Chapter 21
Gage thumped the steering wheel as he stared at the elevator doors.
Just where in the world had Carly gone? His call to Mitchelle Tims had been promising.
Already, the two had a plan underway to clear Carly’s name and seek a public apology.
Not only that, he was pretty certain they could get the press to cooperate in leaving Carly alone while he was in Maui.
He was dying to let Carly in on his plan.
Hopefully she hasn’t seen the article yet.
Only somehow he knew that she had. Headlights crawled slowly over the blacktop ahead, announcing the oncoming of another guest. Or more likely, someone from the valet service.
But what was this? Something familiar glistened beneath the lights.
A quarter-sized pendant—like the one Carly wore.
Gage gave the horn a honk, then flung open his door and rushed into the car’s path while waving his arms. “Stop, please.”
The driver laid on the horn as it screeched to a stop. “What are you doing?” came a grumpy-sounding old man. Not who Gage expected to be driving a BMW, but it explained why he’d been driving so slowly.
Gage squinted against the brightness. “I’m sorry. I dropped something important and you’re about to run over it. Can you just pull the parking brake for a moment and I’ll pick it up?”
“My foot’s on the brake, young man. That should be plenty good.”
Gage leaned over, inspecting the black tar in the headlight’s beam, but came up empty. He pulled out his phone and used the bright screen as a flashlight.
Moving slowly closer to the front passenger wheel, he shined the light around the front, then the back of the wheel. Not there.
In the same slow and thorough surveillance, Gage inspected the passenger rear, the driver’s rear tire, and walked toward the final one up front. And there it was, a millimeter away from getting flattened.
Gage reached for it, praying his hand wouldn’t get squished, and sighed as he pulled the pendant away from the tight spot. The leather string was stuck, however, beneath the tire. Gage sighed.
“It’s stuck. If you could just roll on forward, slowly, I’ll keep a grip on it and make sure it’s free.”
The man shoved his chin over the window in effort to see it. “I can’t see what you’re talking about, but whatever you say.”
The car rolled forward, and soon the string was free. Gage uttered a word of thanks to the good Lord, then gave the man a wave, holding the pendant up so he could see. “Got it.”
“Fine then.” The man drove away, leaving Gage in the parking garage, Carly’s pendant firm in his grasp. Now he just had to find Carly.
Yet as Gage strode back to his car, a thought occurred to him.
A memory, actually. Of Carly grasping the pendant just last night, between her finger and thumb as she always did.
It stood out to him because he’d come to recognize some of her triggers.
Last night’s was a commercial for diapers that had come on the TV.
The moment he’d thought to look over, Carly was already mindlessly reaching for it, stroking it to give her comfort.
“She must be distraught,” Gage mumbled as he settled behind the wheel. But the memory was an answer to a question in his head. What if Carly had already left?
It was obvious she had, seeing that she’d been wearing it inside her hotel suite just last night. If Carly caught wind of the photo leak, she’d most likely do that very thing. But where would she go? To the Royal Palm, he hoped. But wouldn’t she have taken her phone?
Gage groaned in frustration and reached for his phone. It seemed that for every potential scenario there were a dozen questions to go along with it. He hit the call button once more, praying she’d finally answer this time. Yet halfway through the very first ring, his call was sent to voicemail.
In three days Gage had to fly off to Maui.
In two days he planned to address the situation with Carly and the tabloids.
But today, right now, he was desperate to hold the woman he loved in his arms and comfort her.
Please, Lord, protect her heart right now.
Help me find her. Help me set things right.
With that, he typed out one last message to her, attaching a picture of the pendant in his fist: I found this in the parking garage. Please call me so I can bring it to you and hold you and tell you how I’m going to fix this mess.
Sure, he was assuming she knew by now, but that seemed to be the only explanation for why she’d leave and why she wouldn’t answer her phone.
He stared at the screen, willing her to return his text.
If nothing else he wanted to make sure she was okay.
What if she’d been harmed? He thought back on the way he’d been chased down the freeway, and worried she might have panicked in her distressed state and driven right off the road.
Just as his pulsed raced hard enough to hurt, his phone buzzed with a text. He straightened up as he saw who it was from. “Thank heavens,” he muttered as he tapped the text box on his screen.
Thank you so much for finding that. My heart was shattered all over again.
Please leave it with Christian for now. I overheard what you told your dad, Gage.
I don’t want to be someone you have to hide or worry over or pretend you don’t really like.
A man I love once taught me something important, and I plan to live by it: if a guy can’t act out on his love for me, then he doesn’t deserve me.
Gage stared at the phone as her words sank in. What he told his dad? What was she talking about? But then he remembered the conversation he’d had on his way up to Carly’s floor. Could that be what she’d overheard?
The phone dinged once more, delivering one final message:
I’m turning off my phone now. I plan to change my number since I don’t want to be contacted by anyone from the media. I just want all of this to go away, and it sounds like you want that too.
Gage did want the media attention to go away too. What he didn’t want was to lose Carly in the process. Determination gripped hold of him as he revved up his car and headed toward the lot exit. He’d take care of this mess, and then he’d make things right with Carly.
It’d require a lot more than words in a text to help clear things up, but that was fine by him. Gage had no intention of giving her up without a battle. Time to gather the troops.