21

Gia had refused to let her mother answer Sheldon’s call, but he wasn’t giving up easily. He’d called Ida probably five more times throughout the day. He’d tried to reach Leo, too. When he couldn’t get either one of them, he’d finally deigned to try Gia. Like her parents, she let the call transfer to voicemail. Although he’d left both her parents a message asking them to call him, he’d left a much longer one for her.

Hey, do you know where Margot is? Is she staying there with you and your folks? I’ve been trying to check in with her the last couple of days, but she’s not picking up. I assumed she was just busy and would get back to me when she could, but then the school called, asking why the boys weren’t in class. Can you go over to make sure everything’s okay?

Gia had just finished the dinner dishes and was folding towels in the laundry room off the kitchen as she listened to that message. She played it three times, trying to decide how to respond. She didn’t want to alarm him. Then he might cut his hunting trip short and come home sooner than Margot was expecting, and Gia guessed that wasn’t what her sister would want. It stood to reason that she’d left when Sheldon did because of the lead it gave her.

But maybe Margot had only needed a few days. She’d already had the chance to get far away from Wakefield...

Still, just to be safe, Gia was about to call him back and try to buy more time by claiming she’d drive over and check first thing in the morning, when there was a knock at the front door.

The volume of the TV went down as voices floated to her ears from the living room.

“I’ve been over there twice. It didn’t look as if anything had changed, so I asked some of the neighbors if they’d seen her, and the guy in the white house told me she left right after Sheldon did and hasn’t been home since.”

That was Sheldon’s mother. Gia easily recognized her voice. Apparently, he’d gotten his family involved, too. And why wouldn’t he? It made sense that he’d rope in whomever he could to check on his family.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Gia heard her father say and hurried out of the laundry room to find that Peggy hadn’t come alone. Ron, Sheldon’s father, was standing next to her.

“Hey,” Gia said to them.

Sheldon’s parents turned toward her, but neither one of them offered her a smile or moved to embrace her. That didn’t surprise her, though. She never got a very warm greeting from Sheldon’s family, not since she’d called him out at the wedding. “Have you seen your sister?” Peggy asked.

“Not for a few days,” Gia replied.

“Do you know if your mother’s spoken to Margot more recently?”

“Maybe.” Gia shrugged. “But Mom’s already taken her pain pills and gone to bed. We’ll have to ask her in the morning. Why? Is something wrong?”

“She’s gone,” Peggy replied.

Trying to come off as authentically surprised, Gia looked questioningly at her father before returning her gaze to Sheldon’s mother. “What do you mean she’s gone? Where’d she go?”

Ron was obviously as agitated as his wife. “That’s just it,” he said, jumping in. “We don’t know. You haven’t heard from her?”

“Not lately.”

“Do you have a key to the house?” he asked.

Gia pressed a hand to her chest. “I don’t. But then, I don’t even live here, so I’d be unlikely to have something like that.”

“We don’t have one, either,” Leo volunteered, speaking for himself and Ida.

Peggy reached into her purse and pulled out a key she showed them. “Sheldon gave me this years ago when they were going to be gone and he needed to me to take care of the hamsters—before they became class pets at school. But it hasn’t worked for months.”

Gia knew why. Margot had mentioned that her in-laws would let themselves in at will, even if she wasn’t home. Usually, it was to leave food or return something Sheldon or the boys had forgotten at their house, which was a nice thing, but the invasion of privacy made Margot uncomfortable. Gia would’ve simply asked for the key back, but Margot had been afraid it would start an argument, so she’d prevailed upon Sheldon to change the locks. She’d been proud of that win, since he hadn’t wanted to do it. He’d seen no need for it, thought she was being ridiculous. But she’d said he’d grown tired of her complaints. “Maybe they lost a spare and had to change the locks,” she suggested.

Peggy dropped it back in her purse. “Regardless of the reason, this key no longer works, and I need to get in.”

Gia had broken a window, but if they hadn’t noticed that yet, she wasn’t about to make them aware of it. She intended to impede their search, draw it out as long as possible, to give her sister time to think things through and, hopefully, come back before this situation got any more out of hand. “I wish I knew how,” she said. “Have you tried calling Margot?”

“Many times,” Peggy replied. “So has Sheldon. Even the school has tried. The boys didn’t show up for class this morning, and Matthew had a book report due.”

Gia had her sister’s phone in a drawer in her bedroom, but that was her little secret. “It’s not like Margot to let him miss something like that.”

“Exactly,” Peggy said. “Something’s wrong. I hate to say this, but...I think she’s run off.”

“Run off?” Gia echoed, her stomach cramping as she realized that it was probably already too late to have this end peacefully.

Peggy pursed her lips, moving them only slightly as she said, “I think she’s leaving Sheldon and taking the kids.”

“Why would she do that when he treats her so well?” Gia knew even as she said it that she was going too far, and the hostile expression on Margot’s in-laws’ faces told her they’d picked up on the sarcasm.

“He did treat her good,” Ron insisted. “He’s worked his ass off to support her and those boys!”

Gia couldn’t help coming right back at him. “She never asked him to be the sole breadwinner. That was his idea of what a marriage should look like, not hers. If you ask me, she needed to work, needed an outlet where she associated with other adults on occasion and she could earn a little money of her own. But he was determined to retain absolute control—of her and their finances.”

Peggy’s eyes flashed with anger. “You know where she is, don’t you? You’re behind this. You’re the reason she finally got the nerve to go.”

Gia felt her jaw drop. “I had nothing to do with it! I didn’t even know she was going to leave. And I don’t know exactly why she did, if she did, but it could be because of the affair he’s having with his ex-girlfriend, right? Have you heard about that?”

“What affair?” Ron asked, grimacing to show his skepticism.

“You haven’t heard?” Gia asked. “He’s been seen all over town with Cece Sonderman. Everyone’s talking about it.”

Peggy touched her husband’s arm to let him know she wanted the floor. “I’ve heard those rumors, too. And I’ve spoken to Sheldon about them. He’s assured me that he and Cece are only friends.”

“And you believe him?” Gia scoffed. “You think he’d tell you if he was cheating?”

Peggy’s glower darkened. “My son has never been a liar. He’s not a cheater, either. And Margot needs to believe that. That’s why we have to find her—to tell her she’s making a big mistake. So...where is she?”

Gia threw up her hands. “I don’t know!”

“She can’t just leave!” Ron said.

“I guess she can, since it looks like she has,” Gia said. “But there must be a good reason for it. No woman—not someone like Margot, anyway—takes her kids and runs away because it sounds like fun.”

Rob’s eyebrows knitted into one long, scruffy gray line. “You have no idea what you’ve started.”

His threatening tone sparked Gia’s temper. “I haven’t started anything! But I know my sister. She would not have left unless she felt she had no other choice—and if you try to make this all her fault or hurt her in any way, you’ll find out very quickly that she’s got family to support her. It’s between her and Sheldon. It has nothing to do with you.”

Peggy gritted her teeth. “It has everything to do with us,” she argued. “Those boys are our grandchildren. She’d better bring them back, or she’ll have hell to pay!”

She whirled around to leave, and Ron followed her out without so much as closing the slider behind them.

“Oh, my God,” Leo said. “This can’t be happening. Not right now.”

Gia closed and locked the door. “I know, but it’s about time Margot fought back. Now that she’s left Sheldon, we’ll help her through it. I’m not going to let that bastard get away with anything else.”

He hardly looked comforted. “You think the marriage is over?”

She frowned. “Don’t you?”

Gia wished Margot would call again. She wanted to warn her sister that the school had alerted Sheldon to the fact that the boys weren’t in class and that his parents were now involved and had probably notified him about what the neighbor had said. But she didn’t hear from Margot that evening. It was nearly eleven before she gave up pacing and monitoring her phone, just in case, and went to the pool.

It was cold outside, but she was too agitated to sleep and preoccupied with checking Cormac’s house, as she’d been doing for hours, to see if he might be at his window, possibly looking for her.

Was he even around?

She’d seen a light on at his place earlier, but it’d been dark for the past couple of hours. He was probably asleep. She didn’t know his schedule, but she guessed he’d had to work today and would most likely have to work tomorrow.

She sat on the chaise and called Eric to check on their business.

“How’s it going out there?” he asked after reassuring her that all was well.

Did she tell him her sister had run away with her nephews? That her gun-loving braggart of a brother-in-law would probably be showing up on her parents’ doorstep mad as hell in the next day or two? Or that she’d gone to bed with the son of the man who’d caused so much trauma in her life seventeen years ago? Those things were certainly noteworthy. She’d had no idea that coming back to face what her mother was going through would mean getting embroiled in so many other complicated situations.

Still, she was glad she’d come home. She understood now that Margot had been hanging on by a very thin thread and her parents had desperately needed her. But she had a funny feeling that what was happening here would affect the rest of her life, which certainly wasn’t something she’d anticipated when she caught her flight out of Idaho.

Actually, she’d realized she’d lose her mother, which would affect her life. But what was happening here went beyond that. It was changing a lot of her relationships—with her sister, her friends, even Cormac. They were no longer enemies. That dramatic of a change, along with everything else, made her uneasy.

She’d finally felt settled and at peace in her life, which was why she decided to keep everything that was happening in Wakefield to herself. These were her problems, not Eric’s. He had enough to deal with running the business so she could take care of her mom.

“Everything’s...great,” she said but shook her head as she stared up at the stars.

They talked about Ingrid losing another tooth and Coty screwing up as the Tooth Fairy and forgetting to put money under her pillow. They’d had to fake their daughter out by acting as though she hadn’t searched hard enough, at which point they’d planted a twenty—guilt money—while helping her look.

Gia laughed in all the right places, said all the right things and acted as if all was well. But after she hung up, the fact that she missed the simplicity of her life in Coeur d’Alene didn’t stop her from looking at Cormac’s house, wishing she could at least talk to him. That didn’t entirely make sense since she’d just counted him as a complication she didn’t need, but she couldn’t help feeling a jolt of excitement when she saw movement at his bedroom window.

Seconds later, her phone pinged with a text.

She smiled at his message.

Regardless of anything else, that much was true. She’d been lonely for years, and yet, despite all the men she’d dated, no one had been able to fill that void.

Knowing he was there looking out at her, she glanced up at his window.

I think you might be part of the problem, she wrote but added a smiley emoji to take the harshness from that statement.

Falling into Cormac’s arms sounded far more appealing than it should have, so appealing she found herself writing, I admire a risk-taker. Front or back door?

He directed her to the back door, where he met her and pressed her up against the wall to kiss her as soon as she came in.

The feeling that swept through Gia in that moment was charged with excitement. She liked Cormac—his manner, his voice, his smile, the way he touched her—more than anyone she’d ever been with.

Not him, she thought. Anyone but him. And yet...as he led her upstairs and stripped off her clothes before pulling her into his bed, she told herself she didn’t have anything to worry about. She’d never fallen in love before. She didn’t think she could. Chances were much greater that this was just another relationship she’d enjoy for now but wouldn’t make a meaningful impact.

When Cormac’s alarm went off the following morning, he was loath to move. He could feel Gia in the bed next to him and wished he could roll over and make love to her again. Instead, he kissed her neck, her jawline and then her lips before, with a regretful groan, forcing himself to climb out of bed.

“Don’t tell me it’s morning,” she mumbled, clearly not any happier than he was to find the night already over.

“It is for me. I promised to take one of my clients to the park to walk their dog. Then I have to get to the clinic. But it’s pretty early. You can stay and sleep if you want.”

She shoved the hair out of her eyes. “And if my parents realize I’m gone?”

“I doubt they’ll come looking for you over here,” he said with a chuckle.

She gave him a wry smile. “I can only imagine what they’d think to see me walking back through the gate looking this disheveled. They’d definitely be able to tell I spent the night here.”

“What would they think about that?” he asked. “Would they be upset?”

Her smile disappeared. “Who knows? They’ve been through so much lately.”

She pushed up onto her elbows, which inadvertently caused the sheet to fall to a tantalizing level—where it barely covered her breasts. Having her in his bed made it that much harder for him to fulfill his word to Mrs. Wood, but how could he cancel on her again? He’d already sent her a text in the middle of the night saying he’d be thirty minutes late.

“I wouldn’t want them to find me gone in the first place,” Gia added, “especially given that their other daughter is missing.”

After they’d made love, she’d told him what was going on with Margot while lying in his arms. It was arguably his favorite part of the night because it was so...companionable. That she’d trust him with information about her family and her concerns, and wasn’t eager to get up and hurry home, came as a welcome surprise. “You think Sheldon will show up today and cause trouble?”

“He might. If his parents were able to get hold of him, I bet he’s already on his way home.”

Cormac got a pair of jogging shorts out of his drawer. “Where do you think Margot could be?”

“I can’t even venture a guess. After three days of travel, she could be anywhere. I still can’t believe she took off like that on her own.”

“Maybe she’ll call again.”

“I hope so. I really need to talk to her.”

He dug through a stack of T-shirts. This time of year, he started out with a sweatshirt, too, but he usually peeled that off after the first mile. “I’m afraid of what Sheldon will do when he realizes she’s taken their money.”

Gia grimaced. “Yeah, something tells me he might care more about that than the kids.”

Cormac looked back at her. “Are you serious?”

“Not entirely,” she said. “Although he’s left taking care of them almost completely to her.”

He imagined the desperation Margot must’ve felt to do what she’d done. “You don’t believe he’d ever get violent with her...or with you?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. She’s obviously afraid of him, but maybe it’s mostly a fear of losing the children. He’s been large and in charge for so long, I don’t think she has a lot of confidence in her ability to defy him, which is why she left him the way she did.”

She got out of bed, and he couldn’t help admiring what he saw. “God, you’re gorgeous,” he said. “I’ve always thought so.”

She looked slightly startled by the compliment, and he thought the smile that spread over her face as her gaze briefly met his was more beautiful than any other part of her. “I’ve got a heart of gold, too,” she joked. “After all, I was just about to offer to make you breakfast.”

“Don’t you have to get home before your parents realize you’re gone?”

She picked up her phone, presumably to check for any texts or calls she’d missed. “They won’t be up for another hour. I think I’m okay.”

“Then I’ll gladly let you make breakfast.” He grinned. “That’s the nicest offer I’ve received since...well, since what you gave me last night.”

She laughed and tossed the clothes he’d left on the floor at him. “Go ahead and finish getting ready while I fumble my way through your kitchen, hoping to find the groceries I need.”

“What do you plan to make?”

“I’ll figure it out once I see your pantry.”

“I’ll let you surprise me then.” He stopped to kiss her one last time—and allowed himself to linger over her lips and tongue for a few extra seconds—before going into the bathroom.

By the time he got out, he could hear her moving around downstairs and the smell of bacon wafted up to him. He wasn’t looking forward to another tense day working with Louisa, but it was hard to worry about that when he had Gia here.

After he got dressed and went downstairs, he found that she was wearing one of his sweatshirts, which she must’ve found tossed across the chair in his room. It hit her at midthigh, making him wonder if she was wearing anything underneath.

“I hope you don’t mind me borrowing this,” she said, lifting the soft fleece in the front. “But it’s getting chillier and chillier as the days go by.”

“No problem. I’m not sure how you managed to withstand the cold last night, coming out in a T-shirt and no jacket.”

“I was too agitated to worry about the temperature. But I wasn’t prepared for it this morning, not after leaving the warmth of your bed.”

He poured himself a cup of the coffee she’d brewed. “You can take it with you, if you like, and bring it back tonight.”

She sent him a quizzical glance. “You think I’m staying over again?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”

“I could name several reasons, but let’s start with the fact that you’re going to need some sleep at some point!”

“I’ll manage,” he said. “Having you stay over again will be worth the trade-off.”

She’d fried eggs as well as bacon and made toast. She said she was waiting to eat with her parents, since she’d have to make them breakfast when they got up, too, but she sat down with him, drinking a cup of coffee while he ate, and they talked about his work. He told her how uncomfortable it was at the clinic these days with Louisa and that he planned to tell his sisters his father had basically admitted what he’d done as soon as his mother could arrange a family meeting.

“How do you think they’ll react?” she asked.

“I have no idea.”

She set her mug on the table. “Are you sure you should even tell them? At this point, it might be kinder just to let them believe what they believe.”

She had the most to gain from the truth coming out. But he was already starting to understand that she was more emotionally mature than most people. That was one of the things he admired about her—what drew him beyond her beauty. “Except that it’s not the truth.”

“There’s that,” she agreed.

He reached over to take her hand. “It’s time everyone knows you weren’t the one who was lying.”

“If you say so,” she said, her face pinched with worry. “But I hate that you and your sisters—and your mother, of course—are victims of his behavior, too.” With a sad smile, she slid off her stool. “I’d better get dressed.”

“Okay. Thanks for breakfast.”

He rinsed off the dishes while she started toward the stairs, but as soon as he turned off the garbage disposal, he heard the four beeps corresponding to the combination that offered an alternative way to unlock his front door.

He turned in surprise, and Gia did the same from the stairs, as his father stepped inside. “Cormac?” Evan shouted as he closed the door behind him. “I knocked, but—” He fell silent as he lifted his gaze, and they all gaped at each other. Then, blinking several times as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, his father said, “You’re sleeping with her?”