Lissa- Sugar and Spice (The Wilde Sisters 3)

It didn’t matter.

The phone rang. The automated message came on.

She ended the call.

OK. Definitely, a glitch. Well, GlobalPhone was her carrier, too. The number for customer service was right in her contacts list. She chose it, went through the nonsense of its electronic switchboard—

“GlobalPhone,” a voice said briskly. “How may I help you?”

Lissa cleared her throat. “I’m having a problem trying to reach someone.” She explained it all. That she’d called three separate times, that she’d reached the same automated message each time.

“Do you happen to know the message, ma’am?”

She did. By now, she knew it by heart, and she repeated it word for word.

“The thing is, I don’t understand the part about checking the number because I absolutely know the number I’ve called is correct.”

“I’m sure it is, Miss,” the rep said. “What that message means is—”

Lissa listened. And listened. She reached behind her for a chair and sat down.

“I see,” she said. “Thank you. No, no, there’s nothing else.”

“Lissa?”

She looked across the room. Emily and Jaimie were standing with their backs to the television screen.

“Lissa,” Jaimie said, “you should probably see—”

Emily elbowed Jaimie in the ribs. “What’s the matter?”

Lissa’s lips felt as dry as the Mojave Desert. She moistened them with the tip of her tongue.

“It’s… It’s…” She paused. “I called Nicholas.”

“And?”

“And I got a weird message.”

“What kind of weird message?”

“A recording. I thought it meant that his phone was, you know, overloaded. I mean, everybody he ever knew is probably trying to reach him, but—”

“But?”

“But what it means is that—is that the person you’re calling has—has changed his number.”

Jaimie’s expression turned grim. “He changed his number without telling you??

?

“It’s probably a mistake,” Lissa said. She was shaking. Dammit! She was shaking! “Just some kind of screw-up, you know?”

Jaimie and Emily looked at each other. Then Emily picked up the TV remote. She and Jaimie moved to the sides of the set as Emily turned up the sound.

“… plans are just that right now,” a slightly rough, wonderfully familiar male voice said.

Lissa caught her breath, rose to her feet and whispered Nick’s name. And, yes, it was Nick on the TV screen, tall and handsome with that sexy, lazy smile on his lips.