CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
FROM AN ANGEL
Meghan Kinney couldn't remember ever feeling so anxious before in her life.
Sure, there had been moments of nauseating trepidation throughout her thirty-one years on this earth.
When she learned her parents were getting divorced … though it was unsurprising, as they'd never gotten along well, and she'd been awfully observant of that fact at an incredibly young age.
When, at a town board meeting, Mayor Connie Fischer announced that an ex-convict would be moving to their very quaint, very safe little town and working at Connie’s husband's grocery store.
Not that Meghan was incapable of having an open mind and giving even the most undesirable of people a chance to redeem themselves.
Her uncle Ryan had spent his share of nights in the River Canyon Police Department holding tank, and she still loved him dearly.
But she knew her uncle Ryan. She’d known him since she was born, and she knew that he was, at his core, a good man, and not knowing if Soldier Mason was also a good man shook her up.
Until she met him, that was, and immediately, she had known there was nothing to fear about the gentle giant who'd taken up residence in the trailer-park community on the outskirts of town.
There was also that moment when she'd answered the call from a young boy, crying as he raced through the pouring rain on his way to the police station.
She remained calm and even-toned, of course.
It was her job to do so. But beneath her collectively wrinkle-free exterior, she struggled to understand how a man could be here, in her town, with the intent of ending the lives of residents she knew.
She struggled to imagine a life without them walking the sidewalks and maintaining their positions at the library and grocery store.
She had struggled to envision how the world would continue to turn regardless of whether they lived another day or not.
And right now, as the clock on the wall continued to tick away the minutes, she struggled to hold on to the last bit of her composure while pacing the length of her living room, glancing out the window every other second or so.
Because that boy she'd spoken to on the phone thirteen years ago, Noah Mason, was now her fiancé, and she couldn't possibly hold her phone any tighter, wishing desperately he would call.
He'd texted her hours ago to tell her he was on his way from his aunt's house in Salem, Massachusetts. She opened that text again now, just to triple-check the time stamp, in case she'd been wrong, in case she'd misread, only to find that, no, she'd been right.
He'd sent that text at six thirty a.m., and it was now two p.m.
Even with traffic, it shouldn't have taken him more than five hours, six if she was being generous, to come home to her … and it'd been almost eight.
Of course, she'd tried calling him. Of course, she'd texted. More times than she could count. And with every call unanswered and every text unread, she was drawn closer and closer to unimaginable panic.
But she was used to remaining calm in tense situations, and every time her hands began to tremble uncontrollably, she told herself traffic might've been worse than expected.
There could've been accidents along the way.
He might've gotten held up, talking to his aunt and uncle.
He might've taken a wrong turn somewhere and was being rerouted by his car's navigation system.
But that clock wouldn't stop ticking, and with every minute she left behind, she was closer to knowing those reasonable explanations were nothing more than Band-Aids to keep her chest from cracking open and bleeding out with the certain knowledge that something was wrong.
Something was undoubtedly wrong.
Looking out the front window, wishing desperately that he'd turn into the driveway in that moment to keep her worry from growing, she laid a hand over her belly.
Nestled safely inside was the baby she and Noah had made after nearly a year of trying, and now, she struggled to envision a life in which she lived in this house without him, raising their baby without him, visiting his parents and hers without him …
Meghan had kept herself from crying all day, but she began to cry now as she wondered how she could ever reiterate to their child just how much his or her parents had loved each other in their short life together.
“God, Noah, where are you?” she whispered into the empty living room as she dropped her gaze from the window to her phone once again.
She knew she needed to make a phone call, but this one wouldn't be sent to the love of her life.
I'm sorry, she mouthed to him, to the universe, an apology she'd give to his face when she hopefully saw him again—oh, dear God, please let me see him again—as she held her phone to her ear and waited for his father, the gentle giant, Soldier Mason, to answer, knowing that he would.
He always did.