Chapter Twenty-nine – Out Go The Lights
Chapter Twenty-nine
Beckett
OUT GO THE LIGHTS
Performed by Lonestar
TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO
HIM: The reception was nice, and Fallon seems happy. I’m glad.
HER: I can hear the doubt in your voice all the way here.
HIM: Where is here?
HER: I’m in a hotel room at the ranch.
HIM: Feel like hanging out? Or do you have company? Did one of Parker’s teammates actually close the deal they were attempting to bring home all night?
HER: Ha. You’re funny. No. I’m alone.
HIM: You shouldn’t be.
HER: According to you, I always choose the wrong guy, so I’ve decided to abstain until I find the right one.
HIM: And none of the SEALs were it?
HER: SEALs have a reputation for one-night stands. I’m ready for a guy who knows I’m worth keeping.
HIM: You’re worth far more than just keeping, Maise. You’re worth complete worship. Any guy lucky enough to catch you better be ready to bring down the moon and stars and serve them to you on a silver platter.
PRESENT DAY
I wasn’t sure I had a pulse anymore. For a brief moment, I was annoyed I hadn’t been able to drag it out longer.
That I hadn’t taken her up and over the edge of release at least one more time before I’d let go.
But the moment Maisey had erupted, the moment she’d gone limp, giving me not only her body but her mind and her soul, I’d lost any semblance of control that had remained.
I’d been spellbound by the gift that was her.
How had I been so stupid as to have denied us this for so long?
I silently vowed that this, this feeling we had when joined together, would be my primary driving force for the rest of my life.
I’d do the job I’d been trained to do. I’d enjoy the job and give it my all, but it would never be more important than Maisey. Never more important than what we were when we were together.
I rolled to my side so I could hold her tighter without crushing her.
“I’ll have to find you an appropriate medal,” she laughed, placing a kiss on my chest. “You definitely delivered as advertised.”
“You rushed me,” I grunted out. “That wasn’t award-deserving, darlin’.”
“Rushed? That was hardly rushed.” She shook her head, her face alight with happiness. And that look, full of satisfaction and love, made me hard all over again. Feeling it pressed against her stomach, her breath hitched in that way that only ignited me more.
“This time”—I rolled so I was on my back, and she was on top—“we’ll start here, and I will taste every single nip and corner of you. I will hear you chant my name at least two more times before we finish.”
She sat up, straddling me, and I shifted so she couldn’t take me in yet. My hands moved, squeezing, twisting, and soothing, and I watched with satisfaction as that blush covered every single inch of her perfect skin, and her pale eyes turned a dark forest green once more. She whimpered in pleasure.
“If you’re successful in your mission, Fireball, I’ll build a monument to you in town.”
I picked her up and centered her core over my mouth. “Challenge accepted, my Maisey-girl. Challenge accepted.”
And I spent the next few hours showing her just how successful I could be.
? ? ?
An incessant buzzing jerked me awake. I wasn’t on duty, but if an all-hands situation came across the wire, I’d be called in anyway. My heart sank at the idea of leaving the hotel room. Leaving her.
With Maisey spooned up against me, her back to my front, I had no desire to move. No desire to know what disaster had struck that required me to answer a call and leave the woman I’d just sworn I’d never be without again.
A second buzzing joined the first. Both our phones were vibrating from wherever we’d left them.
Shit.
I slowly unknotted my arms and legs from hers, rolling off the bed.
I searched the floor for my pants and the phone tucked in the pocket.
I glanced back at her as I yanked it out.
She’d sat up, and the spun silk of her hair spread around her face and chest. Her eyelids were heavy and sated.
All I wanted to do was throw my phone away, crawl back onto the bed, and take her all over again.
“Is that my phone too?” she asked.
I nodded, glancing down at a string of text messages. What I saw had ice hitting my veins.
The calls hadn’t all been from dispatch at the firehouse. Most of them were from Fallon.
Maisey was halfway to me, naked and beautiful, when my gaze lifted from the phone to find hers.
She pressed a hand to her stomach in alarm. “What? What is it?”
I hated that I was going to be the one to not only burst the bubble of love and happiness we’d found but to send her into a spiral of worry and fear.
“It’s your dad. He’s missing.”
She wobbled. I took one stride and caught her before she hit the floor. For two seconds, I made soothing noises, and then she was pushing away, out of my arms, and running to pull her phone from the clutch she’d tossed aside last night.
She’d already dialed as I scrambled into jeans and a T-shirt and began shoving all our items into the luggage.
“Fallon! What happened?” she demanded.
I handed her the first items of clothing I found as Fallon’s voice, full of remorse, came back over the speaker. “I’m not sure, Maisey. Mom said when she went by her guest room this morning, the door was already open. She thought Lewis was in the kitchen, but he wasn’t.”
“He doesn’t have a car with him. Where could he go?” Maisey’s voice cracked, and my heart did right along with it. Her fear and anguish scored the tender pink muscle more than my own would have.
I rubbed my chest.
Maisey dumped her bathroom items into her luggage, and we were out the door in a frenzied rush as we listened to Fallon.
“Teddy went down to the resort right away, thinking maybe Lewis had gone to the barn. But no one there had seen him. Mom called us after that, and we mobilized the staff. Parker has called in search and rescue, and everyone is assembling at the castle now.”
More of the messages on my phone were a slew of those alerts. SRFD wasn’t the first call for search and rescue, but if the terrain was rough, or more bodies were needed, we were pulled in.
“You have him on your Find Family app, right?” Fallon asked.
“Yes. You’re right. I didn’t even think.” Maisey swiped through the screens on her phone. “I don’t understand. He’s not there. His phone isn’t showing.”
Confusion bled in with her worry. My hand slid up her back, trying to comfort her, but she shrugged away from it as the elevator doors opened in the lobby.
“We’re leaving,” she told Fallon. “We’re heading to the parking lot. But it’ll take us an hour at least…” A sob escaped before she locked her emotions down. “We’re on our way.”
“I’m sorry, Maisey. I’m sorry to call you at all when I know last night was—” She cut herself off. “He might turn up before you even get here.”
“I hope… God, I hope he does.”
As they hung up, I handed off our room keys to the receptionist, and we ran for the revolving doors.
It was early yet, but the sun should have been out, baking the earth in the heat of summer.
Instead, dark clouds greeted us. The pavement was wet, and the air was heavy with the scent of rain.
A storm had blown in last night, and we hadn’t even noticed.
We’d been too lost in the storm of our own making.
As we sprinted toward my SUV, lightning cracked in the distance, and a few seconds later, thunder boomed. Maisey startled, and I longed to soothe her, but instead, I reached past her to open the passenger door, and she dove in.
I flung our bags in the back and raced around to the driver’s side.
We were on the road, my foot heavy on the gas pedal, before she spoke again.
“He’s out in the rain…”
“We’ll find him, Maisey. I’m sure he just took a walk.”
She scoffed. “Dad doesn’t do nature willingly. That was all my mom. He only worked the farm at all to make her happy. And after she died, we’d needed the money, so he’d sold it all, but it was also because he couldn’t imagine doing it without her.”
My heart twisted for her and for Lewis. He’d lost the love of his life, and I now understood what that meant. I couldn’t respond over the pain that just the idea shot through me.
Her voice was rough and raw when she said, “If his memory is playing tricks again, he’ll be confused and disoriented by all the changes at the ranch.”
The ball in my stomach felt weighted with all the unhappy possibilities. The cliffs and rivers and caves on the Harrington property were dangerous to someone not in their right mind. Hell, they could be dangerous to someone simply not paying full attention to their surroundings.
Add in the storm, and things could get messy quickly.
When we were only a few minutes away from Swift Rivers, Fallon called again with another update. The staff hadn’t found him yet, but the canine unit Sheriff Wylee had requested had picked up a trail. It headed up into the hills instead of down to the ranch.
A horrible thought slithered through me as we drove through the steady downpour. Was this something worse than her dad having wandered off after another mental break? Was this whoever had been coming for Maisey, for us, coming for him?
My mouth went dry, remembering again the Sterno spread around Lewis’s kitchen. Maybe the attacks really had started there rather than with the note on Maisey’s truck. But I kept the idea to myself. Maisey didn’t need me to add more worries to the ones she already carried.
By the time we pulled up to the barn beyond the castle, Maisey was wrung so tight I thought she might shatter at a mere touch. I’d barely put the car in park before she was out and running toward the barn.
“Maisey!” I called out to her, but she didn’t stop.
I had to run flat-out to catch up with her. Usually, ranch hands and guests would have filled the space by this time of the morning, especially with the Fourth of July festivities looming tomorrow. Instead, the barn was eerily empty. The storm and the search had cleared it out.