Page 13 of Forged in Secrets

He couldn’t let his fear continue to paralyze him. Katie Fairman was missing, and every minute counted if they were going to find her.

The mental image of a young woman suffering hardened his resolve. He had a duty to put his own worries aside and to take care of her, just as he’d done with theinjured passengers on the plane once the immediate danger had passed.

Still, as much as logic told him that he had to start driving them the rest of the way to South Padre Island, his body was uninterested in operating a motor vehicle. All he wanted to do was rest until he fully calmed down. Even the forty-five minutes Grace had spent in the airport bathroom putting on makeup and doing her hair hadn’t been enough time for him to return to normal.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem to have noticed that he was stalling. Grace had taken out a tube of mascara and a large poofy brush, and was apparently putting the finishing touches on her look in the passenger side window of the SUV they’d rented.

The minutes ticked by in silence, but to his relief, it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it could have been.

Grace hadn’t brought up how scared he’d been, or how he’d grasped her hand for comfort like a blubbering child reaching for his mother.

No, as always, the woman seemed almost lost in her own happy world, humming to herself as she dotted some kind of loose powder across her pert, tanned nose. No matter what Grace had been through in her life, she always found a reason to smile. It was honestly incredible.

Ben’s jaw tightened as he looked away again, planting his gaze firmly on the logo in the middle of the steering wheel.

He hoped that Grace wasn’t planning on telling everyone back at FBS about his fear of flying, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask her not to. It was too embarrassing.

A loud yawn shattered the quiet. It took a moment for him to realize it had been his own.

“Do you want me to drive?” Grace asked, looking over at him with a puzzled expression.

“No,” he said quickly, reaching for the keys sitting in the console and inserting them in the ignition. “I’m fine.”

“That’s a relief,” Grace said, reaching for some metal instrument that she used to curl her eyelashes.

“Why, because you won’t have to risk having to parallel park?” he teased, glad for even a small distraction from the lingering tension in his body.

He heard her scoff as he turned the key in the ignition and put the SUV into drive.

“I can parallel park, thank you very much,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I just think it’s more–” she paused, biting her glossy pink lip as she searched for the right word “–fitting for the man to drive.”

“You know, some people might call that sexist.”

“I call it chivalrous,” Grace said, tossing a tendril of her blonde waves over her shoulder as he joined the other vehicles filing out of the parking garage. “I would have much rather lived in a time when men held open the car door for you and walked on the outside of the sidewalk.”

“I chivalrously guarded the bathroom when you disappeared inside for a million years,” he pointed out.

“You were asleep when I finished!” Grace retorted, not bothering to hide her smile.

As Ben drove off the airport grounds and out onto the highway that led toward the island, they fell into their usual routine. Grace chattered incessantly, and Ben listened, punctuating her comments with the odd teasing remark.

By the time they pulled up in front of the Mistflower Resort, he finally felt calm. He’d never admit it to her, but being around Grace’s bubbly personality had a way ofreminding him that the world wasn’t always as dark as he sometimes believed.

Then again, they were here to solve a missing person’s case, which was part of his problem.

Working as a police officer and then in private security had a way of shoving the most wicked tendencies of mankind firmly in his face.

“Where is everybody?” Grace asked, snapping him back to reality as he pulled into a parking space near the front doors of the main building.

“I thought it would be slammed with people,” Grace continued, climbing out of the SUV with a giant tote bag slung over her shoulder. “I’m sure we’re at the right hotel. Most of the resorts on the island are mid-tier, but Katie Fairman can afford the best.”

Ben lifted a hand to his forehead and squinted against the sun as he looked for signs of life.

It looked like the best, all right.

He glanced around at what he could see of the luxury resort complex. Each building had hacienda-style red clay roofs and walls adorned with gleaming pale stucco, and the area was landscaped neatly with local flora. Behind a row of palm trees, he could see a gigantic blue swimming pool.

Despite his general dislike of sun, heat, and sweaty bodies being near him, the water looked inviting. Even though it was barely a reasonable hour for breakfast, it was already getting hot.

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