by Sherie Keys
Colby, while unhappy at the confusing turn of events, lost himself in her affections, closing his eyes and holding her close to him for as long as she would let him before she pulled away from him. She held his hands in hers and swung them lightly. "Then you and I can go on our honeymoon, and it will be so romantic!" she squealed. He smiled a bit at her, but then she let go of him and turned toward Shannon.
"Well, let's get changed and head out, then. I have some things I need to take care of as well." She winked at Shannon again and Shannon ignored it. They went to the pool house and got dressed, and found Colby waiting for them by the front door. He took Tiffany into his arms and held her tightly to him, burying his face in her neck.
He breathed in her sweet scent and closed his eyes, wishing she could stay the night with him. They weren't intimate often, but when they were, he was sure that the experience was the pinnacle of his life. "Can I see you tomorrow before you go?" he asked, looking down into her big blue eyes.
She pouted again and shook her head. "No, I have to get ready to go. Don't worry though, I'll see you soon and you will never even know I was gone!" She tapped her finger on his nose and grinned at him. Then she turned and headed out the door, pausing for a moment to flip her long wavy blonde hair over her shoulder and gaze at him shortly. "Bye my love!" she said, lifting her hand and wiggling her fingers at him before turning and bouncing down the steps.
He stood there, watching her leave and knew that the time she was gone would feel like an eternity to him.
Shannon rested her hand on his arm and he blinked and turned to look at her. He gave her a genuine smile and she returned it to him, reaching her arms up around his neck and hugging him close. It was one of the bittersweet pleasures of being a good friend of his; there were always hugs, and he was an excellent hugger.
He reached his arms around her, holding her tightly for a long moment. During that moment she closed her eyes and pressed the side of her face to his neck, letting the side of her mouth touch his skin. She breathed him in to her as she always did, holding her breath and filling herself with as much of him as she could while she had the chance to enjoy their close proximity.
She let him go slowly, lowering herself back down, and as she did so, she kissed his cheek lightly, and he kissed hers as well, and then they stood apart and he nodded at her.
"Thank you so much for the talk tonight. I appreciate it. I know I can always count on you, and that means so much to me,” he said, leaning over and kissing her cheek once more in gratitude.
She closed her eyes as his lips brushed her skin, wishing with all of her heart that it was more than it seemed, but she knew without a doubt that it was not, and so she opened her eyes back up, waved goodbye to him, and turned and walked away.
It was always the best and worst part of any visit she had with him.
Shannon climbed into the car with Tiffany and they were speeding down the hill in no time, as Colby watched them disappearing into the night, aching for the girl of his dreams as she vanished before his eyes.
Chapter 2
Colby paced around the next day, his mind on Tiffany and the trip she was taking. Something about it didn't seem right. He couldn't get the thought out of his mind that her father wouldn't have sent her out of town on business three weeks before her wedding; it had hooked somewhere in the back of his head and like a cycle, his thoughts kept returning to it.
There was a dissonance to it that tugged at him and he would think of other things and then the conversation they had shared, would come back to him and he would get stuck on it.
He managed to ignore it for most of the day, with intermittent moments of frustration about it, but then he would let it go again. He fell asleep after struggling to convince himself that it was the best thing for him, but then he woke up in the wee hours of the morning, and the troubling issue would not leave him alone.
He spent the better part of the day working and trying to keep his mind off it, but by late afternoon, he knew that if it was still bothering him, then it was something that he needed to pay attention to and heed.
Colby picked up his phone and called Winston Blaise, Tiffany's father.
"Winston, this is Colby. How are you doing, Sir?" he asked politely, as his worries bit at him, nipping at the back of his mind like a small dog biting at his heels.
Winston was pleasant with him. "I'm fine, son, how are you doing?"
Colby frowned, but tried to keep his voice positive. "Well, I'm good, but I was just calling because I'm a little concerned. This trip that you sent Tiffany on for your business is really close to the wedding. I was wondering how long she really needed to be gone working for you."
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. "Business trip? I didn't send Tiffany on a business trip." Then after a slight pause, he began to chuckle and little and then he laughed.
"Ah Colby, that girl of mine can be a scamp sometimes. You're going to have your hands full with her. She's probably off having a girls’ vacation before the big day, you know, getting rid of some of the stress and anxiety. I'm sure she'll be back in no time at all and ready to walk down the aisle. Don't worry too much about it. Matter of fact, son, this would be a great time for you to have your stag party, while your girl is away; it'll keep you out of trouble later on! Take advantage of it, son!" he was still laughing on his end, but Colby's stomach had hardened into a solid knot.
"Thank you, Sir, I'll certainly give that some consideration,’ he said, almost mindlessly.
They hung up and Colby sat back in his chair, baffled at the change of facts before him. His intuition had been right. There was a valid reason why that particular part of her story kept catching in his mind and reeling him back to it.
She wasn't on a business trip for her father at all. She had lied to him; right to his face, with a smile and a kiss. Where was she and why would she have lied to him to cover it up? He ran it over and over in his mind, more keenly than he had up to that point and he came up with nothing.
He picked up his phone and tried to call her, but her cell went straight to voicemail. He checked her social media pages and there was nothing to indicate where she was or what she might be doing. After a while, he could only think of one other solution to his problem.
He decided to call her best friend, knowing full well, that he would probably get the run around from her because girls stuck together like that, but he thought it well worth the try, and he was swiftly running out of ideas.
With a deep breath, he picked up the phone to call Shannon. He trusted her, more than all of Tiffany's other friends, but he didn't know if she would betray his trust to protect her friend. It was worth a shot to him.
There was no answer the first time he called, and he let the phone ring until it went to voicemail.
"Shannon, this is Colby, please call me when you get a chance; it's urgent,”
he said in a low voice. Then he waited five minutes and called her back again, letting it ring to voice mail and then he hung up.
Colby frowned and stood up to walk away from his desk. Why would her friend ever tell him anything about her or what she was doing. He tried to remember what her response was when Tiffany was telling him about the trip, but it just hadn't stayed in his mind.
He was pondering it deeply when his phone rang, giving him a start. He rushed to it and saw that it was Shannon calling him back.
He answered right away and tried not to sound as desperate as he felt. "Shannon! Hi, thank you for calling me back. I hope I wasn't disturbing you."
Her voice came through the phone clear and pleasant, although she sounded surprised to hear from him. "No, you weren't disturbing me,” she said lightly.
Colby wanted to be as nonchalant about his call as possible, and he tried to curb the worry in his voice. "I... uh... I was just wondering if you had a minute... if you aren't busy. I had given some more thought to the wedding gift I was going to get for Tiffany and I thought I'd run it past you since y
ou were so sweet to talk with me about it the other night."
He prayed that it would work. He had to find out what she was up to somehow, without interfering with her.
"Sure, no problem at all," Shannon said, sounding less than enthused to help him with his gift. He ignored her tone and continued.
"Well... I was thinking that... oh wait, she's not there with you, is she?" He paused for a more natural sounding effect. "I wouldn't want to put you on the spot while we're trying to talk about it. That might be awkward"
"No," Shannon said softly. "She's not here with me. She's out of town...," she said, as if he ought to have remembered that. He heard her hesitation in her voice.
"Yes, I uh... I knew she said she was going out of town, but she didn't tell me when she was leaving exactly, so I just wasn't sure if she had left yet." He tried not to sound like he was fumbling through his thoughts.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line and he was sure he had gone too far with Shannon. "She actually left the day after your party, instead of two days as she had originally planned to go."
Colby stopped pacing and stood staring out of the window of his office. She had left a day early and she didn't take her best friend with her. Her father couldn't have been right, then. She wouldn't have gone out of town on a girl's trip without Shannon. The realization of all of that left him even more confused than he was to begin with. He felt as if he knew nothing, but then one thought struck him, and he realized that Shannon knew.
He hesitated only a moment before asking her, "So, Shannon, I was hoping we could go get some coffee, you and me, and then we can talk about her wedding gift. I could really use the help. Would you mind terribly, spending some time alone with me this afternoon? Please? It would mean so much to me."
He was speaking in half truths and he hated it, but he was desperate to find his fiancé. It was quite possible that the only person who knew where she was, was her best friend who, as luck would have it, happened to be a friend of his as well.
"Sure! Yes, I'd love to visit with you. Just tell me where you want to meet me, and when, and I'll be there!" she said, sounding enthusiastic suddenly. It surprised him, but he was enormously relieved to hear it.
"How about Bee's cafe? As soon as you're free," he said with a little less tension in his voice. He felt like he was getting somewhere, and it eased his mind a bit.
"I can meet you there in an hour."
"Wonderful! I'll see you there, then." He thanked her and hung up. Colby rubbed his hands over his face and took a deep breath. He was going to get to the bottom of this mystery somehow, and then he would have some piece of mind.
On the other end of the line, Shannon hung up and squealed with excitement, clapping her hands together in joy. She didn't even care that he was meeting her to talk about Tiffany. He called her up out of the blue and asked her out for coffee to talk, just like friends do, and she was going to get to spend at least an hour with him. She would be t talking with him, looking at him, and enjoying his company. All of his attention would be on her, for once.
It was almost electrifying for her. She rushed about and did her hair and makeup, rifling through her closet to find the nicest looking dress she had, that wouldn't make it seem like she had purposefully dressed for him, and by the end of the hour, she looked in the mirror and nodded with satisfaction.
She drove her Highlander down to the coffee shop and when she walked in the door, she saw that he had already been waiting for her. He stood up and rubbed his palms over his pants out of nervousness, and she smiled at him to reassure him.
Shannon walked over to him and he hugged her as he usually did, and then he stopped short as her perfume mingled with the air he breathed in. He let her go and looked down at her with a smile. "You smell nice. Is that new?" he asked, feeling a bit more relaxed.
She nodded. "Yes, I picked it up the other day when Tiffany and I were shopping." She had bought it at the store where they shopped right before lunch; before she found out who Ron was and that Tiffany was sleeping with him. Her stomach clenched, but she took a breath and relaxed, focusing instead on the man in front of her, who just happened to unwittingly hold her heart in his hand.
His brow furrowed and he looked down at the cup of tea in his hands for a moment, and then he looked back up at her and gave her a smile. "You look lovely; that's a pretty dress. It suits you." He meant it, but was skirting the issue he had come to talk with her about.
She smiled at him and turned her head away from him a little. "Thank you, Colby, trust me, I appreciate it, but that isn't what you came here to talk about."
He looked nervous suddenly and she lowered her brow at him. "What's wrong?" she asked in a soft voice.
Colby frowned. "I have to apologize to you," he said sadly. "I brought you here under false pretenses."
Shannon looked at him in surprise. "You did? Are you telling me we aren't here to talk about gifts for Tiffany?" He had piqued her curiosity.
He shook his head subtly. "No, we're not,” he answered her, looking down as if he was ashamed of himself.
She tilted her head at him. "What are we here for, then?" she asked him.
Colby took a deep breath. "Something about what Tiffany said the other night got stuck in my head and it has been bothering me ever since. She said her dad sent her on a business trip."
Shannon's heart skipped a beat and then began to pound.
"It just didn't sound right to me that he would send her away so close to the wedding and to such a remote place that she wouldn't have access to cell phone service or Internet. That just sounded so weird to me. I kept trying to put it out of my mind, but it just kept coming right back, and I knew if it did that, then I needed to pay attention to my intuition."
He turned his mug of tea in his hands and looked up at Shannon. "I called her dad."
Shannon's heart began to thud hard against her chest and her breath became short as panic started to turn circles in her belly. She watched him talk without expression on her face.
"Winston said that she isn't on a business trip. He said she was probably out on an excursion with her girlfriends to ease the tension and stress before the wedding. So, I called you and you answered and said you weren't with her, which means she isn't out on a trip with her girlfriends because you're her best friend and she wouldn't go on a trip like that without you." He took a deep breath and paused, looking earnestly at Shannon who somehow managed to remain stoic as she listened to all that he said.
"Where is she, Shannon? I have a feeling that you're the only one who really knows what's going on. Who else would she trust with her location but you?" He looked forlorn and hurt, and Shannon's heart was crushed at the sight of him.
She shook her head, not wanting to tell him what she knew because she didn't want him to be hurt, and she knew that he would be. Another part of her did want to tell him because of the injustice of the whole situation in regards to him, and a smaller part of her wanted to remain loyal to her friend, Tiffany, not because she deserved it, but because Shannon was a loyal friend.
Colby watched her shake her head and the desperation in him to know the truth began to grip him. He reached out and took her hands in his, and a small gasp escaped her as he cupped his hands around hers.
"Please! Shannon, I need to know! Please tell me!" he begged in a soft whisper, imploring her with his sky blue eyes.
She looked down; her mind was in turmoil, wrestling over the factors. "Colby, I can't tell you. I mean... I could, but, I'm going to say this; the truth would hurt you and I just can't bear to do that to you. I mean... you should know... but, I don't want you to hurt like I know you will."
He lowered his brows at her. "You have to tell me now."
Shannon leaned back in her seat and looked around the buzzing coffee shop, at all the people talking and laughing and working on their laptops. She knew this was no place to talk with him about it.
The battle of morality in her came to a head as she look
ed at him, watching her with painful hope, and she shook her head. "Alright. Let's go outside, this isn't a conversation for a coffee shop."
They walked out of the door and down the street to a little park. She sat on one of the park benches beneath a tree, and he sat beside her, watching her intently, not wanting to miss anything.
Shannon rubbed her forehead with her hand and then looked down at her lap for a moment before biting her lip and finally meeting his steady gaze with her eyes. "She is out of town with a guy she's been seeing."
He stared at her, as still as a statue, trying to comprehend the words that had touched his ears, and touched his heart, but had somehow managed to miss his brain. "What?" he whispered quietly as he looked at her in confusion.
Shannon hated saying the words to him to begin with, but repeating them was worse. She knew he was in shock, and that his shock would be followed by denial.
"I said she's out of town with a guy she's been seeing." Shannon repeated, feeling awful as she spoke the words aloud.