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“Yeah, sure sounds like you’ve had a good time,” she said and crossed her arms over her chest.
Just then, he saw Ryder walk by with a couple drinks, probably one for Quinn, and the man’s head tipped to the side. “Hey, Linc. I thought you were meeting Nova at seven thirty.”
So Nova had told her friends they were getting together tonight? That was promising, and a warm, excited feeling that had been lacking since he’d met up with April flooded his chest.
“I am,” he said, standing up, and wishing he could ignore April’s hand tugging on his sleeve. If she were Nova, he’d smile at the sweet gesture and ask his shortcake what she needed. But April had really started to rub him the wrong way and he wheeled on her. “April. You need to stop. I said I have to go. Excuse me.”
When he turned back to Ryder, the man had a pained expression on his face. “No, you’re not. It’s almost nine.”
“What? How—”
Oh, someone was in such big trouble.
“April,” he seethed. “What did you do?”
The blonde pinched her lips together. “I changed the clock on your phone when you went to the bathroom, okay? You shouldn’t leave it unattended, and you should really put a lock on it, everyone knows that.”
“And you should learn to respect other people’s property and take no for an answer. I’ll deal with you later.”
Linc shruggedon his coat and darted through the crowd, not wanting to step on anyone’s toes or bump into them but also wanting to get to Nova as soon as humanly possible. He’d tried texting and calling but she wasn’t picking up her phone. Where was she?
Where he was supposed to have met her an hour and a half ago was as good a place as any to start since he’d scanned the crowd in the lobby and hadn’t seen any sign of her. If she was already in her apartment, no harm done in him checking outside first. He should’ve had her meet him somewhere inside. This was all his fault. And April’s, he reminded himself, but there were so many things he could’ve done to prevent this from happening in the first place.
When he pushed through the double doors onto the porch to get out to where they’d set up the sleigh rides, the cold hit him like he’d walked into a brick wall. Hopefully Nova was in the bathtub in her apartment, or in the Littles’ dorms with some friends talking shit about him. He’d never wished so hard that someone was absolutely furious and trashing him. But that would mean she was warm and safe.
When he got out to the starting point for the sleigh ride, there was no one there, of course. The sleigh rides had stopped running almost an hour ago. Who in their right mind would be out in the dark and freezing cold for no good reason?
Linc took in the area, looking for anything that might give him a clue to Nova’s whereabouts. Thankfully some of the tracking he’d been learning came in handy. He wasn’t anywhere near an expert like Taj and his guys were, but it didn’t take a lifetime of experience or military training to see a pair of boot prints in the center of the parallel sleigh tracks.
It was possible he should conserve his energy and slow down or call Derek so they could rustle up a search team but mostly his brain was focused on a single point of light: Nova. He’d been running flat out through the snow for almost ten minutes when he finally found her. She was leaning against a tree, looking at a light display set up to look like a gingerbread house. The house was almost life sized, but he couldn’t appreciate the finer details of it because he’d found her and he needed to make sure she was okay.
“Nova!”
She didn’t turn around, and once he’d reached her, he could see why. She looked worn out and like she was about to fall asleep on her feet. He wanted her to yell at him, tell him he was terrible for standing her up, that she hated him, and wanted him to go away. He wouldn’t listen, but that was a different issue.
“Hey, shortcake,” he said, trying to keep his tone gentle even though his insides were writhing in panic.
“Hi.”
He peeled his gloves off and put his bare hands to her cheeks, which were cold to the touch. So was her neck, even when he slid his fingers under her collar.
“Little girl, you are chilled to the bone.”
Alarm bells were going off in his head. Was she hypothermic? And if so, what was he going to do about it? And what was he going to do about April? Make her Derek’s problem, he thought. Because he didn’t care enough about her to discipline her himself. Also, he was boiling over with anger, and he was a good enough Daddy to know you never punished anyone while you were angry. He got the feeling he was going to be angry about this for a very long time.
“Why didn’t you go inside?” he demanded, knowing the edge of irritation in his voice was a small fraction of how furious he was at April, but still being pissed off at himself for letting it leak into how he talked to Nova. And the way Nova looked up at him didn’t help at all—it felt like being punched in the gut with an iron fist of guilt.
“Because you said you’d come,” she said simply.
Linc closed his eyes, blew a breath out his nose, and then scooped Nova into his arms and headed to the resort, tromping through the snow.
“Why didn’t you come?” she asked softly. As if her plaintive tone wasn’t enough to make him feel like the worst person alive, she sniffled. Linc picked up the pace, hoping she wouldn’t cry before he could get her inside. Tears out here wouldn’t stay hot for long, and he couldn’t have her getting any colder.
“I was with April, and she changed the time on my phone. I am so, so sorry, Nova. I was really looking forward to spending time with you tonight and not only did April keep me from doing that, but she put you in danger.”
Of course, Nova had also put herself in danger by wandering around in the cold and the dark instead of coming inside. But he would deal with that after he made sure she was safe.
“That wasn’t nice,” she mused.
