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She’d just ladled soup into a bowl when her phone rang. Lauren looked at the screen, her pulse bouncing along her jawline. It wasn’t Blake, but his mother.
She swiped quickly to get the call open. “Sally,” she said. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m just wondering if you’ve heard from Blake,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get him on the phone, and the blasted man isn’t answering.” She didn’t sound happy, and Lauren wanted to tell her to join the club.
“Sadly,” she said. “I haven’t heard from him either.” She didn’t go into details, because it wasn’t like Lauren to air dirty laundry. She didn’t want to tell Sally that her son had stood her up on their three-month anniversary, and even if she’d been trying to call him, he wouldn’t have answered. Because he would’ve been on a date with her. An important date. A date where Lauren had wanted to open more doors with him.
Now, she wasn’t so sure about anything.
Sally griped some more about her son, and Lauren let her end the call. True worry ate through her now, and Lauren called Blake again. This time, when his voicemail picked up, she said, “Hey, I’m worried about you. Where are you? Your mother just called me looking for you, and none of your friends can find you. I hope you’re okay. Call me, okay?”
She left the message and took her soup to the couch. She fed chunks of carrot to Chloe while something played on the speaker system in her house, and when she couldn’t wait up for another moment, Lauren finally went to bed.
Blake hadn’t answered any of her messages yet.
She couldn’t sleep, so she picked up the phone and called the hospital. “Yes, hello,” she said. She cleared her throat. “I don’t suppose you could tell me if you have a patient there, could you?”
25
Blake looked over to Tommy, who slept on the bed beside him. His heart still pounded, and he glanced to the door he’d shut and locked an hour ago. Olympia Heartwood had been gracious and kind—and discreet. She’d come straight to the check-in counter when he’d requested her, and she’d put him in a room on the second to highest floor, then told her security not to let anyone in who couldn’t show their room key.
The Heartwood Inn wasn’t as fancy as some of the high-end hotels that required a keycard in order to get the elevator to go up. Anyone could walk in off the beach and get in the elevator and up to guest rooms, and Blake ran his hands through his hair.
He’d just gone to Carter’s Cove when Tommy had texted him that afternoon after school. He’d said his mother and Cason had gotten in a fight, and he wanted to come stay with Blake. No problem. Blake had made the trip there and back in a couple of hours before, and he didn’t need to get Lauren until seven.
He had no idea what time it was. His phone had been confiscated the moment he’d walked through the door, and Cason had stomped on it with his big work boots. With the steel toe of them, he’d crushed the screen, and despite Blake’s protests and threats, he hadn’t been able to stop him.
He’d kept a level head while he’d taken in the scattered items in Jacinda’s house. It looked like her bath bombs had exploded everywhere, and Blake had known in that split second of time that he needed to get his son out of that house.
He’d offered to do just that, and he and Tommy had spent the next couple of hours in tense silence as they packed everything the boy needed to come live with him. Jacinda hadn’t been home, and Cason had glowered at them from the kitchen table, a beer bottle in his hand that seemingly never ran out.
Tommy didn’t have his phone either, and Cason had ranted at him about texting girls and running up bills, but Blake had pointed out that he paid for the boy’s cell phone. He wasn’t afraid of Cason, but Tommy was, and his heart hurt that he hadn’t seen it until tonight.
He’d called Gage, who was ex-military and had done some security work, and he’d helped Blake with a cart. There were no vehicles on Carter’s Cove, and moving on and off the island was difficult. He and his wife currently had all of Tommy’s belongings at their house, and he’d work on getting them off the island and to the house in Hilton Head tomorrow.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
He didn’t have Lauren’s phone number memorized, and he had no way of getting in touch with her. He knew his mother’s phone number, but he hadn’t wanted to worry her, and it was her bridge night besides. She wouldn’t have answered, and once she got home and did, she’d be unable to do anything anyway.
He’d talk to her tomorrow too.
He paced in the hotel room, wishing the ferry had been running when Cason had finally told them to “get.”
Blake hadn’t asked Tommy what he’d done. This wasn’t the boy’s fault, and Blake simply needed to be his father, his champion, his rescuer. And he would be. Everything and everyone else could wait.
He finally slept, and he woke the moment the sun started to light the day. Tommy didn’t, and Blake showered and put on the same clothes he’d worn yesterday. He called his office, as he didn’t have his secretary’s personal cell phone number memorized either. He kicked himself for living so much in the twenty-first century, but no one memorized phone numbers anymore. It wasn’t required, and therefore, he didn’t do it.
“Sandra,” he said. “This is Blake. I lost my phone yesterday, and I won’t be in the office today. Please move or cancel anything I have on the calendar today. I don’t have a phone, but I’ll try to check in with you throughout the day if there’s anything you need.”
He hung up, and then he thought better of that. He called back and said, “If possible, could you find and get Lauren Keller’s number? She’s friends with my friend Grant Turner, Harrison Tate, and…yeah. Try those two. They have her number, and I’m sure they’ll give it to you. When I call back in a bit, I’ll need it.” He took a breath, because while Lauren wasn’t the same woman she’d been last year, he’d still stood her up—on their three-month anniversary no less.
He hated thinking about her with her makeup on, and her heels, all dressed up and wondering where he was. Pushing aside the image and all the emotional damage that would do to her, he looked at his son again.
“Tommy,” he said as he touched the boy’s ankle. “We need to get goin’, son.”
He wanted to be off this island, and the first ferry would be running in half an hour. Gage had said he’d call in a couple of favors, and the man slept less than any other human Blake knew. “I’m going to go downstairs and get some breakfast, and I want you up and ready when I get back.”
“Okay,” Tommy said. He rolled over and didn’t move again, and Blake watched him for a moment. He really didn’t like thinking of him living in that house, with all that tension and fear, and he wondered how long it had been going on.
