Page 20 of The Unknown Colton
“Keep the photograph,” he said. “I wrote my cellnumber on the back. And when you’re not so busy, you give me a call, and we can catch up on each other’s lives since I lost you, little girl.”
He made it sound like he’d just misplaced her somewhere, not like he’d abandoned her.
Unless…
Unless what she’d always believed was true was not what had really happened. What had really happened? Part of her had always wanted to know. So why not ask him? Why not talk to him?
She tore her gaze from the photo to look up, but he was gone. She glanced around, but she didn’t see him anywhere. He’d left her again. Was that how he’d done it twenty-two years ago?
And what about her mother? Lakin glanced back at the picture. Where was she?
She flipped the photograph over and saw a phone number scrawled on the back of it along with a name: Jasper Whitlaw. Was that her father’s name?
Was that her last name before it became Colton? Her first name had always been Lakin. She’d been talking at three, and she’d been able to tell people that. “Me…” And she would press her thumb in her chest. “…Lakin.”
The Coltons often retold that story. But they’d never known her last name. Maybe she’d been too young to remember that.
“Whitlaw,” she whispered it aloud, but it didn’t sound familiar.
But the woman in the picture, she was definitelyfamiliar. It was like looking in a mirror. Her mother. Where was she? What was her name?
Lakin could call Jasper Whitlaw and ask him. But she wasn’t sure she was ready yet for his answers. Or even to see him again. And at the moment, feeling as raw as she was, she wasn’t sure she was ready to see Troy again, either.
* * *
Troy jolted awake with such a start that a grunt of pain slipped through his lips. He closed his eyes and tensed, waiting to see if he’d awakened Lakin. But there was no other sound in the cabin.
Maybe she was still ignoring him. He opened his eyes and peered around. The bedroom door wasn’t locked anymore; it was wide open, so he could see that the bed was made. From the stillness of the cabin, he could tell that it was empty but for him.
She was gone.
He slowly sat upright and blinked to clear the sleep from his vision. The cabin was empty but bathed in sunshine. It wasn’t as if she’d sneaked off in the middle of the night. Or worse yet, that someone had sneaked in and taken her.
She’d probably just left for work.
Usually when he came home from a long while away, she would take some personal days to spend time with him. The bed never got made because they rarely left it. Last night she hadn’t even wanted him to touch her to comfort her, let alone kiss and make love with her.
He hadn’t realized she would be so angry with him for not calling her when he was hurt. But if the situation was reversed…
He grimaced over a twinge of pain, but it was in his heart, not his back. If the situation was reversed, he would have been hurt, too, that she hadn’t needed him and turned to him.
“Dammit,” he murmured with sudden understanding of how badly he’d screwed up.
She was probably at the office by now, or maybe still at Roasters getting her morning coffee.
He slid his feet into his boots and stood to head to the door, but before he got there, the knob rattled.
The door opened, and Lakin stumbled across the threshold as if someone had pushed her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked because she was clearly shaken. He glanced behind her to see if someone had chased her back to the cabin.
She shook her head.
“Where were you?” he asked.
She blinked at him as if she hadn’t realized he was there, or maybe she didn’t realize where she was. “I… I was at…at Roasters…”
He glanced at her hands. She wasn’t holding the bright blue coffee mugs. Instead she clutched what looked like an old photograph in one hand.
