Chapter 24
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
She wasn’t picking up.
Sawyer clicked off after leaving another voicemail. Surely Phoebe hadn’t missed her flight? Her plane had arrived on time.
Four hours ago.
Long enough to take a shower. Even if she’d fallen asleep, she would have called or texted. Because she’d been as excited as he had to meet. She’d even used the word feast.
He fingered the bouquet of flowers and the bottle of wine he was planning on bringing over to celebrate her return.
Something wasn’t right.
His chest tightened, and he took a couple of deep breaths to ease the tension strangling him. He didn’t want to panic, but he’d seen the first Taken movie. It was set in Paris. God, his mind was spewing out mayday scenarios.
Maybe he should head over to her place. But if she was there, why wasn’t she picking up or answering his texts?
“You’re still here, Doc? Was Phoebe’s flight delayed?”
He glanced over. Kyle stood in the open door of his bedroom.
“No, and I’m starting to worry. We were supposed to get together after she’d showered.
I’ve called and texted. No response. Man, this whole being in love thing will drive you crazy.
I’m worried about her being in a real-life version of Taken. ”
“All right, that’s going off the deep end, even for you.” He came over and put two comforting hands on his shoulders. “First, breathe. Then let’s think this through. Tell me what you know.”
By the end, Kyle’s eyes were more narrowed, but his assuring smile was still in place. “I’m going with the whole she fell asleep scenario. You know how fun those transatlantic flights are.”
He did. Didn’t make him feel less jumpy. Something was wrong. He just knew it. “I’m going to swing by her place and see if she’s home. I can’t wait. If she’s not—then I’ll know. If she’s asleep, she won’t care if I wake her up.”
“I’ll come with you, Doc. Just in case there’s some scary dude outside her apartment.”
He knew Kyle was trying to make him laugh, but he couldn’t manage it. He scooped up the wine and the flowers and headed down the stairs. At the door, Kyle tossed him his coat, which he’d forgotten about, and they were off.
Phoebe’s apartment wasn’t very far, and yeah, he felt a little self-conscious as he walked across the street and tried to see if the lights were on in her apartment. Kyle only watched him, his brow furrowed, smiling pleasantly at people passing them on the sidewalk.
“Maybe you should just ring her apartment,” Kyle called out.
Yeah, probably. Paris might be a bustling city, but someone might call the cops on him if he kept trying to peep into her window. Rushing across the pavement, he rang the call button. Once. Twice. Three times.
“She’s not answering.”
This is what he’d become. A man who stated the obvious with his guts in knots.
But now he knew something was wrong. God, surely nothing bad had happened at Beverly’s party?
But what could have? His mind spewed out another crazy scenario about her and Beverly getting into a fight over which artist was greater, Picasso or Monet.
Nuts. He was nuts.
“Why don’t you leave her a note?” Kyle pulled out a slim notepad of good cardstock and a pen from the lining of his jacket.
A message was probably smart, but he couldn’t refrain from hitting the button again.
And again. Kyle only watched him, his mouth twisting.
Yeah, this was what he’d been reduced to.
Dr. Sawyer Jackson, PhD, with published articles in respectable academic journals, tapping the call button to his girlfriend’s apartment like a two-year-old with a new drum set.
“Hey!”
Phoebe’s voice.
He looked up, his heart skyrocketing with joy. She was hanging out her window, her red hair glinting fire in the sunlight. “You’re home!”
“Yes!” she shouted. “Stop pushing my call button. If I wanted to talk to you, I would.”
Her words struck him with the force of a moving truck. She didn’t want to talk to him?
Something inside him died. Maybe it was him falling to the earth and splatting on the ground. He strode over and looked up at her tight expression. “Why don’t you want to talk to me? What the hell happened?”
Her green eyes could have hurled fireballs at him. “What happened? Do you know where your agent is planning to have your first show?”
Duh. Why would that make her mad? “Yes. The Anderson Gallery.”
He heard the gasp before she shouted, “Thank you for clearing that up!”
Then she disappeared from sight and slammed the window.
He stood there looking up at the second floor. He could hear his breathing change, anxiety causing him to pant. His lungs had pretty much melted like plastic on a hot stove.
Kyle’s hand landed on his shoulder, shifting his attention. Maybe he had a sudden case of brain fever because he couldn’t make sense of what just happened. “I don’t understand.”
“I have my suspicions,” Kyle ground out, steering him down the sidewalk as he pulled out his phone. “But I think we should go over to Brooke and Axel’s and then call your agent. It’s still a little early in New York, but you have her cell info, right?”
“Stored in my phone.”
“Good.” Kyle pulled out his phone and talked to Brooke, telling her they needed to come over before clicking off. “Okay, I’m calling a car. We’re going to figure this out.”
The more steps he took, the more grounded he became. “You don’t think Beverly is thinking the London gallery for the show, do you? I asked if she knew Phoebe. We—”
Kyle’s mouth twisted as he trailed off. “It’s the only explanation that makes sense. But you should confirm it.”
He looked back over his shoulder, the pain throbbing in his body unlike any he’d ever known. This was what the poets called the agony of love. He hated it. “But I want to talk to Phoebe—”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you right now, and we need her to calm down and for you to be better prepared to handle things when you see her again. Because you will, Sawyer. This is all a terrible misunderstanding.”
How could a misunderstanding hurt like this? “Romeo and Juliet had a misunderstanding, and look how that worked out. With both of them taking poison and dying.”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Kyle put both hands on his shoulders and got in his face, his blue eyes fiery.
“This is where I tell you to stop spiraling out of control. No one is going to take poison and die here. We are going to put our heads together and act like adults. You’ve got an agent now.
You’re going to talk to her like a professional.
This is just a huge blowup, but you two will get over it. Got it?”
He nodded. The car pulled up and Kyle opened the door and pushed him inside, greeting the driver with a tight smile. “If she won’t talk to you, then she’s not the woman any of us think she is. But I don’t believe that. She’s crazy upset. We figure out why. We fix it. You two make up. All right?”
He nodded, because he couldn’t lose her. “I hear you.”
“Since you like quotes, I’m giving you one of my favorites from Richard Branson. Screw it; let’s do it. You with me?”
Panic was making deep cuts in his throat as he sucked in a breath, but he nodded again. “All the way and back.”
“Good. I’m texting the others to be on standby for Operation Sawyer—not Thea and Jean Luc—so don’t look so stricken.”
“I wouldn’t mess up their honeymoon for anything.” He laid his head back against the back seat, his head pounding from the lack of oxygen. “Don’t text Madison. She’s working—”
“Not how this works, Doc. Your friends get to know what’s up. She doesn’t have to do anything, but I won’t have her feeling left out.”
His chat with Madison last night in the kitchen came to mind. “She’s torn, you know. Between wanting to be with you and playing it safe.”
Kyle’s laugh was harsh. “You think I don’t know that? But let’s focus on one tough girl at a time. I laid my heart on the floor last night, and Madison knows it.”
What would she do? God, he couldn’t think about that right now.
“Around the corner,” Kyle told the driver in French when he paused to look at his online map.
When they turned, Sawyer’s heart flipped over. Brooke was waiting for them outside, tapping her wicked red Louboutin heel on the sidewalk in a heavy coat, smoking. “She only smokes when she’s upset.”
“She loves you, Doc.” Kyle thanked the driver and opened the door. “We all do.”
Kyle kissed Brooke on the cheek, but she engulfed Sawyer in his arms as soon as he shut the car door. “Oh, Sawyer! I’m so sorry this happened. Come inside. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
He let her pull him along through Axel’s beautiful landscape, something that failed to awe him and give him peace like usual.
Axel was waiting in the doorway in one of his bulky Nordic sweaters, his large brow tense.
“Welcome, although I wish you were here for another reason. Come and share with us what happened.”
He was dimly aware of Brooke helping him out of his coat as he ran through what he knew.
“That Beverly meant her mother’s gallery even though I asked if she knew Phoebe?
After giving Beverly Phoebe’s card and telling her she was one of the interested galleries?
It hadn’t dawned on me once this was a possibility. Does that make me stupid?”
“No, only literal.” Brooke stored Kyle and Sawyer’s coats in the side closet before stripping off her own and hanging it there, directing them down the hall to the den where a warm fire was blazing. “You’d better call Beverly.”
He sank onto the long cream sofa, resting his hands on his knees, feeling exhausted. Brooke sat down next to him, putting a hand on his arm. Even though she was wearing a soft pants set in a red cashmere, her face looked hard. Strained.
He dug out his phone. “I really do feel stupid. I’ve put the ‘ass’ in the assumption thing.”
“Stop beating yourself up.” Brooke pointed to the sofa for him to rest his phone there. “Call Beverly and put her on speaker.”