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Maria had thought she couldn’t be more terrified than when she discovered she was at the mercy of Nathaniel Boone and unknown stranger’s inexplicable kidnapping plot.
Dio mio…
She was wrong.
CHAPTERSEVEN
Tessa woke up to the smell of pancakes cooking, and her husband missing from their borrowed bed.
She wasn’t so surprised. Being back in Hamlet almost made her more restless, and when she woke up around three a.m. she discovered he was already gone. That led to her laying awake for the next hour, waiting to see if he’d just slipped out to the bathroom, but when the eerie quiet got to be too much, she put her pillow over her face and stubbornly counted back from one hundred until she drifted off again.
It took until she was all the way down to twenty-three before she fell back asleep, and if Lucas returned in that time, she never noticed.
Tess doubted that he had. Since Sly’s fateful call yesterday morning, he’d been tamping down his outrage that somewhere dared to harm a hair on Maria’s dark head. As far as he was concerned, his younger sister was supposed to be untouchable. Between the advanced lockdown system he had installed for her at Ophelia and the town’s memory of what happened to the last man who hurt her, her overprotective big brother did everything he could to keep her safe even from a distance.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? As safe as Lucas thought Maria was, someone got to her. There was no doubt in Tessa’s mind—and Lucas’s, either—that Maria was in trouble. Without a communicator or a lead, she was as good as vanished.
And now Tessa was terrified how Lucas would react if, when theydidfind Maria… she wasn’t in any state to be rescued.
No, she told herself. Maria would be okay. She had to be.
And until she was, Tess would have to get used to the idea of sharing her husband again.
Call her selfish—and she was—but the best part of living in Dayton was that they weren’t living in Hamlet. Sharing him with his patients was one thing; they at least understood that, when he was off, he wasoff.In Hamlet? Doctor De Angelis wasneveroff.
In Hamlet, he wasn’t just Tessa’s husband. He was Maria’s brother—and, in this scenario, that trumped anything else.
Tess was an only child. She lost both of her parents young: her mother to sickness, and a father to a car crash that left a lasting scar on her psyche. She never had that bond with anyone until she met Jack Sullivan, a foster kid and fellow orphan. They bonded over that, eventually falling in love with each other… until Tess had to admit that the feelings she had for Jack were more brotherly compared to what she had with Lucas.
Did that mean she understood Lucas’s devotion to Maria? No. But she still adored how he could open his heart up to his kind and generous sister and still have more than enough love for her.
Holding onto that, Tess got up and—with the scent of pancakes still in her nose—hurriedly changed. Then, leaving the suitcases scattered on the floor, she left the guest room, following the delicious aroma to the kitchen.
Grace was at the stove, wearing a pale pink robe, her mahogany-colored hair done up in a messy bun on the top of her head. She was working on the pancakes, sparing a quick glance over her shoulder when Tess padded into the kitchen. Baby Susannah was sitting in her high chair, her bottle of milk set in front of her, next to an empty plate.
With a wave, Tess murmured, “Good morning.”
“Morning,” called Grace. “Go on. Take a seat. It’s just us girls today, and I’m almost done with some more pancakes.”
Some more? “Did I miss breakfast?” She hadn’t thought she’d slept that late, but maybe she had.
“Technically, yeah, but that’s only because I cooked for Rick earlier.”
Pulling her seat out, Tess sat down. “Did you see Lucas at all?”
Grace nodded, sliding two pancakes from the spatula to the stack on the plate. “I did. I was up with Su when he came in with Rick…” She glanced at the clock in the kitchen. “That was about two hours ago. I fed my husband… tried to feed yours, too… but they said they were gonna head back out to join the search.”
That’s what Tess figured. With Lucas gone, her only conclusion was that he couldn’t stand laying in bed a minute longer when his sister might need him. It made sense that he would joining the sheriff and his deputies for the search, and after returning with Rick, going back out as soon as she could.
“What about us?” she asked. “Should we go out and help look, too?”
“I know it sounds misogynist as hell, but Rick pleaded with me to stay in with Su. And Lucas…”
When Grace’s words trailed off, Tessa frowned. “What did he say?”
Grace’s pretty face twisted into a concerned expression. “How are you two? I mean, set aside how scary it is that Maria’s missing… but are you okay?” Quickly taking her hazel eyes off of Tess, she flipped the next pair of pancakes before looking back. “You’re happy with Lucas?”
“Of course. I love my husband,” Tess said honestly. “Why? Did he say something?”
