Page 49 of Omega's Forbidden Heat
He climbs onto her bed with its bare mattress and unsheathed duvet and pulls it around him. Faintly, faintly, he can almost believe there’s still the tiniest scent of her. Not that sickly, weak aroma that enveloped her in her final few days, but the vivid sunshine one he remembers. The scent of freshly baked sponge cake and log fires and fresh laundry. The scent of home.
Chapter Eighteen
Another two days pass, he’s slouched on the sofa, the remote in his hand, the TV flickering in front of him but he’s not watching it, not really. He’s awake, yet sleeping, staring blankly ahead, his eyes unblinking.
His mobile rings and slowly he rotates his head and glares at it. It’s been two days since he’s spoken to another living human — his dad — he still can’t quite compute that. His aunt has called once, but he ignored the call. He’s not heard from Finn or Amy and although he wants to speak to them both, to put all this right, he barely has the energy to lift his arm.
It’s not his aunt calling this time though, it’s Finn. He snatches up the phone.
“Finn.”
“Is she there, Jack? Is Amy with you?” His voice is all threat and aggression, but beneath it Jack hears the hint of concern, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
“What’s going on?” he says, snapping upright.
“Is she there?” Finn spits into the phone.
“No, she’s not here. I’ve not seen her in days.” He shifts the phone to his other ear. “What’s wrong, Finn?”
There’s a long pause. “She’s missing.”
Jack jumps to his feet. “What? What do you mean?”
“She went out riding this morning on that horse and she’s not come back. I thought maybe she was with you.”
“Have you called her?”
“Of course, I’ve fucking called her. It’s going through to answer phone.”
Jack glances at his watch. It’s approaching 4pm and already dusk is darkening the landscape outside.
“She should have been back hours ago,” Finn says. “That horse can’t take a long ride these days.”
Jack strides to the door, grabbing his jacket from the peg. “Let’s get out there and look for her, then. Where do you think she went?”
“Any number of places. I was going to head down the bridle path out towards Chichester.”
“Where do you want me to look?” Jack says, slipping on his jacket and sprinting to the car.
“Up on West Wood.”
West Wood. Where he kissed her that time. He has a sudden premonition that that’s where she’ll be.
“I’m leaving now. Call me as soon as you have any news.”
“Same.”
He pauses. “We’ll find her, mate, don’t worry.”
“Yeah.” Finn sighs and then the phone goes dead.
The engine sputters into life and he curses himself for not running the car more often. The last thing he needs is a flat battery. He reverses out of the drive, then slams his foot on the brake and dashes back inside the house, grabbing the blanket from the sofa, another coat from the hallway and a bar of chocolate and bottle of water from the kitchen. He tosses them onto the back seat and slams his foot on the accelerator, zipping out of the drive and into the lane. Here he hits the brakes again, slamming forward on to the steering wheel, and yanking on the gear stick, putting the car into first and shooting off around the bend.
The light is a heavy grey and he flicks on the headlamps; the beams illuminating the road ahead and the high hedgerows on either side. He’s driving too fast for this single track lane, but he doesn’t give a shit. His heart is hammering in his chest and his palms damp on the steering wheel. He needs to get to her; he needs to find her. With things the way they are between him and Finn right now, there’s no way Finn would’ve called and agreed to his help unless he was worried. Something has happened to Amy, they both know it.
The drive up to the edge of the wood is short, and yet it seems to take forever, the twisting, turning nature of the road not allowing him to race along as fast as he wants, and he curses out loud, the words filling the empty car and winding him up further.
By the time he swings the car into the small car park, raindrops patter against the windscreen and he’s wound so tight his hands are shaking and he has to force himself to sit and breathe. He’s no use to her if he’s running about and not engaging his brain. He needs to think about this methodically and logically otherwise he’ll never find her. West Wood stretches up onto the Downs, and the Downs themselves skirt along the coast, all the way out towards Winchester in the West and down to Brighton in the East.
