Chapter 19Wren
“She’s a lovely girl,” Nana says, but I take her kind words for what they are, a push for more information.
“It’s new,” I repeat, using the same words I spoke earlier.
“You like her a lot.”
“I do,” I confess, focusing more on not breaking her toes than the conversation she seems hell-bent on having.
“She seems like the type that’s able to keep up with you.”
I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face. If Nana only knew how true those words are. “She is.”
“Have you discussed children? Marriage?”
I sigh, looking down at my petite grandmother with a frown. “Did you miss the part where I said it was new?”
“And I knew I was going to marry your grandfather before he even opened his mouth to introduce himself.”
“Things aren’t like those days. This isn’t the nineteen-twenties.”
A surprisingly strong hand slaps my chest. “I wasn’t born until thirty-six, you weasel.”
I grin down at her. “It’s new.”
She scoffs, her eyes taking on that dreamlike state they always do when she’s thinking of my grandfather. Even years after he left this world, she’s still madly in love with the man.
The slow song we’re dancing to turns into something more upbeat so we make our way off the dance floor. After getting her settled at a table with another glass of champagne, I go in search of the girl that hasn’t left my mind in weeks.
“Have you seen Whitney?” I ask Brooks who seems averse to pulling his mouth away from the woman’s neck who is practically sitting in his lap. He doesn’t bother to pull his hand from the thigh revealed in the slit of her bridesmaid dress as he looks up at me.
“She left a little while ago.”
“Left?”
“As in she’s not sitting here any longer.”
That’s all I’m going to get from him I realize as he buries his face in his conquest’s hair and whispers something too low for me to hear but makes her grin wide and nod.
I continue to look, but neither Finn nor Gaige has seen her. Ignacio left shortly after the ceremony, and I can’t find Quinten either. I search for thirty minutes before deciding she actually left me here. She was acting a little strange, but I thought my declarations calmed her. Unease fills my gut when I imagine my words having the opposite effect on her. Did I scare her off? Was meeting my grandmother too much for her? Too soon?
I find Deacon and Anna, meaning to tell them goodbye and wish them well, but they’re curled around each other in a dark corner of the room, heads lowered and whispering like they’re just biding their time before they can sneak out and do very dirty things to each other. Actually, from the looks of it and what I know from catching them going at it in the parking garage several times, they may not even wait until they get to their room for it to happen.
My car, as if it’s just as unsure as I am, takes two tries before it cranks, but I can’t worry about mechanical failure right now. Not when my world may be crashing down around me. The words I plan to use to convince her not to freak out fade away the second I get off the elevator and come face-to-face with her apartment door.
The door is pulled almost closed, but the cracked doorjamb prevents it from closing all the way. Ice fills my blood as I kick it open. I don’t have the skills that Flynn would have looking into this situation, but I know I can’t touch anything. Ruining evidence is the last thing I want.
My hands are trembling in my pockets as I walk through her apartment. It’s neat but cluttered. There’s no broken glass or overturned furniture, but as I walk deeper inside, a sense of overwhelming foreboding settles deep inside of me. Her computer desk in the corner looks as it should if it weren’t for the dangling cords that should be attached to a CPU. Further inspection reveals open drawers in her bedroom and the closet light left on. The bathroom shows a stark absence of everyday items. Her shampoo and conditioner, what I know to be lavender scented just from her proximity, are gone.
Kidnappers don’t normally force you to pack a bag, and they definitely don’t allow you time to grab your cat and its food. She wasn’t taken. She left.
In a hurry.
Without saying goodbye.
Is this what devastation feels like? A crushing pain that steals your breath and makes your muscles want to give up.
She was smiling, happy. She grinned when I winked at her over Nana’s shoulder.
I don’t know if it’s because I just can’t accept the fact that I may have run her off or what, but the need to find her wins out over everything. If she doesn’t want to see me or have anything to do with me, she’s going to have to say those words to my face. I have to know she’s safe and not on a slow boat to some war-ridden country to be used for the disgusting need of evil men.