Proving Paul's Promise (The Reed Brothers 5)

She sits down and glares at me.

“We did not bump uglies,” I grumble.

She tilts her head and grins at me. “But you did something stupid.”

“What makes you think that?” I grumble.

“Because you have testicles.” She throws up her hands. She picks up the salad bowl and stares into it. “What happened to all the carrots?” she asks.

Matt barks out a laugh.

“So what did you do?” Sky asks, and then she digs until she finds a carrot and pops into her mouth.

“I overstepped,” I say quietly.

Sky looks at Matt and arches a brow. He gives her a subtle nod. “Is this about one little secret?” She points to her belly.

I shake my head. “I don’t care that she’s pregnant.” Well, I care because I kind of wish the kid were mine. But that’s the only reason.

“Who’s pregnant?” Seth asks as he comes into the room and takes out a bottle of water.

Matt grins at him. “As long as it’s not you, I don’t care.”

Seth rolls his eyes and walks back to the living room.

“So it wasn’t about the surrogacy…” Sky prods.

I shake my head. “It’s about something else. And I kind of stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong. But she really needed for it to be done.”

“Maybe she wanted it done on her own schedule,” Sky says softly.

“Now she’s mad at me, and I don’t even know where she went.”

Matt jerks a spatula toward the door. “Go see if you can fix it. We’ll let Hayley play with Sky’s belly for a while.”

Sky grins and shakes her head. “Something about twins,” she says.

I get up and push my chair in. “I won’t be gone too long,” I say. “You sure you don’t mind?” Like they need another kid.

“What’s one more?” Sky says. She waves a breezy hand around. “After a while, you just stop counting them. One of them will scream when they want something. Or when someone is bleeding. It all works out.”

“Mine’s blond,” I say. “She’ll stick out in your crowd.” For now at least.

“Oh, good to know. Maybe we’ll feed that one.” Sky looks at Matt and nods. “Look for the one with yellow hair. Feed it. We got this.” She claps her hands together like she’s coaching a team.

I laugh. They’re just too damn cute together.

I kiss Hayley, show her Sky’s belly, and take a minute to feel for double kicks myself, and then I leave. I go by the shop, but Friday’s not there. I go to the apartment, but she’s not there, either. I stop in her doorway and look around her room, startled at the lack of her things on the dresser. She did have makeup and other oddities there, but now there’s nothing. I go to the closet and open the door. Her suitcase is gone. I slam my fist against the wall, feeling like someone just kicked me in the gut.

She’s gone. Completely and totally gone.

I call all my brothers, and no one has seen her. I call all their girlfriends and wives, and they haven’t seen her. I call Garrett and Cody, and they haven’t seen her, either, but now they’re worried. So are my brothers. They want to go out looking for her, each of us taking a different part of the city. But there’s one thing I know for sure. She won’t turn up until she wants to be found. No doubt about it.

Friday

I roll my suitcase right into the cemetery. I know it’s weird and I don’t know where I’m going after this, but I couldn’t wait one more minute to come here. I know he’s here, but I don’t know where. I have to stop at the office, which is a little building surrounded by flowers. I open the door and step inside. It’s cool in there, which is nice. A lady looks from me to my suitcase and back. “I’m sorry, but you can’t move in if you’re still breathing, and you’re definitely still breathing,” she says. She snaps her gum at me, and I like her immediately.

“I need to find a grave, and I’m not sure where to look.” I step nervously from side to side and have to force myself to stand still when I realize it.

She goes to her computer. “Do you have a name?”

I nod. The name is sitting there, right on the tip of my tongue.

“Do you want to tell me what it is?” She waits.

“His name is Travis Conway.” That’s the first time I have said that name in a really long time.

“Are you a relative?”

“Does it matter?”

She smiles. “No, I was just being nosy.”

She jots something down and walks over to me. She pulls out a map and draws lines and arrows around the cemetery so that I can find the plot. “If you have any trouble, just let me know.”

“Thanks.”

“You can leave that here if you want.” She looks at my suitcase.

I unzip it and take out my shoebox. “You sure you don’t mind?”

She pulls it behind her desk and I feel like it’ll be safe. I walk out of the office with my shoebox under my arm and the map in my other hand. I open it up and follow the arrows. It’s actually a pretty long walk, and then I realize that he had a state-funded funeral, so he’s in a crowded section. He doesn’t even have a headstone. He has a little piece of weathered plastic poking into the ground with stick-on letters.

I walk over and sit down beside his little piece of poor plastic. “Hey, Trav,” I say softly. The wind blows and lifts my hair, and I close my eyes. He had this thing he would do when times were good: he would walk behind me and lift my hair and place a tender kiss on the nape of my neck. It was sweet and kind and made me feel so loved.