“What?” I stop on the freezing gravel driveway right next to her. “What?”
She gulps for air while she lifts her phone to her ear. “Junie’s missing.”
“What?”
“Shh.”
June’s voice comes through the phone. I can’t hear her words, but I can hear her tone, and it’s a punch to the gut.
She’s crying.
No, she’s sobbing.
Maisey’s blinking rapidly, her chin trembling, while she listens. “That utter asshole,” she chokes out.
I cup her elbow, straining to get close enough to hear June’s words. My heart’s in my throat, and I can’t imagine what Maisey’s feeling right now.
She pulls the phone from her ear, looks at it, and goes sheet white.
“Maisey?”
“She went to the airport at midnight last night,” she whispers. “Midnight. It’s—it’s after ten a.m. there now, and my credit card got declined when she tried to buy a plane ticket, and Dean can’t find her, and her phone goes straight to voice mail, and—and my baby is missing.”
My stomach rolls over.
“She needed me, and she’s missing,” she whispers. “I have to go. I have to go find her.”
“Let me help—”
She doesn’t answer. She’s dialing a number on her phone, climbing into her truck as she does it.
“Where. The fuck. Is my daughter?” she says before she slams the door.
She jerks her seat belt on, hits the button to start her truck, and nothing happens.
Of course nothing happens.
Her purse is inside.
June’s missing, and Maisey can’t start her truck. I turn to head inside, intending to grab shoes and a shirt and go with her, but before I’ve finished turning around, Maisey’s leaping out of her truck and hustling around me to my front door.
“No, Dean, she’s not being a brat. You’re being an asshole. You don’t call when you say you will, you cancel weekend trips to come see her, when you email, it’s all Look at the cool places I am that you’re not, and now you fly her to Florida, bully her into driving when you know she’s terrified, and top it off by telling her you’re getting married and having a fucking baby with the woman you were cheating on me with, and you think our neglected daughter is supposed to be happy about that? You have exactly fifty-eight minutes to call me back and tell me you’ve found her before I’m boarding a plane to come tear you apart piece by piece by—”
The rest of her sentence is lost as my front door slams behind her.
It opens again nearly instantaneously, and she marches out with her purse in hand. “No, I will not calm down, you fucking bastard. You lost my daughter. You lost my daughter.”
“Maisey—” I start.
“Thank you, I’ve got this,” she says to me.
“I can help—” I try again.
“Yes, Dean, that’s a man,” she says into the phone. “A man I’m not marrying, and a man whose baby I’m not carrying, and a man who does shit for our daughter, unlike you, so you can just take a goddamn flying—”
She slams herself into her truck again, still yelling.
Wonder if this is the first time she’s let it all out.
But I don’t wonder how she’s planning on getting to the airport and on a plane in fifty-eight minutes.
I know better than to doubt a mother on a mission.
She flings the phone down, and I hear the truck shift into gear, but before she puts on the gas, she looks down, and she crumples.
Head to the steering wheel.
Truck shifted back into park.
And she crumples.
I cautiously reach for the door and open it, doing my best to not let her see that my heart’s in my throat and I’m terrified for her. She needs calm.
She needs confidence.
She needs belief.
Fuck.
I need all those things too. “Maisey?”
“I’m on empty,” she sobs. “I can’t—”
“C’mon. Let me grab my shirt and get us both coffee. I’ll drive you.”
“Flint, I can’t—”
“You’re Maisey fucking Spencer. You can do any goddamn thing you want. And right now, you can let me drive you to the airport while you make some phone calls, okay?”
Her eyes meet mine, and she doesn’t have to say what she’s thinking.
I know.
You can’t know Maisey and not know.
I wasn’t there when Junie needed me because I was having fun with you.
And as she’s having her own guilt attack, I realize what I did.
I told June I ran away when I was her age.
I fucking told her.
Did that stick? Did she remember? Did it inspire her?
Is she okay?
My stomach knots. Chest too. My eyes get hot, but I turn and head to the house before she can see.
I can’t tell her this might be my fault.
I can’t.
The more important thing is finding June.
“Right back,” I repeat over my shoulder. “Do not hot-wire my truck. Five minutes. I’ll make it up on the road.”
“I can’t go dressed like this,” she whispers. “People will think I’m crazy.”
“Right back, okay? Just—just stay.”
I get us both coffee and grab Maisey’s clothes from yesterday. By the time I’m back outside, wearing pants, a shirt, shoes, and a jacket, she’s huddled by the passenger door of my truck. She makes eye contact barely long enough to acknowledge I’m there. “My phone’s almost dead, too,” she tells the door. “The cold—the battery—it—”
She cuts herself off as she pinches her lips shut tight like that’s all she needs to hold herself together.
I unlock the door, help her inside, hand her a coffee cup, and reach across her to grab the charging cable that I keep ready in here.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I squeeze her forearm, close the door, and head around the truck to climb into the driver’s side.
We both smell like we did exactly what we did last night, and I have regrets. Not about a single minute with Maisey, but that I can sense her pulling away.
And I don’t blame her.
Even if she doesn’t know what I told June, I don’t blame her.
The minute I pull the truck onto the highway, she’s on her phone. First call—the local law enforcement for the beach town June’s supposed to be in. Yes, please, I’d like you to go talk to my ex-husband about why he hasn’t called you yet to report her missing. He’s Dean Spencer. Home Improvement Network star? Yes, feel free to alert the news that his daughter is missing because he’s a twatwaffle.
Mama bear is on a mission.
And all I can do to help is drive her to the airport.
I figure out when she’s rejecting calls from her ex. I figure out when she’s trying June’s cell again, which she does between every other call. It takes me a minute to realize who she’s called after we get out of a dead zone for cell signal about twenty minutes from the airport, and when she suddenly bursts into sobs, I wrench the truck over to the side of the road.
“Maisey—”
“Junie?” she gasps. “Junie, baby, I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did you sleep? Have you had anything to eat? I’m almost to the airport. I’m on my way. I’m coming to get you. Oh, no. No no no, sweet Junie, don’t say sorry. It’s okay. It’s okay.”