middle of whatever her mother was saying. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Abigale braced herself, waited for the pain she knew would follow. But it wasn’t there.
She just felt . . . numb.
Her mother, at some point in the past few years, had ceased to matter.
Another ring belted through the air and she flinched.
“Rebel Yell.”
Damn it.
Zach.
She still wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.
She had a date, anyway.
One more thing to do before she went and confronted him.
She hit the button to ignore the call and punched in Marin’s number. As Marin came on the line, she asked, “Are you going to be able to make it or not?”
“Oh, hey, Abby! So nice to talk to you, too . . . yes, the flight was wonderful, and my goodness, it’s hot here in Arizona. No, I don’t mind a bit—”
“Ha, ha,” Abigale said, cutting into Marin’s chatter. “Hi, Marin. How are you, how was the flight, and of course it’s hot. It’s always hot around here. Are you going to make it?”
“I already said I’m here. So . . . have you figured out what you’re doing?”
Abigale rubbed the heel of her hand over her heart. “Yeah. I’ve got an idea. We just need to know where to go.”
“Leave that to me.”
* * *
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Zach listened as Marin droned on. After about another sixty seconds, he’d had about all he could take.
“Marin . . . this isn’t helping. What I need is to know where in the hell she is.”
Two days, damn it. He hadn’t seen or heard from Abby in two days.
It was killing him.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Zach,” Marin said, sighing. “Look, just give her some time. She’ll calm down.”
“Time.” He closed his eyes but two seconds later, he forced his heavy lids back open and stared outside over the twinkling lights of the city. “Give her time, you say. I’ve given her plenty of time, Marin. I waited seventeen years. I was patient. I hoped. I waited. And then she sees one bad thing and she takes off. Now she won’t talk to me. How much more time am I supposed to give her?”
“She just walked in while you were kissing another woman,” Marin pointed out.
“I wasn’t kissing anybody!” he snapped. “Keelie kissed me and I stopped her the second I figured out what in the hell she was doing. I didn’t plan it and I sure as hell wasn’t on board with it.”
“Zach . . . I’m sorry and I get that. But you need to see it from her side. How would you feel if you walked in and some guy had his lips all over her?”
He snorted. “I’ve walked in and seen that a hundred times.” And he knew how he’d feel. It hurt. Like acid in a wound.
“But you never had a right to call her yours before now. It’s different. It’s a different matter entirely. She just needs to some time to cool down.”
“If she’d give me five damn seconds, I could tell her there’s nothing to cool down about,” he grumbled. Spinning away from the window, he started to pace. “And damn it, I need to know she’s okay. She’s not coming home. She’s not been to work. It’s like she disappeared.”
“You realize she’s a big girl, right?”
Groaning, he dropped down on the coach. “So that means I can’t worry? Is that what you’re saying? I’m not allowed to worry?”
“Worry all you want. But I can tell you that she’s fine. Okay?”
His gut tugged at him. Lowering the phone, he glared at it and then lifted it back to his ear. “Worry all I want . . . damn it, Marin. Is she in LA? Put her on the phone, damn it.”
“She’s not in LA.” Marin laughed and the sound was easy, light . . . and completely full of bullshit. He knew it. “Zach, sweetheart, you need to calm down a little. Chill out. Hell, go hook up with one of your brothers and have a drink or something.”
“None of my brothers live here,” he snapped. “Put her on the phone and don’t lie to me. She’s in LA with you, I know you too well.”
“She’s not in LA with me, Zach.” Marin stared across the room, eyeing Abigale narrowly as a thin Asian man with his hair dyed blond and done up in spikes bent over Abigale’s bared chest. She was tempted to take a picture and send it to