You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,94

he hadn’t so much as walked but run to get what he was after—and usually, at least according to his parents, straight into trouble, as proven by the number of times he’d broken the law as a teenager. Worse yet, he’d crushed his mother and father by dropping out of college and working construction. Despite their disappointment, he’d been adept with a hammer and saw, could read architectural plans and schematics easily, and was quick to come up with innovative ideas and solutions to problems. He’d scraped and saved, borrowed and used the money he’d already inherited, a small portion of what he would someday come into, to buy forty acres of land here in the foothills of the Cascades and start his own construction company. Within a few years, he was where he was today. Self-made and proud of it.

But now everything he’d struggled for wasn’t enough.

Because of Rebecca.

That had been a mistake.

Even if it couldn’t have been avoided.

Which really got under his skin.

So now here he was, sitting in his idling Explorer, coffee getting cold in the cup holder, while he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

And contemplated what he did or did not want.

“Hell,” he muttered, and beside him, on the passenger seat, Ralph snorted as if agreeing.

James had been leaving the doctor’s office, driving home, when his mother had called. Again. Figuring he’d put her off long enough, he pulled over in the loading zone of a furniture store, took the call, and talked to her for ten minutes, answering her questions about how he was doing and asking the right ones about his sisters. He hadn’t realized until he’d disconnected and let the phone slide into the cup holder that the furniture store was across the street from the back of the hotel, where Rebecca’s white Subaru was parked in the lot.

Had that been a subconscious decision?

Picking up his cell again, he was about to punch in her number when the phone rang in his hand, and he saw the number affiliated with a Seattle TV station.

He didn’t answer and let voice mail do the honors. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he punched in Rebecca’s number.

She didn’t pick up.

He didn’t leave a message—make that another message. He’d already recorded a voice-mail request that she call him. She hadn’t. Nor had she responded to either of his two texts.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize she didn’t want to see him.

Which stung.

And which, he realized, his lips twisting bitterly, was pretty damned ironic, all things considered. But, damn, the more she rebuffed him, the more interested he became.

Then there was the problem with Megan. Where the hell was she? He was getting more worried about her with each passing day. What he remembered of their last fight was horrid. How angry she’d been. How vicious. How upset.

And it was his own damned fault.

He should never have taken up with her in the first place, never believed her lies.

“You’re going to regret this.”

Her words haunted him.

And he wondered, if she did happen to show up again, which he hoped for, how he would explain about his rekindled interest in Rebecca. Not that it was a problem currently, considering Rebecca’s attitude toward him. Nonetheless, when Megan found out, she’d hit the roof.

If Megan found out, he reminded himself.

There was a chance she would never return.

And as time went on, the thought that she might be dead burned through his brain.

He closed his eyes.

What the hell had happened to her? Less and less he believed her disappearance was an act. More and more he feared something awful had happened to her.

What about Sophia? She still thinks you’re a couple. You’re not doing much to dissuade her. And Jennifer? Don’t forget her. Didn’t she call you the week before Megan went missing? Despite your amnesia, you didn’t forget that, did you?

“Shit.”

Beside him, Ralph pressed his nose to the passenger window and whined.

It was time to go. James slugged back the remainder of the coffee that he’d bought at the drive-thru kiosk a block from the clinic. He hadn’t exactly been given a clean bill of health, but Dr. Monroe had told him he could ditch the sling, for the most part, and suggested he might want to get a haircut to even things up; his wound was healing as expected.

James cast a glance at himself in the mirror and decided he looked like crap. A military buzz cut was the only thing that would