Claiming Holly (Holiday Cove 1)

“Holly…” Rachel didn’t stop me, but her tone of voice was saturated in disapproval.

I ignored her and flicked the TV back on to the news channel I’d been glued to all night. I drowned out Rachel’s objections while I searched the new headlines along the bottom of the screen. Eventually, Rachel gave up trying to talk me out of it and sat down next to me on the couch. Hunter jumped up between us and settled down, laying his head in my lap and his tail in Rachel’s, and we both stroked him as we watched the news cycle through.

“I don’t know what you’re looking for. But I hardly think that the government will give much more detail than they’ve already shared. This is the eleven o clock news reruns, anyway.”

“Maybe so, Rach, but I have to try.” I knew she was probably right, but I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t simply turn off the TV and walk away and go on with the rest of the day as if everything was fine.

Rachel glanced over at me, her eyes full of concern. “I understand, Holly, I do. But I don’t want you getting so worked up again. Until you hear from Jack, you’re not going to know what’s happening. Compulsively watching the news is only going to torture you and make your mind run even wilder. I think it would be better if you focused on taking care of yourself.”

“If Jack’s the one who got—shot down—I can’t just—” I stopped to suck in a breath. “Rach, I know it’s not what I should be thinking but he could be dead.”

It was an ugly, dark thought, but one I found impossible to push out of my mind. I had no proof, but the churning and cinched feeling in my gut was enough to tell me that it was too much of a coincidence that he wasn’t involved in the events of the day before.

The possibility had been in my mind ever since Jack unexpectedly cut off our phone call that afternoon. I wasn’t so naive to think that he’d be put in some kind of bubble just because he was in a plane instead of on the ground. If anything, flying above the war-torn land was more dangerous because if anything went wrong, he’d be sent crashing to the ground below.

Even though I’d been harboring the thought since our call ended, there was something about saying the words out loud that pushed past the last remaining barrier of sanity I’d built in my mind and a wave of fresh tears slid down my cheeks. Hunter shoved himself up off the couch, climbed into my lap, and started to lick away the salty tears from my face. I tried to smile at him but when my lips parted, a strangled sob pushed out instead.

Rachel shooed the distraught puppy from the couch and scooted over closer so she can wrap her arms around me. “Shh, shh, Holly. It’s gonna be okay.”

I wanted to believe her. Every fiber of my being wanted to believe that it would be okay. That if it had been his plane that had gone down, that by some miracle he’d survived the crash, and find his way back to safety. But the reality was that his odds of survival were low of even walking away from the crash, let alone getting back to the rest of his unit.

Rachel continued stroking my hair. “We don’t even know if that was his plane.”

I nodded, hating the selfish desire to wish the crash was someone else. No matter who had been on that plane, there was a family out there hurting and terrified.

“I never even told him,” I said, unable to bring my voice above a whisper. “I never even told him what he meant to me. How much our time together meant to me. I’ve wanted to say it a dozen times over the last few weeks, but it always felt like the wrong time or place to talk about something like that from thousands of miles away over a spotty internet connection. But I should have. I see that now. Now that it’s too late.”

Rachel didn’t say anything—she’d apparently run out of comforting things to offer me. Instead, she continued to stroke my hair and let me cry until I fell fast asleep.

When I woke up, the sun was peeking through the window. “Rach, you okay?”

“Yeah. Just slept weird. Want some coffee?” I moved my head from Rachel’s lap, and she got up and headed toward the kitchen.

“Sure.” I got up to take a shower and found some rejuvenation under the spray of hot water. When I stepped out onto the fuzzy bathmat and dried off, I found myself somewhere between normal and complete devastation.

There were no more tears to cry, at least not for the moment, but in place of them, everything felt empty and numb. Back in my room, I shrugged Jack’s shirt down over my head and breathed in the lingering scent of his cologne that had been left around the collar. I’d been wearing it almost every day since I returned home from Holiday Cove and found it stashed away in my suitcase. I didn’t want to wash it. The warm, comforting scent was getting faint but it was enough.