Chapter 2 Lara
Lara
Calder Stone was wildly, ruggedly handsome. Still.
My heart thundered against my ribs as I stared at the proverbial cardboard cutout of my memory of my sister’s college boyfriend.
Everything from his clipped dark-brown hair and murky hazel eyes to the trimmed stubble of his beard was all familiar.
Even his style—dark pants and plain gray tee—hadn’t changed in all these years.
But had Calder always been this tall? This broad? My chest tightened as I met his stare. And had his eyes always had those gold flecks?
Maybe there was some kind of Tuck Everlasting fountain of youth hidden in this wilderness, because the silver-haired man who’d greeted me at the front door, with a slight frown eerily similar to the one his son wore now, was also age-defyingly handsome.
Calder’s jaw clenched, and my breath snagged, watching the flex of his masseter highlight the hard edge of his jawline and the pulse of his temporalis echo his frustration.
God. Even after a dozen years, it was hard not to lose myself in the mental anatomy lessons that would run through my premed head every time Rachel had brought him around.
Human musculature as taught by a bare-chested Calder Stone was far more captivating than any textbook illustration or lab examination of dissected cadavers from class.
Though I’d tried to frame my fascination as educational, there was no denying my attraction to my sister’s boyfriend. Not even now. But attraction was biology, not rationality. If physical chemistry were logical, I wouldn’t feel warmth in the presence of the man who’d broken my sister’s heart.
“What do you mean, Rachel’s missing?” His calm voice rippled through the room.
Calder was always calm. No. Calm wasn’t the right word. Calder was a mutation of confidence, composure, and just a hint of coldness topped with a charming smile. It was that slight aloofness that had made him attractive to Rachel . . . and destroyed her when they broke up.
I shook off the surge of anger. It wouldn’t get me anywhere, especially since Calder was my best chance at finding my sister.
“I mean she’s missing. I haven’t heard from her in weeks. She’s not answering her phone. She’s not at her apartment. And I think her new boyfriend might have something to do with it.”
His stance widened and his dark brows furrowed.
“Okay. Missing and in danger are two very different scenarios,” he said, explaining the shift in his demeanor. His voice, however, still remained calm. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
He motioned to the closest of the two recliners in the room, silently offering for me to take a seat, but I declined with a shake of my head; I couldn’t sit.
Even at the hospital, I’d dictate my notes at the end of my shift while pacing along the hall.
I needed movement to keep my thoughts on track—to keep them from running away from me.
“Three weeks ago, Rachel FaceTimed me just as I got off my overnight shift at the hospital. She wanted to tell me she was going on some big camping trip with her new boyfriend, Brandon.” I took a few steps along the shorter side of the room, reaching the chair, and then turned and walked back. “I was . . . not supportive.”
Wordlessly, Calder stepped behind the opposite recliner and rested his hands on the back, subtly opening a path for me to pace the full length of the room.
“We argued. Brandon got involved and got angry and hung up on me. She didn’t answer when I called back, so I figured I’d give it a few days and then check on her again. I texted and then called. No response. Straight to voicemail. A few more days, same thing.”
“Has she done this before?”
I stopped, my back to him, though I was sure he caught the slight dip of my head.
“Yeah,” I confessed, forcing myself to cauterize any emotion from my answer, though I couldn’t remove the thickness from my voice.
“We argued frequently about her relationship choices, and there’ve been a handful of times where she’ll just stop talking to me for a little. ”
“So why is this time different?”
I didn’t realize how tense—how braced—I’d been until I heard no trace of doubt in his voice and all the stiffness in my body suddenly released. It was the complete opposite from the response I’d received from the Jackson police earlier today. All they’d had for me was doubt. Doubt and dismissal.
She’s an adult. She told you she was going on a trip. There’s probably just no service. All I’d heard was She’s not important enough.
I turned and my eyes connected with Calder’s hard stare, a shot of heat injecting into my veins.
“Because usually when I threaten to come and see her, she responds right away to stop me. And this time . . . well, I’m here.
” I held my hands out from my sides because I was the proof.
Because me being here meant Rach had never responded to stop me, which she would’ve done if she were okay, which meant she wasn’t.
My sister wasn’t okay, and I felt responsible.
“Okay.” Calder nodded. “I’ll need all of her information. Phone number. Address. And what about the boyfriend? What’s his full name, and do you have a phone number?”
“I don’t know his last name or phone number,” I admitted, guilt and regret wrapping my throat in a caustic blanket. “Rachel doesn’t share a lot about her relationships with me anymore. We’re not as close as we used to be.”
The bond between sisters was a funny thing.
At times, it was the strongest tether two people could have, and it had been strong for us growing up.
Our dad left when we were young, and after that our mom wasn’t home much, and when she was, her own traumatic relationships pushed Rachel and me even closer.
Unfortunately, as we’d grown older, strong became brittle.
When I’d seen my sister falling into the same toxic traps our mom had with men, I spoke up.
I confronted her. I told her she deserved better.
But instead of avoiding the traps, she’d started avoiding me.
An easy feat, when my residency took me to Arizona.
“I have her information in my phone,” I offered and reached for my purse.
“I took a screenshot of Brandon while we were on FaceTime when he started yelling, because I just knew something bad was going to happen.” My fingers paused on the zipper, remembering my phone wasn’t inside. “But your dad . . . took my phone.”
Calder’s lips thinned into a straight line. “Right,” he muttered. “Come with me.”
He led us back through the house and then outside. Crouching, he unlocked the discreet metal box that, on first glance, looked like a mailbox next to the door. He retrieved my cell and his, leaving at least one more phone still inside.
“Sorry about that,” he said and handed me back my phone. “Cassius’s house rules.”
Cassius. I wasn’t sure what I found more interesting: the extent of these rules or that Calder called his father by his first name.
“Rachel always said your family took being off-grid seriously.”
“Any technology that can find you can be used against you,” Calder returned like he’d been made to repeat the mantra hundreds of times before. Not a mantra—a rule.
Back then I’d assumed my sister was exaggerating, since Calder lived more or less like a normal college student on campus, aside from the not drinking and rarely partying part, which was only abnormal when compared to the college experience my sister wanted to have.
Rachel was extroverted and loved to go out. Loved to dance. To drink. To have too much of a good time. And for a while, the only thing she enjoyed more than partying was the attention she got for being Calder’s girlfriend.
Calder was considered a wrestling prodigy at Wyoming State.
I couldn’t tell you how many championships he’d won, but it was enough to earn him campus-wide fame, shooting him to unexpected celebrity at a school where football was king.
What my sister initially relished about that celebrity—all the invitations to exclusive campus parties—quickly soured when Calder never wanted to take advantage of them.
Almost religiously, she’d call me every week complaining that Calder didn’t want to go to some party—or if they did go, how boring he was because he didn’t want to let loose.
I should’ve said something then, when it was easy. Suggest maybe they weren’t right for each other. But I’d stayed out of it because I thought Calder was a good influence on her. I’d thought he could calm her. Steady her with his reserve. Instead, it’d only gotten worse.
I hit the power button on my phone and waited for it to turn on.
“This way,” Calder said, and walked down the three steps leading off the porch.
I stared at first, thinking he had to be going to my car or his truck—if that was even his truck—because there was nothing else here, but he turned and walked right by them.
Jogging to catch up, I followed him along the front of the house, unable to stop myself from admiring how those pants fit his gluteus maximus.
Like cosmic punishment, my boot caught on a rock and made me stumble. Calder glanced over his shoulder. If he caught me staring at his ass, he didn’t let on.
I really needed to stop cataloging every well-defined muscle belonging to my sister’s ex-boyfriend.
“I take it Rachel told you where my family lived,” he said, heading deeper into the property until the gravel drive tapered into wild grass.
“She mentioned . . . described coming here.” That one time.
My sister hadn’t been a model girlfriend by any stretch of the imagination, but that didn’t absolve Calder for how he’d treated her that night.
Even days later, when she’d told me what happened, she could hardly get the words out over her sobs.
She’d had many breakups before, but I’d never heard her devastation quite like that.
“And I assume you’ve gone to the police?”