Hold on to Me (6 page)

Her chest rose and fell with her quick breaths while she tried to make sense of what she was reading. Fairy…fairy… Shannon was a terrible speller. Had she meant to write ferry?

Oh holy God…

She was running away? Because she was so miserable? Because Simone was such a horrible mother? No, that couldn’t be. Simone stared at the number again. She didn’t recognize it, which meant it wasn’t hers. And Shannon didn’t even know how to use a credit card. Besides, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to run off by herself right now when they were packing to move, not without…

Everything inside Simone went cold. And in her mind, links clicked into place.

Not without help.

“D
id you hear that?” Kate lifted her head from the pillow and looked toward the door.

Beside her, Ryan tossed a leg over her thigh and wrapped his hand around her waist. “I don’t hear anything. But since you woke me at this hour…”

He nuzzled her neck and pressed his rapidly growing erection against her hip. Tingles spread through Kate’s entire body, but the banging from somewhere downstairs overrode her simmering desire. She pushed against his shoulder. “That. You heard it that time, didn’t you?”

He stilled, lifted his head. When it happened again, his handsome features tightened. “That time I did.”

He tossed back the covers and tugged on the pajama bottoms she’d yanked off him only hours ago. “Stay here.”

Like that was happening
.

Kate glanced toward the bedside clock as he jerked their bedroom door open and disappeared down the stairs—2:35 a.m. Pulling on her own T-shirt and pajama bottoms, she followed.

Cool air spilled into the entry hall. Ryan’s concerned voice floated up the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

A flustered and windblown Simone swept into the house. “I called several times, but you didn’t answer. Is Shannon here?”

“Shannon?” Kate moved from carpet on the stairs to tile in the foyer. Light from the chandelier cascaded over her friend’s messy dark hair. Simone's jacket hung off one shoulder, her eyes were red and bloodshot, and Kate was pretty sure the usually calm and collected attorney was wearing two different colored shoes. “No. Is she supposed to be? We haven’t seen her all day. What’s happened?”

“I don’t know.” Simone lifted her arms, then dropped them on a huff. “I think she might have run off. We had an argument last night, and today I’ve been at the office getting everything finalized. Melody—our babysitter—was with her. I already talked to her, and she said Shannon was in her room at eight.” She pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead. “But that was like six hours ago. She could be anywhere by now. I have to find her.”

“Okay, calm down.” Ryan reached for Simone's shoulders and turned her to face him. He was so good in a crisis. Kate loved that about him. Loved that when she felt ready to flip out, he was the calm to her crazy. “Where would Shannon go besides our house?”

“I don’t know. But I found this on the floor in her room.” Simone held out a slip of paper. “It was just lying there like she dropped it. I don’t know whose credit card number that is—”

“I do.” Ryan looked up from the note in his hand and frowned.

He handed the note to Kate, exasperation reflecting clearly in his features. “Wait here, both of you. I have a feeling I know what’s going on.”

He disappeared up the steps. Kate turned Simone for the living room. “Do you want coffee? Something to drink?”

“A lobotomy, if you have it.” Simone dropped onto the couch and pressed her hands against her head. “She’s never run off before. I don’t understand. I know she’s mad at me but…”

Simone’s voice trailed off, and sensing her friend was at the end of her rope—and knowing what that was like because she’d been there herself—Kate sat next to her and wrapped an arm around Simone’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. Shannon’s a smart kid. I’m sure she’s fine. She’s probably staying at another friend’s house. We’ll find her.”

“You don’t understand.” Simone dropped her hands and looked Kate’s way. And in her brown eyes, Kate saw heartache and anger and fear—true fear. The kind that can change a person in drastic ways. “There’s so much you don’t know.”

“About what?” Kate whispered.

Simone stared at her. Seemed to want to say something. Didn’t. Long seconds passed, then Simone’s eyes fell closed, and she lowered her head back into her hands. “You wouldn’t understand.”

There was more going on here than Simone's breakup with Mitch. Kate rubbed a hand down Simone’s back, hoping to soothe her friend, but knew instinctively that she couldn’t. Footsteps from the direction of the stairs brought both their heads up.

Ryan and a very sleepy Julia stopped in the archway to the living room. “Katie? The note?”

Kate pushed from the couch, handed him the paper, and glanced at their daughter. Julia’s long hair was a mess of curls around her face, and her pajamas were wrinkled and pushed up one leg. She scrubbed at her eyes, but guilt was already slithering over her features.

Ryan handed the paper to Julia. “You wanna explain what this is?”

Hesitantly, Julia took the folded page, turned it over in her hands, and looked down. “It’s paper.”

“Don’t get smart with me, missy.” He opened the note and pointed at the writing. “Explain why Shannon had my credit card number.”

Julia’s eyes shifted back and forth. She looked everywhere but at the paper in her hands. Silence settled over the room, and Kate could all but feel the tension crackling higher with every passing second.

Finally, Julia looked up at her dad. “Okay, don’t get mad.”

Ryan wrapped one arm around his waist and pinched the bridge of his nose with his other hand. “Why do I cringe whenever you use that phrase?”

“I don't know.” Julia shrugged. “Maybe because I deliver it so well?”

“Julia,” Kate cut in, sensing Ryan’s waning patience. “Focus, and maybe we’ll reconsider grounding you for the rest of your life. Where is Shannon? Her mom’s worried sick.”

Julia’s guilty eyes darted to Simone, still seated on the couch, then shifted back to Kate.

“You’re already busted, so you might as well fess up.” Ryan crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at her. “At this point, your only hope is to throw yourself on the mercy of the court.”

Julia cringed. “You're not gonna like the answer.”

“Talk,” Ryan snapped.

Julia sighed. “In Washington. She’s probably already on Whidbey Island by now. She went to find Uncle Mitch.”

CHAPTER FIVE

T
ate Kendrick leaned back in his chair and looked across the mom-and-pop bar. “
That
, my friend, is exactly what you need to take your mind off things.”

Mitch turned to watch the leggy blonde in the short skirt and apron Tate had been eyeing most of the night head across the room. She turned and sent Tate a wicked smile, licking her lips to draw attention to her plump mouth.

“Not interested.” Mitch looked back at their table and poured another inch of Jamison into the tumbler in his hand. He swirled the golden liquid in the glass, then downed it in one swallow that burned a path of heat straight to his gut. “I’m done with women.”

Music from a jukebox across the room echoed classic eighties music. Pool balls clacked in the adjacent room. Dragging his attention from the blonde at the bar, Tate grinned Mitch’s way. “Done with women? Fine. But don’t get any ideas. You’re not sleeping in my bed tonight.”

Mitch rolled his eyes. “I know this might come as a shock, Kendrick, but not everyone on the planet thinks you’re a rock god.”

Tate chuckled and went back to watching the blonde. “Only the ones who matter, old man.”

Sighing, Mitch leaned back in his seat and looked down at the empty glass. A little voice in the back of his head told him he should really stop drinking, but at the moment, he couldn’t find a legitimate reason to listen. He was supposed to be heading to British Columbia and the work site, but he’d gotten off the plane in Seattle instead and hopped a ferry out to Whidbey Island. He and Tate had been friends since college, when the freshman upstart had joined the baseball team and he and Ryan had decided to take Tate under their wing during their senior year. He was a few years younger, a whole lot cockier, and ever since his band, Kendrick, had taken off the last few years, a hell of a lot more obnoxious. But if there was one person Mitch knew he could get drunk with and not have to spill his guts to about everything that had happened with Simone, it was Tate.

Not that Tate wouldn’t understand. But thankfully—at least for Mitch—the guy didn’t do emotions. In fact, in all the years Mitch had known him, he couldn’t remember a single time he’d heard Tate talk about anything deeper than how much he loved his stupid band.

“You look like shit, you know,” Tate said, lifting the Corona bottle to his lips while he continued to flirt with the blonde. “You go up to BC looking like that and every one of your big-oil coworkers is gonna know you got your ass handed to you by a girl.”

Mitch frowned and reached for the bottle again. It wobbled in his vision, but he wrapped his hand around the cool glass and slowly lifted it so he could pour again. “Thanks for the advice. You’re not so hot either, music man. That soul patch looks like something died on your face.”

Tate chuckled and rubbed his thumb over the patch of hair on his chin. “The chicks dig it.

“The chicks dig your money and celebrity status. Trust me, they hate the pubes on your chin. They’re just too starstruck to tell you.”

Simone had said that to him one night. When they’d been cuddled up on his couch watching Kendrick’s debut on SNL. A vicious sharp pain lanced his chest at the memory and sent waves of misery outward. Before it could consume him, he poured another inch of Jamison in his glass and tossed it back.

“You better go easy on that stuff or you’re gonna get sick,” Tate muttered.

Mitch swiped his mouth with the back of his hand and set the glass on the table. “News flash, brainiac. I’m already sick.”

Sick of women, sick of love, sick of making a fool out of himself
.

“God, you’re a breath of fresh air.” Tate pushed back from the table, the legs of his chair scraping the ground as he stood. “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here before you ruin my reputation.”

Mitch pushed up to his feet. The room swayed, and he caught himself from going down by bracing his hands on the table. “Your reputation was shot the minute you hung out with me.”

Did he slur those words? And, wow, the room was really spinning now.

“Yeah, yeah.” Tate grabbed him by the arm and turned him for the entrance of the small bar. “Your hero status is shot. I just want you to know that. Playing Mr. Mom with Ryan these past few years obviously killed your tolerance for booze. Who will I look up to now?”

Mitch stumbled into the back of an empty chair. “I can still drink.”

“Uh-huh.” Tate dragged him toward the door. “Like a lightweight little virgin.”

“Tate.” The blonde he’d been flirting with the whole night materialized out of nowhere, dragging Mitch’s feet to a stop. “You’re not leaving yet, are you?”

Mitch’s eyes widened. He blinked several times to see her clearly. Couldn’t seem to focus on anything more than a fuzzy yellow halo around her head. Luckily, Tate didn’t let go of his arm. Maybe this was exactly what he did need, a woman to take his mind off Simone. Except, whoa… Now there were three of her.

“Yeah, unfortunately, I gotta get this old guy home,” Tate said somewhere close. “Way past his bedtime.”

Three sets of eyes looked Mitch’s way, but all three were obviously more interested in the music man. She stuck out her full bottom lip—all three of them. “I was just about to take my break.”

“Next time, baby-doll. I promise.”

She rose up on her toes and kissed Tate’s scruffy cheek. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Tate grinned once more as he pushed the door open to the parking lot and pulled Mitch through. Stopping on the other side, he turned and looked back. “Hey, Aubrey. You like the soul patch, right?”

Slapping the bar rag in her hand, Aubrey shrugged. “Sure. It’s kinda cute. I’ll see you next time.”

She waved and disappeared back into the bar.

The door snapped shut, and cool air washed over Mitch. He chuckled. “See? Told ya.”

Tate frowned and pulled Mitch toward his truck. “Cute is for bunny rabbits and panda bears. I am
not
cute.”

The world didn’t seem to want to stop spinning even out here in the cool night air. Mitch climbed into Tate’s souped-up Dodge, closed the door, and leaned his head back against the plush seat. When Tate climbed in next to him, he muttered, “If I hurl, I just want you to know it’s not personal.”

“Fuck that,” Tate muttered. The window at Mitch’s right went all the way down, and crisp air rushed over him as they pulled out of the small parking lot. “I swear to God, if you get sick in my truck, Mathews, you’ll regret it.”

“I already regret it.” Mitch’s eyes drifted closed, and he fought back the waves of nausea as the rig bounced over ruts in the road. “Why did you let me drink so much?”