeless? Why would she be sleeping in her car if her brother was around to help her?”
Hud sounded angry at the thought. Not that Gage could blame him. Raised as they were, fighting so hard to stay together growing up, the thought of Sloane’s siblings not helping her when she needed it cut deep. It wasn’t right. That’s not how families were supposed to behave toward one another.
Hudson’s question had all three men looking at Gage for an answer. He held up his hands, palms out, and shrugged. “Not all families help, Hud. Something to remember when you’re out on those runs. As to why hers didn’t, I guess you’d have to ask her yourself.”
“You think she’s coming back?”
Hudson’s question hung in the air between them with only the sound of the waves brave enough to break the silence that followed.
“Hud, let it be,” Bruce said in a low voice.
Gage shifted his gaze from Bruce to Hudson and found himself struggling to find words that made sense. “No, I don’t think she’s coming back. But it doesn’t matter if she does. I’ve learned my lesson.”
She didn’t do casual—and he didn’t do second chances.