Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Sloane was gone.
Gage felt it in his soul before he even opened his eyes. The lack of her presence in his bed. The house.
He shifted on the mattress where he’d carried Sloane last night and slid his hand over the sheets. Her side was empty. And ice cold.
He jerked upright and listened hard for some sound, something that would indicate he was wrong. But when he heard nothing but birds chirping happily outside the closed windows, he pressed his palms to his eyes and rubbed hard. “What have you done, Merida?”
Gage tossed the blanket back and yanked on a pair of gray sweatpants before he went searching for her, even though he knew he wouldn’t find her.
The house was too quiet. Too still for all of Sloane’s intense energy.
She wasn’t there. Not upstairs. Not in her room. Not in the driveway where her car should have been if she hadn’t left him sleeping away and content in his bed after such a special night.
Growling and swearing, he stomped his way back inside and slammed the door so hard it rattled the house before raking both hands through his hair, pulling hard on the strands and closing his eyes as though he could will her return. After a moment, he jogged up the stairs to find his phone.
He had to call her. Talk to her. Hear her voice even if it was to just hear her excuses. He needed that. Needed it like he needed his next breath.
His angry roar filled the house when the phone screen remained black. The device was dead, laying on the counter where he’d set it before heading to the dinner table the night before.
After dinner and the way the night ended, he hadn’t given a thought to charging it. Now he scrambled back to the bedroom to the charger to juice it up enough to make the call he so desperately needed to make.
He paced impatiently and wondered if he’d have any hair left by the time the phone turned on.
To keep from going crazy, he grabbed a T-shirt and swapped his sweats for jeans before going back to the phone to check it again. This time, the face lit up, and he swiped up to unlock it, leaving the device connected to the cord as he did so.
Gage sucked in a breath when he saw Sloane’s name but the text—
Don’t come after me.
That was it. Nothing about last night. No apology for leaving the way she had.
Nothing.
His legs gave out, and he sank onto the mattress, his mind replaying the events of the evening and hours afterward in full detail.
He was a fool. He’d believed her when she said she didn’t do casual. Believed her passion and the night they’d shared meant more than it obviously had. He’d hoped—
He shook his head at himself. He’d thought, possibly, that things had changed between them. That she’d come to terms with the chemistry they shared and the way they fit so well together. Worked together. Could be more, together.
He tossed the phone back onto the nightstand with a clatter and dropped back on the bed to stare at the ceiling, numb yet angry. So angry he could barely breathe.
For a guy who liked control— This just proved how little he had.
Two hours later, Gage parked behind the rentals building to open it up. Today was his day, and while Sloane was usually there to handle things after opening, apparently he was going to have to take her place and try not to burn the place to the ground to alleviate some of his frustration.
He made his way into the unit through the back door, hitting the lights and tossing his keys under the counter in their usual spot.
Then he just stood there, hands braced on the top because he spotted one of Sloane’s boho hairbands, a lip gloss, and a tiny tin of her favorite cinnamon breath mints beside his keys.
Suddenly it felt like the floor opened up and swallowed him whole.
He blindly sought the stool behind him and perched on the edge, never once taking his eyes off the items she’d left behind as casually as she’d left him.
After a few breaths, he stretched out a hand and grabbed the hair band. It was soft and colorful, and he twisted it around his fingers before bringing it to his nose. He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of her. Raspberry and vanilla.
Would he ever see her again?
Would she be okay?
What if something happened to her out there on her own? Had she gone to Chicago? Taken off to wander the roads to avoid her brother?
Where was she?
He had to find her. Somehow.
Cole knew people. Ex-military guys who did PI work now that they were civilians. Maybe one of them would be able to track her down? Check on her?
What if Noah had taken her? What if the text was to throw him off and make him believe she’d left on her own? What if her family hurt her?
He propped his elbows on the counter and leaned forward, the hair wrap in his hands, eyes tightly closed as his mind played out every horrible possibility.
He heard a noise just before the door leading to the convenience-store side opened, and Alec and Cole entered. They stopped and stared when they saw him, and he supposed he looked ridiculous, sitting there sniffing Sloane’s belongings.
“Do you need us to leave?” Cole asked in a suggestive tone, eyebrows lifted high on his forehead.
Gage stood and shoved the hair wrap into his pocket. “Bite me.”
“Bad night?” Alec asked.
“Sloane’s gone,” he informed them in a flat tone. “Hire someone else if you want.”
He turned and headed for the rear exit, uncaring whether Cole could stay and mind the rentals business or if it had to close today.
Uncaring of just about anything except the need to get out of there and try to wrap his mind around the fact that he’d finally found a woman he wanted and trusted only to have her walk out on him without a word other than to not follow her.
“Whoa, hang on,” Cole said, jogging after Gage.
His brother caught his arm before Gage made it to the door. He turned him around and shoved him back toward the stool.
“Sit down and tell us what’s going on. What do you mean, she’s gone?” Cole asked.
“She left,” Gage said quietly. “I woke up this morning, and her car and things were gone.”
“She didn’t say anything? Leave a note?” Alec asked.
A sardonic sounding huff left his chest. “Yeah. ‘Don’t come after me.’ She sent it by text.”
Gage chanced glances at his brothers’ expressions and found both of them staring at him with concern and surprise. “Whatever. It’s fine.”
“Obviously,” Cole drawled.
“It is. I knew she’d leave. She said from the beginning that it was a temporary thing, right? I knew better than to let myself think otherwise.”
“Doesn’t mean you didn’t,” Alec said.
The words hit so hard they sucked the breath out of his lungs, and he surged to his feet once more. “I can’t sit here all day. If you have to shut the building down, do it. I don’t care.”
“Gage, come on,” Cole said.
“Sit down,” Alec ordered.
“We’re down a person again,” he said. “There’s work to be done.”
“It can wait,” Alec said in his well-known dad voice they’d all heard over the years since the eldest brother had raised them. “Now sit down.”
Cole gave Gage another gentle shove toward the stool he’d vacated. Gage slumped on top of it and braced his elbows on the counter, hands linked in front of him.
“Start at the beginning,” Alec ordered.
“I don’t know what to tell you. She’s gone.”
“Did you two have a fight?” Cole asked.
Gage stared at his knuckles.
“That would be a yes,” Alec said after a moment of silence.
“We didn’t,” he said with a shake of his head. “At least, not the way you mean.”
“Yeah, that’s clear as mud,” Cole said. “Either spit it out, or we’ll drag it out of you somehow.”
The door opened, and Dawson stepped in, looking more than a little frazzled.
“What are you doing here?” Alec asked. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Looking for Gage. I went to his house first.”
Gage sat up. “Why?”
“I was…asked to make sure you stayed in town.”
The stool toppled when he stood so fast it went flying. “By whom? If her brother said—”
“Not her brother,” Dawson said. “It was Sloane.”
“You talked to Sloane?” Gage asked, pulse racing despite his surprise. “You saw her? When? Where is she?”
“According to her, on her way back to Chicago,” Dawson informed them.
Gage grabbed his keys. “I’m going after her.”
“No, you’re not,” all three of his brothers said in unison.
“She could be in trouble.” He fisted his hand over the keys so hard they bit into his palm. “What if the text she sent me was really from her brother? What if—”
“I saw her in person, Gage,” Dawson said. “I talked to her. She was alone—and she made it very clear that you needed to stay here. She said she had something she needed to handle in Chicago, and she had to do it on her own.”
He tried to process that, but the surge of anger and protectiveness he felt made it difficult. “That’s it? Did she say anything else? Why did she come to you? Why not tell me herself?”
Dawson’s expression turned into a twisted grimace. “You’ll have to ask her that when she gets back.”
“I’m asking you right now,” he said, stabbing a finger at his brother to emphasize his point.
“She came to you as an attorney,” Alec said in a low voice, the words a thought-out statement rather than a question.
Dawson nodded but didn’t clarify, and Gage felt like his head was going to explode. His brother took his job and oaths seriously. He wouldn’t break them. And the fact that Sloane had gone to him in the first place?
Merida, what have you done?
“You said when she gets back. Does that mean she plans to return?” Cole asked.
Gage didn’t breathe as he waited for Dawson to answer, the lump of anger and anguish in his throat choking him.
“She said,” Dawson shifted his gaze to Gage, “she’d be back by Christmas, to keep you here in town, and to tell you…she still didn’t do casual. I take it you know what that means?”
Gage lowered himself to the stool when his legs gave out beneath him. He ground his head into his hands, emotions rolling through him faster than he could work through them.