He had a bad feeling about this.
“Like I said, Kate. I was in a meeting and only saw you called now.”
“Tucker,” she wailed in his ear. “They’ve found her.”
For a moment, Tucker felt as if he was sitting in a cold, sterile room at the end of a very long hallway. There were echoes, not sounds really, just hard noises banging in his head. All the colors of the world bled into one, a dull, grey palette, that was sickly and awful.
“Tucker! Did you hear what I just said?”
He glanced up then and caught the eye of a businessman, briefcase in hand. The man looked at Tucker as if trying to put together a puzzle. And then like a light bulb went off, the man’s expression changed. There was a clarity there. Interest. Knowing.
Tucker looked away and ran his hand behind his neck, searching in the bar for his brother.
“What are you saying, Kate?”
“Oh my God, Tucker. Turn on the television. It’s all over the news.”
Like one of those crazy zombies from the show that Abby loved so much, Tucker shuffled back into the bar, yanking on his tie—the damn thing was too fucking tight—his eyes on the flat screen above Teague’s head. He saw the headline, though the scrolling words, the details along the bottom were too far away for him to read.
“Missing wife of Tucker Simon, sports agent and one America’s celebrated Simons’, found alive and well in a hospital in Cuba.”
Son-of-a-bitch.
Teague was walking toward him, his expression calm, though his eyes were dark and intense. When he spoke, it sounded as if Teague was down that goddamn hall in that shitty, sterile room, and his words tinny and sharp.
“Are you okay? Tucker?”
Tucker’s eyes went back to the television. His wedding photo was now plastered across the screen. Face white, he stared up at it. Marley looked so young and seeing her up there hit him like a punch to the gut.
“I have to go,” he mumbled. Jesus Christ, Marley was alive? How was that possible?
“Let me grab my jacket. I’m with you, brother. Hold on.”
Aware that more than a few people were staring, Tucker walked to the window, his eyes on the snow. The clean, unspoiled white snow. It mesmerized him and he didn’t look away until he felt Teague’s hand on his shoulder.
“Where do you need to go?”
“I…” Tucker scrubbed at his eyes. “Abby…”
“Okay, we’ll figure this out. I’m here, all right? I’ll cancel Egypt and….” Teague’s voice trailed off and Tucker turned around.
The first thing he saw were fire-engine red boots and a matching coat that touched the top of her knees. Long dark hair spilled across her shoulders and her face….
Christ, her face was so white that she looked like a ghost and her chest heaved as if she couldn’t breathe. Abby took one look at him and her knees buckled.
“Hey,” Tucker said roughly as he moved forward and caught her up in a fierce hug. He held her trembling body against his, angry that he’d somehow caused her pain. Crazy with fear that everything he had—everything that he loved—was going to slip away from him.
Again.
“It’s true then?” Abby said, her words stilted as she shivered in his arms.
“I don’t know,” Tucker answered haltingly. “Jesus, Abigail, I don’t fucking know.”
Abby rocked into him. Did someone take their photo? Was that Teague telling someone off?
Tucker didn’t know. He was trying his best not to freak the fuck out. All he could do was hold this woman because right here, right now, she was real. She was real and she had him. She had every bit of him, and he needed to let her know that. He wanted to let her know that.
So why couldn’t he? What the fuck was wrong with him?