“Any ideas?”
“No, but…” I tap my finger on the table. “I’m about to suggest something that I would totally kill him for doing to me—but I’m rather sure that if the situation were reversed, he’d do the same thing without a second thought.”
Addie leans forward, her eyes sparking. “Please tell me you’ve implanted a tracker in his ass.”
“No. But I do remember his bank account log-in. Wherever Cullen is, I bet he used his credit card.” My fingers run across the keyboard, my heartbeat picking up speed with each stroke. Finally, something about today feels right. After all, turnabout is fair play, and I’m no more leaving Cullen alone than he’d left me when I headed to that house on Lincoln Drive.
Cullen and I may be destined to be apart, but I’ll be damned before I leave him in pain.
“Hey, Addie,” I call over my shoulder, copying down the motel address. “Can you drive? I need to do some research on the way.”
35
Cullen
Cullen sat behind the large table that passed for the Motel Colorado’s writing desk, his laptop screen flashing with unread emails. Knowing his lack of fitness for human company, he’d paid last night’s off-duty maintenance guy to pick up a laptop, clothes, medical supplies, and a few other things for him at the large box store a few miles down the road. Once Cullen got online, though, he’d wished he hadn’t. Hell, he’d wished he’d dropped his phone down the toilet and had a few more hours without learning that Sky had broken her lease and was moving out.
He’d already known he’d lost her from his life, so why did this news hurt so fucking much? He scrubbed his face, irritated at finding prickly stubble covering his cheeks. It was his own fault for allowing himself to imagine her stabilizing presence, that oasis with her strawberry-blonde hair scented with passionflower shampoo, was anything but fleeting. He opened the next email in the queue.
According to Kyan, Sky had given papers to the leasing office sometime yesterday, and even Jaz didn’t know what Sky was doing. Not that she’d tell them anything if she did, but she might have at least let him know whether Sky was all right. Instead, all Cullen knew was that she’d disconnected her number altogether. Fuck.
Of course she wasn’t all right. Getting attacked did no one any favors, and Sky had been traumatized in the past—that much had been clear from her reaction to simply watching Eli take a few shots in a friendly sparring match. And if that wasn’t enough, Cullen had lost it right before her eyes. No wonder she was packing.
“You’re damaged fucking goods, Cullen.” Cullen heard his father’s phantom voice in his memories, spitting out the words. “If you have any care for your mother at all, stay the hell away. That’s the biggest Mother’s Day gift you can offer.”
Cullen scrubbed his face again, this time with more vigor. He needed to get ahold of himself. Sky wasn’t his. But he could at least ensure that wherever she was going, she was all right. After everything he’d put her through, it was the least he could do. The least he should do.
Opening a fresh email, he put Liam on the line.
What do we know about the asshole who attacked Reynolds?
Unsurprisingly, the answer came within minutes. Liam had plainly anticipated the question and was just waiting for Cullen to ask. The bastard knew him too well. Just as he knew not to press Cullen for a location.
Jaden Harris. Investigative reporter for the Post and Reynolds’s ex-fiancé. He was the one to report her for allegedly falsifying the Fleet Week story. Made some calls. He did a stint in the marines and called in a bunch of favors to keep his ass from getting a dishonorable discharge for—you guessed it—assault. At least two women have filed restraining orders against him now. One of those during Reynolds’s engagement period, which I don’t imagine she knew about. He went after one of the ER nurses, btw, was on some meds and thought the woman was Reynolds.
Cullen’s hands curled around the edge of the table. Harris seemed to think Sky was some kind of property of his. He’d keep going after her unless something was done. A rush of fury hit his nerves in a cascade that made his breath halt, every instinct inside him demanding he find the fucker and put him down. Permanently.
Yeah.
Once he could breathe again, he forced himself to hit Reply instead of smashing the motel mirror.
Look more into Fleet Week?
This time, the answer came within moments. Liam was already on it.
Meanwhile, Jaden Harris needed to be watched. Dialing the hospital administrator directly—being the CEO had its perks—Cullen had a clerk check which ER the man was in.
“None, sir,” the young woman on the other line reported. “He checked out against medical advice early this morning. Did you—”
Cullen hung up, his heart pounding. He knew Harris’s type. The bastard would be looking for Sky, and with her phone disconnected, there was no way to even call her. Shooting a text with the news off to the Tridents, Cullen got to his feet, a sting of pain zapping through his shoulder despite the sling. The guys would help, but it would be a cold day in hell before Cullen sat this out on the sidelines, hoping that nothing bad happened to Sky. That someone else would do something. No. One way or another, he was finding either Sky or Harris.
Grabbing a button-up shirt from the pile the maintenance guy had picked up for him, Cullen braced himself to plunge his bad arm into the sleeve just as a knock sounded at the door. The image of the bespectacled clerk from last night popped into his head, the one who didn’t know whether to call the police or an ambulance for him and probably wanted to ensure he’d not carried the TV out the window to the nearest antique shop. Housekeeping was more likely, but he didn’t need them either—as the DO NOT DISTURB sign on his door indicated.
The knock came again.
“Not a good time,” Cullen snapped.
“No kidding,” a female snapped right back at him. Addie? Pinching the bridge of his nose, Cullen walked over to the door and pulled it open to discover not one, but two women staring at him.
Well…fuck.
For the first time in a long time, he didn’t know what to do or what to say. Adrianna’s features showed her ferocity as she stood there with her hands on her hips, but Sky looked conflicted, every line of her beautiful face intently focused on him. Cullen’s heart stuttered like a damn schoolboy’s before starting into the kind of gallop he could usually control even in the midst of a firefight. Yet he had no defense against this woman, standing there in dark-wash jeans and a soft white jacket.
“Have you done anything stupid yet?” Addie asked, letting herself inside. “Or did we get here in time?”
Cullen didn’t answer. Didn’t even move beyond shifting his weight to let the women by. With his focus pinned on Sky’s brilliant blue eyes, he feared that something he might do would make her turn and leave. And that scared him shitless.
“Going somewhere?” Addie called from behind him, her silhouette picking up his shirt in his peripheral vision. “Say, to see Dr. Yarborough?”
Cullen couldn’t turn toward her. Couldn’t look away from Sky. “Jaden Harris signed out of the ER,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to let him hurt you, Sky. I promise you that. I know you don’t want to be anywhere near me, but—”