and over before it had begun, but it left the taste of him on her lips. Then he spun around. “I have to go change for that workout,” he muttered and walked out of the atrium.
She watched him go, hope rising inside her. Was she beginning to mean more to him than he realized? He’d said that he’d been worried about her when he couldn’t find her. He’d said he wasn’t missing out on a thing by being married to her.
And he’d brought her a piece of pie.
Ten
A buzzing sound woke Cassandra during the night. For a moment she lay there, trying to wake up properly as she heard Dominic mutter something and get out of bed. He switched on the light.
And suddenly she knew.
She threw back the blankets, but he was closer to her handbag on the chair, and she watched in horror as he grabbed her cell phone and looked at the caller ID.
He frowned then looked at her. “It says Devondale Nursing Home. Is that where you—”
“Oh, no!” She surged off the bed and grabbed the phone from him, knowing something was wrong if they were calling her in the middle of the night. It was.
Her father had gone missing.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she told Jane Clyde, then ended the call and faced Dominic, panic rising in her throat. She was going to have to tell him about Joe, but more importantly right now she was scared for her father. “It’s my dad. He’s missing.”
His confused gaze rested on her. “From a nursing home? I thought you said he lived with your sister in Sydney?”
“I did say that, but…” She swallowed hard. “He’s in the nursing home here in Melbourne where I do volunteer work. He’s gone missing from there.”
His brows jerked together, then a pulse started ticking in his jaw. “So it wasn’t about doing volunteer work at all? You lied to me about it?”
She winced. “No, it’s not like that. I—”
“What else is there that I don’t know about you?” he said, cutting her off in disgust.
She understood where he was coming from. She truly did. But she had her reasons. Reasons she couldn’t tell him. And she couldn’t think beyond the moment.
“It’s a long story.”
His lips thinned with anger. “Get dressed. You can tell me on the way.”
She gave a gasp of surprise. “You’re coming with me?”
“What sort of question is that? I’m your husband.”
She blinked, then schooled her features. “Er…nothing.” She turned away to get dressed. Liam hadn’t really been interested in her father. He certainly wouldn’t have come with her now.
And Dominic wouldn’t be the man she loved if he didn’t want to go with her.
Then she remembered Nesta was away. “We’ll have to take Nicole with us,” she said, not wanting to wake her daughter but having no choice.
Fifteen minutes later Cassandra gave Dominic directions to the nursing home and they were on their way. Thankfully, Nicole had fallen back to sleep in her car seat before they were even out the drive.
“Now, tell me what this is about,” he said once they had left the house behind.
“Joe has dementia, and now he’s taken himself off somewhere.” Panic swept through her again. “He’s out there in the dark somewhere. He has good days and bad days, and he probably doesn’t know where he is.” Her words caught in her throat. She could barely say the next words. “There’s a river nearby.”
He reached over and squeezed her knee. “He’ll be fine,” was all he said before he concentrated on driving without another word.
It was enough for Cassandra, and she managed to blink back tears, grateful she had someone with her for once. At least it was a warm night and not cold.
The nursing home was awash with light when they turned into the drive. Cassandra gasped at the police car parked out front.
Then Jane Clyde came rushing over as Cassandra got out of the car. “They’ve found him, Cassandra,” she said, for once forgetting to call her Mrs. Roth. “Someone saw him walking along the street in his pajamas and had the good sense to call the police.”
Cassandra slumped with relief. “Thank God!”
Dominic was out of the car by now, too. He frowned at the administrator. “How did he get out? I’m assuming the place would have been locked up.”
Cassandra winced at the hardness of his tone, though she would have asked the same question. “This is my husband,” she said to Jane.
“Yes, I know.” The other woman