Chapter 3 Lara #2
I’d never regretted more not pushing Rachel to give me details about Brandon—even a last name.
Calder slid a notebook out from underneath the crossword puzzle; it was the same as the ones that filled his bookshelves. He unclipped the pen from its cover and opened it to a blank page.
“And the camping trip they were going on—she didn’t tell you where specifically?” He began to scribble down notes.
I shoved aside the tinge of awkward irony, talking about my sister’s ex-boyfriends with one of them, and answered, “No.”
“Was it tent camping or camper camping?” he probed, and at my confused expression, clarified: “Many of the parks around here, you’d need a permit to camp with any kind of camper, but not for a tent.”
“Oh.” That made sense, though I didn’t know anything to make it helpful.
“She didn’t say what kind of camping,” I admitted and shook my head.
“It’s my fault. When she told me, the first thing I did was caution her.
She hasn’t known Brandon for that long, and to go into the wilderness .
. . I just . . . I don’t know. Maybe I’ve watched too many documentaries, but it didn’t seem like a good idea.
” But that was Rachel: jumping headfirst into relationships with guys who were bad news.
I blew out an exhale of frustration and took another gulp of my coffee.
“You said she FaceTimed you?”
I nodded and picked up my phone again, searching for the screenshot I’d taken during the call.
“They were at some diner I didn’t recognize. I assumed it was around here, but who knows—they could’ve been anywhere, going anywhere.” I tapped on the image of Brandon’s angry face.
Rachel’s boyfriend had a thick beard and a scar on his cheek. His features were heavyset, but it was hard to make out anything else about his face from underneath the obnoxious red hat he’d continued to wear even though they were inside.
“Here.” I showed my phone to Calder. “He wasn’t at the table when she called, because it seemed like he’d overheard only the last bit of our conversation when he grabbed the phone and . . . hung up on me.”
“What exactly did he say?” He scrutinized the image.
I swallowed. “Does it matter?”
His gaze caught mine, the gold in his eyes a little brighter. “It might.”
To whom, I wasn’t sure, but I answered anyway, bleeding all emotion from my voice as I air-quoted the asshole.
“He told me to ‘stop being a stuck-up doctor bitch’ and that I ‘shouldn’t judge my sister’s relationship when I’ve never had one of my own.
’” I frowned. “There might’ve been a fuck you at the end, too, but that was the gist of it. ”
“Sounds like a”—Calder grimaced—“real winner.”
If only he knew about the ones who’d come before Brandon. This real winner wasn’t even the worst.
“Wait.” Calder grabbed my wrist when I started to pull back.
My eyes snapped to his, heat searing from his fingertips like an IV straight into my veins.
Roughly clearing his throat, he released me. “Sorry. Can I see that again?”
Like I was handing him an organ transplant rather than a cell phone, I carefully passed it over to him, watching as he zoomed in on the screen.
His brows creased, his masseter firing spectacularly.
“That’s the Antlers Diner. I recognize the logo.
” He zoomed back out. “I’m going to send this to my phone,” he said and waited for me to nod before doing just that and then returning my phone on the table.
In the safe zone. “It’s right up 1-91 before the elk refuge. ”
I knew where the elk refuge was . . . “Is it new?”
Calder quirked his head. “Maybe three years.”
“I’ve haven’t been back since college. No wonder I didn’t recognize it.”
“Looks like we have a place to start.” Rising, he took his mug and mine to the sink.
Did that mean he was going to take Rachel’s case?
I spun around and perched on the edge of the seat, my heart beating in my throat. “So you’re going to help me?”
Calder turned, surprise breaking the veneer of his chiseled face before he rumbled, “Of course.”
Air whooshed from my lungs, and I felt my eyes start to sting. He was going to help me. He was going to find Rachel. Everything was going to be okay.
Relief hit like a narcotic. Potent and psychotic. And it was the only explanation for what I did next—something I never would’ve or should’ve done otherwise: I lunged from the table and hugged my sister’s ex-boyfriend.
What a careless mistake.
Calder Stone might have been calm and collected, but there was nothing cool about him. Nothing cold at all, in fact, about the six feet of hot male pressed like a statue against my front. Intense and imposing. All those muscles I’d cataloged now mapped in 3D to my chest.
I shouldn’t have been doing that at all, but he was the only one who could help me find Rachel. If something happened to my sister . . . I couldn’t lose anyone else.
“Thank you,” I murmured with a trembled exhale and clutched him tight, holding on to his stillness like it could keep me steady.
Without hardly moving, Calder managed to lift one arm to give me the lightest pat on the shoulder, like being embraced by a client was nothing more than an awkward cost of doing business.
Except it was more.
He might have felt like a fortress, but there was no hiding the feral thud of his heart from my cheek. It wasn’t still. It wasn’t steady. His pulse boomed like I’d injected him with 1mg of epi and brought him back to life.
“Lara . . .”
I breathed in deep, filling my lungs with the earthy scent of him: cedar and coffee mixed with just a hint of something warm. Maybe amber. And then I pulled away and banded my arms over my chest like I’d keep them better restrained in the future.
And I would.
I shouldn’t salivate over Rachel’s ex. Too bad I knew, with more medical detail than most, that attraction was chemical, not rational, so there was no stopping this . . . electricity. No matter how much I shouldn’t. No matter what he’d done.
“I can’t thank you enough, Calder,” I said quickly, creating some professional distance between us. “And I’ll pay you, of course. I have fifty thousand—”
“Lara, please,” Calder inserted gruffly, a glint of gold catching my eyes. “Let’s just find Rachel first.”
I frowned. I was definitely going to pay him. I wouldn’t accept a handout as some kind of penance for how he’d treated my sister. That was between the two of them. This, between us, was business. And a little bit of anatomy.
“Okay,” I agreed with a brusque nod, playing by his rules for now.
“Lunch rush should be dying down right about now, so it should be easier to ask around.” He grabbed his notebook and pen from the table. “We’ll take your rental, if that’s all right?”
“Sure.”
I followed Calder out of the Airstream and into the quickly warming August day, focusing on anything that wasn’t him.
Maybe I needed my own set of Stone rules.
Rule #1: Don’t salivate over Calder Stone or his gluteus maximus.