Page 74 of Flirting With Forever
The cold, biting air coming off the Atlantic seeped into his sweat-damped clothes as he tried to catch his breath from the punishing run he hadn’t planned on taking. Turns out, he couldn’t outrun his thoughts or the anger pulsating through his blood and body. All he could do was hope Dawson was right and that Sloane might return by Christmas.
But what if she didn’t?
What if she just kept going? What if her statement about coming back was just another lie meant to throw him off? To give her a head start so he wouldn’t go looking for her? So that when Noah came looking and discovered her gone, they’d inform him of her decision and potentially throw him off her trail as well?
Two full days had passed since Sloane had left Carolina Cove. Despite his desire to text or call, he’d reined it in. She’d left him. Why should he make the first move? Any move? After all, she’d made it perfectly clear what her feelings were for him when she’d walked out after their night together.
But the not knowing if she was okay crazed him the most. She was a woman alone out there in a world where men took advantage far too often. She’d already gone through that with a boss who wouldn’t pay her after she’d turned him down. What if she ran into trouble on the road? Broke down somewhere? Just…pulled off for gas and was noticed by the wrong sort of people?
It happened every day.
And despite the fact it was now officially Christmas Eve eve, that just meant crime ramped up.
A loud groan left him at the thought.
Had she actually gone to Chicago? Or was she on the run again? Back on the road to God only knew where to try to get away from her brother and family?
The questions flooded his mind on repeat, and he couldn’t escape them.
But Sloane’s message to not follow? No matter where she’d gone, that stayed true.
And if this was love, he could say with one hundred percent certainty that it sucked.
He’d never experienced this before. Never been so taken and infatuated with someone that he felt physical pain at her absence. Smelling her scent on his sheets, in his home. Finding an overlooked pair of flip-flops in the hallway by the garage. Worrying about her safety and wellbeing. Worrying about her emotional health, given she was out there on her own and had to be scared. Wouldn’t everyone be scared on some level out there?
This feeling was hell, and he wondered if or when it would ever end.
If he was wrong and that night hadn’t meant as much to her as it had to him.
Dawson had given him Sloane’s other message.
“I still don’t do casual.”
Maybe she meant it. But it still didn’t mean she planned to come back. Why wouldn’t she trust him to help her? Allow him to be by her side during whatever mess she had to face? Wouldn’t that be better than facing it alone?
He wanted to fly to Chicago. Track the Harringtons down and find out for himself what kind of people threatened their own flesh and blood.
He wanted to confront them. Wanted to fight for her. Was willing to do whatever it took. But she obviously wasn’t willing to do the same. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have left the way she had. Like she didn’t believe in him—or them?
Was her goodbye—really goodbye?
“You okay there, son?”
Gage uncovered his eyes from the glare of the boardwalk lights and found Bruce Holloway staring at him from a few feet away, hand resting on his holster.
“Gage? Didn’t think the drunk call would be for you.”
Gage snorted softly. “I’m not drunk. I took a run and overdid it. And now I’ve been here in the cold so long my muscles have locked up.”
The older police officer Gage had talked to the first night he’d found Sloane sleeping in her car behind the rentals building chuckled at his complaint.
“That doesn’t sound like you. What’s got you taking midnight runs? Or should I guess? Is it a woman?”
Gage groaned as he forced his body upright on the hard bench and swung his feet to the ground. He stared at the wooden slats of the boardwalk and inhaled. “Do you remember the night I came to the station and asked you to keep an eye on the woman sleeping behind the rentals building?”
Bruce moved over and took a seat beside Gage on the bench. Gage glanced up and noted a curl to the man’s lips beneath his white mustache.
“I do. Did you two become an item?”
