mind, do you, Sam?”
Quinn cringed. The rising moon only provided a trickle of power, and if she didn’t use it, she should be able to avoid the moon lust for one night. It would be disastrous to have to deal with it now, after their conversation last night.
She managed to stop herself from building a barrier of pillows down the center of the barely double-size sofa bed later that night. She had already claimed a side and was in bed with the lights off when Sam joined her.
“How many times did you try to reach Nick?” she asked him.
“Four.”
“I tried three. It’s not like him, Sam.”
“I know. And the last time…” He lowered his voice. “The last time I called, a minute ago, it picked up. There was static and some yelling before it cut off.”
Panic fluttered through her again. “What kind of yelling?”
Sam slid his long legs under the covers and sighed when his feet poked out the bottom. He hitched himself higher against the back of the sofa and adjusted the pillows. “Could have been radio yelling. Maybe one of those vintage rock cassette tapes he has.”
“Or?”
“Or it could have been real people. I didn’t hear enough to know if it was Nick.”
She sat up. “We have to go after him.”
“Quinn, he’d kill me if I let you anywhere near there if we think there’s trouble.”
“I know, but we can’t leave him.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and dug underneath for her shoes. “We shouldn’t have let it go this long.”
Sam caught her elbow and tugged her upright. “It hasn’t been long. It takes hours to get to Maine, and I think Marley’s place is rural. Maybe he can’t get a signal again.”
She was tired of that excuse. For all the bragging of the various mobile phone companies, none of them seemed to have the coverage they needed, when they needed it most.
“He’s probably fine,” he tried, but she could tell he wasn’t certain of it himself. “I’m supposed to keep you safe. Here is safe. There—we don’t know.”
“All the more reason to go after him.” She pulled her arm away and got down on the floor. Where the hell was her shoe? She spotted it, an arm’s length under the bed, and caught it as Sam climbed off the bed and pulled her to her feet.
“No one has gotten the better of Nick Jarrett in fifteen years,” he reminded her, rubbing his hands up and down her arms as if to soothe, but too briskly to have the intended effect. “What if the yelling was nothing?”
“What if it’s not?”
“What if it’s a trap?”
His earnestness penetrated. He was trying to protect her, like Nick had demanded, and he was right. If it were a trap, running into it would hasten any harm that could come to Nick. Her brain started working rationally again. “Someone could have taken Nick’s phone.”
Sam’s hands relaxed their grip. “Right. There are a hundred things it could be.”
Sighing, she dropped back onto the bed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Sleep.” He sat beside her. “If he hasn’t called by morning, I’ll drive up there while you’re at the meeting. You’ll have more power tomorrow and will be around a dozen goddesses. This guy would have to be insane to show up there. Plus, you might get some information. You’ve been cut off for weeks. We don’t know what else is going on.”
“Morning is too far away.” But Sam had convinced her, so she lay back down with another sigh. Sam slid under the sheets next to her, and his hand found hers in the dark, his thumb stroking over the back of her knuckles before he let her go and rolled over.
He snored softly a few minutes later, but Quinn couldn’t shut off her brain. She forced it to work through possible scenarios at the meeting, who would be there, how they’d act toward her. When she started to drift off, she caught herself listening for the cell phone, sure that despite its ear-shattering volume, she wouldn’t hear it.
She finally succumbed and managed three hours and forty-two minutes of sleep before waking to find Sam watching her, his light brown eyes clear and wide awake.
“Morning,” he said.
“Hi.” She covered a yawn with her hand. “Phone didn’t ring. Did it?”
“No.”
“What time is it?”
Sam gave her a look. He knew she knew what time it was. “Six.”
“And you’re still here?” With a groan she pushed upright and swung her legs over