Looking for Trouble (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 1)

Alex sighed. “Listen, Sophie, I’m already on my way out of town. You’ll have to call Shane about it.”

The shock of the whole day must have finally caught up with her. Sophie nearly dropped the phone. Her knees went so weak that she had to sit down. He was gone? Just like that?

But of course he was. After today he wouldn’t have felt any obligation to even say goodbye to her. “Okay,” she finally managed to croak. “She’s home alone and I don’t think she should be. I’ll call Shane if you’ll give me his number.”

The wind caught his phone again. She wondered where he was. If he’d left right after that nightmare today, he could already be in Utah or Colorado or Idaho.

He said her name.

“Yes?”

“I said I’ll text you his number.”

“Thanks.” She hung up before she could say more. If she told him she was sorry, all the emotion inside her would come bubbling up. She was so damn tired, anything could’ve pushed her to tears, and hearing that he was already gone was more than just anything.

But she had to hold it together. She couldn’t crawl into her bed just yet. Or could she?

If Rose had been such an awful mother that her own son didn’t give a damn about her, did Sophie have an obligation to take care of her? Rose had been calling Sophie’s mom a slut and a whore and home wrecker for a quarter of a century. She’d transferred all that spite to Sophie. After all the awful ways Rose had tried to hurt the Heyer family, why help her at all?

But the devil on Sophie’s shoulder had nothing on the very loud angel sitting on the other. She checked her texts for Shane’s number, then closed them and checked again. Nothing. Just as she was checking a third time, her phone rang. Alex’s name popped up.

“I called Shane,” he said gruffly. “He’ll be at Mom’s within the hour. It’ll take me about that long to get back to town.”

“Okay.”

“I got a late start,” he said as if she’d challenged him.

“Sure. All right. I hope she’s okay. I’d offer to go over, but...”

“Yeah. You’d better not. I’ll see you in a while.”

He hung up before she could apologize, but she was thankful. She didn’t know what to say. The next forty-five minutes ticked by. She paced from the porch to the living room to the bedroom. She changed into yoga pants and brushed out her hair. She poured herself a glass of wine, then changed her mind. What if she had to file a police report or something? But she managed to screw that up, too, by spilling half the wine on herself when she tried to get it back into the bottle. Reeks of alcohol, any police report would start with.

Finally, just as dark was setting in, she heard the roar of Alex’s bike approaching. She opened the door before he even knocked.

“My brother says she seems normal. Whatever that is.”

“She’s not. Or she wasn’t. She was talking to me like I was my mother.”

“Sophie.” He ran a hand over his head, drawing her eye to the smooth skin. She shook her head and looked away, but he kept talking. “Her whole thing has been treating you like you’re your mother, right?”

“It wasn’t like that. She was confused. She was looking for your dad.”

“Again, pretty standard.” His words were hard. Removed. Far cooler than they’d ever been with her before. He was pissed. At her and his mother and the whole world.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He shook his head like he didn’t understand.

She felt a brief moment of irritation, but she knew it was ungracious. “About today. I’m sorry that I showed up and set her off.”

“Yeah.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “What the hell was that, Sophie? Why were you there?”

She’d thought she was ready to talk about it, but his questions made her insides quake. “I’m so sorry. My brother was...” She waved a helpless hand.

Alex stared hard at her. “He was what?”

“I don’t know. I was just trying to help.”