Chapter Two
W hen the man turned his familiar cool-blue gaze on Sage, she staggered back two steps. He reached out to steady her, his warm hand and strong fingers closing around her forearm.
“Give us a minute,” Jake said to the dog’s handler.
The dark-haired woman nodded while giving Sage a sympathetic smile.
It was the sympathy in the woman’s expression that shook Sage from her shock. “I don’t need a minute,” she said, pulling her arm free.
Jake had always been bossy, as well as so ridiculously hot that being in the same room with him had left her tongue-tied and made her toes curl even though she’d pretty much despised the guy growing up.
He’d been Sunshine Bay’s resident bad boy: cool, popular, and always in trouble.
If it hadn’t been for Alice taking him under her wing when he was in tenth grade, he would have wound up in jail.
Her eyes narrowed on his too-handsome face. “What are you doing here?” As far as she knew, he didn’t live in Sunshine Bay and hadn’t visited in years.
It wasn’t as if she kept tabs on him. Alice sometimes shared updates on his life, whether Sage wanted to hear them or not.
He’d enlisted in the military not long after high school.
He was married and lived in San Diego. Every winter, Alice took off a week to visit him there.
His family, the Walkers, lived in Sunshine Bay.
But they were bad news and the reason Alice had taken Jake into her home all those years ago.
Sage crossed her arms when he simply looked at her with an eyebrow raised. “What are you doing with Alice’s jacket?” A hint of accusation had slid into her voice, unintentionally, of course.
He’d heard it too, she surmised when he gave his head a slight irritated shake and said, “You haven’t changed, have you?”
She didn’t cower under the weight of his intimidating stare.
He’d have to do a lot better than that if he thought to unnerve her.
She’d dealt with men far scarier than Jake Walker in the past five years.
Men who were used to things going their way—men with the means to hire unsavory characters to do their dirty work otherwise—and not once had she backed down or given in to their threats.
One of the search coordinators began calling out instructions to the volunteers, waving them forward. They moved toward a trail leading up the hill and into the woods.
The dark-haired woman approached, offering them both an apologetic smile. “We’re going to head out.”
“Right.” Jake handed Alice’s jacket to the woman. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said, offering his thanks before returning his attention to Sage.
Sage’s grip tightened on her cell phone as she watched the woman hold the plaid flannel to the dogs’ noses. She focused on the sound of Jake’s voice, willing the weakness from her knees.
“I got in late last night and stayed at the inn. Alice and I had planned to meet up at the farmhouse this morning. She wanted me to get rid of a waterbed for her and to give her a hand organizing her office. When she didn’t show at the farm or answer her cell phone, I went to the house.
She wasn’t there, so I called Kendra. Her assistant,” he added at Sage’s blank stare.
“She couldn’t reach Alice either. We walked through the house and the farmhouse, but there was no sign of her, and no sign she’d been in either place all night. ”
“What about Max?” Max was Alice’s beloved Maine coon cat. He was a beautiful black tabby measuring four feet long with a tail like a raccoon, and he hated Sage. Alice thought it was hilarious. According to her, Max loved everyone, especially Jake.
“Max was at the house. He hadn’t been fed.”
“You can’t go to the worst-case scenario just because of that, Jake. The police could be wrong.”
He nodded. “I don’t buy their theory that Alice was hit by a car, but she did take a fall, and she was hurt.”
“How do you know she wasn’t hit by a car?” Why was she being defensive? Alice not being hit by a car was the best-case scenario, and she’d just said the police could be wrong.
“Because I was the one who sent the photo of the bike to SBPD. The damage isn’t consistent with being struck by a car. It looked like she’d veered into oncoming traffic and lost control of the bike and ended up in the ditch. Tire marks indicated a car had swerved, braking hard to avoid her.”
She couldn’t bear the thought of Alice out there alone and hurt, which was probably why she asked, again with a defensive edge in her voice, “How can you be sure she’s hurt? Maybe—”
Jake cut her off with a frustrated sigh. They’d fallen back into their old patterns. She’d get defensive and snippy with him, and he’d get frustrated and annoyed with her.
“I had a chance to look around before anyone compromised the scene. Alice was… She’s hurt, okay.
She had to have been lying there for at least a couple of hours.
The grass was still flattened, and from the blood splatter…
Anyway, it looked to me like she sustained a head injury.
If I’m right, she didn’t regain consciousness until well after dark.
It would explain why no one saw her on the road. ”
“Or stopped to help her,” Sage murmured, turning her head. She sniffed, swiping a finger under her lashes to catch a wayward tear, grateful when Jake let the action pass without commenting on her inability to keep her emotions in check. “What about her cell phone?”
“I didn’t find it at the farm or the house, and it wasn’t at the scene.
” He held up his own. “I’ve being calling her every fifteen minutes.
SBPD put in a request with her provider to trace her phone, but it could take hours…
if her cell’s even on.” He glanced at the trail.
“I need to join the search party. Will you be okay on your own?”
She didn’t miss the way his gaze moved over her face, looking for any hint of weakness. She lifted her chin. “I’m fine,” she said, and went to walk past him.
His fingers closed around her bicep, gentle but firm. “You’re not joining the search.”
She peeled his hand from her arm. “Yes, I am, and there’s nothing you can say or do to stop me from looking for Alice, so get out of my way.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Look, I’m not trying to tell you what to do. It’s just… you’re not dressed for it.”
She might be wearing sneakers, but she couldn’t dispute the fact that her skirt and blouse weren’t suitable for searching the woods. “That’s not what you were going to say, is it?”
“Of course it is. Why…” He shook his head when she crossed her arms and stared him down. “Fine. You want the truth? I don’t want you there in case we find her. I don’t want your last memory of—”
She reached up, placing her hand over his mouth, desperate to stop him from stealing her hope. “Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it.”
His warm lips pressed what felt like a tender kiss to her palm, and her breath hitched in response. He lowered her hand from his mouth, the tension in his jaw suddenly relaxing as he looked past her. “Your family’s here. Stay with them, okay?”
She nodded, too stunned by her reaction to the feel of his lips on her skin to do anything else.
He handed her his phone. “Put in your number. I’ll text you updates when I have them.”
She did as he said, hesitating before handing it back to him. She searched his face as he’d searched hers only moments before. “Maybe you shouldn’t go either. It will be as hard on you as it would be on me if you, if they…” She still couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
“I was special forces, Sage. I—” Someone yelled out, and his gaze shot to the woods. He took off at a run. “Keep Sage away,” he ordered her family as he sprinted past them and up the hill, stopping when the two women and their dogs walked out of the woods, their expressions somber.
The dark-haired woman hugged Jake. He nodded at whatever she was saying to him. He took a moment before glancing back at Sage. He held her gaze and slowly shook his head and then disappeared into the trees.
She moved to run after him, but her sister and mother darted in front of her, each of them grabbing her by an arm. “Let me go! He shouldn’t be doing this on his own.”
“He doesn’t want you there, honey. He’s trying to protect you. Let him. Please,” her mother begged before she and Sage’s sister sandwiched her in a hug.
“We’re here for you,” Willow said, holding her tight. “You don’t have to go through this on your own.”
Sage’s grandmother and aunt joined in the group hug. Sage, her head on her mother’s shoulder, hadn’t needed to see Cami to know she was there. She’d felt her mother stiffen.
Taking a steadying breath, Sage wiped her eyes and moved out of her family’s comforting embrace. She didn’t have the bandwidth to play intermediary today. “Thank you. I’ll be okay. It’s just…” She swallowed, barely managing to get the words out. “It’s a shock.”
She had to shut away thoughts about Alice and the accident, her guilt over not being there for her friend, her sorrow over losing her. When she was alone, curled up on her bed at her condo, Sage would let her feelings out.
The last members of the search party walked out of the woods and down the hill. Jake wasn’t with them. She pressed her lips together to hold back a sob, unable to stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks.
Her mother slid an arm around Sage’s waist when two paramedics walked up the hill carrying a stretcher between them. They were followed by three police officers, one holding a roll of yellow tape in his hand.
The sight of the police tape took Sage’s breath away. The officers and the green of the trees merged as everything in front of her blurred and spun. She placed her hands on her knees and bent over, pushing her breath through her clenched teeth.
“You don’t need to be here for this. Let me take you home,” her mother said, rubbing Sage’s back. “I’ll make you a nice grilled eggplant caprese. You’ll feel better once you eat.”