“The jeep is missing. They have to be in the jeep. There are two cabins on the property. Maybe they are at one of them, but I don’t know why they would be. He hasn’t been to either of the cabins in years. I don’t even know if they’re still standing, and I don’t know if I remember how to get there.” He was doing it again, that madman pacing.
I turned away and placed my hands on my knees, leaning over towards the ground. My stomach was like the center of all my feelings. Nervous, I vomit. Sick, I vomit. Worried, I vomit. You get the picture.
“Go tell someone, and we will start searching.” I heard Josh tell Garrett. “Lee,” he said to me as his footsteps grew closer.
“I’m fine.” I held up my hand. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Slowly, I made my way around to the front of the barn. The guys had already made it back to where the police officer and the few fighters stood. I needed a minute to myself. I needed to think about the whole situation once my stomach was done flipping up and down.
He wasn’t in the house.
He wasn’t in the house.
He wasn’t in the house.
The more I repeated those words in my head, the more I believed them. It had to be true. It just had to be.
We may not have been together, but I still had feelings for him. They were deep, imbedded feelings that wouldn’t go away just because he broke my heart. I still wanted so much for him, and his poor parents.
Please let them be okay.
I needed my big girl panties. I needed to suck it up and get on the move.
We’d search until we found them, and the moment we did…
I was going back home.
Twenty-Four
Josh
I had Garrett freaking out on one side of me, and Lee vomiting on the other. We’d been out riding the property for two hours. We had no freaking clue where the hell we were at, or where we were going. Obi and Fox were searching east and we headed west. The cops had two search parties as well. The fireman said he fully believed that they weren’t in that house at the time of the fire. There was no trace of them at all. It wasn’t a definite, but it gave us all a little hope.
The farm had hundreds of acres and Garrett said we’d barely touched any of it. You could see for miles, and all of it belonged to Tex’s family. Who needed that much property? Seriously.
“Does any of this look familiar, Bear?” Lee asked. The way she fidgeted I could tell that she wasn’t feeling any better.
“It all looks the fucking same,” he snapped.
“Hey!” I yelled. “I get that you’re upset, but if you haven’t noticed we’re worried too. Chill out, okay. We will find them.”
“Sorry,” he said as he looked out the window.
An officer in an SUV came flying out from around the side of us. He came out of nowhere. He pulled up next to us, signaling for us to roll down our window. We slowed the truck down to a stop and followed the orders.
“They returned. It just came over my radio. A jeep is back at the burn sight.”
Oh hell. The screams from Lee were loud and could probably be heard for miles. She laid her head over on my lap.
“We will head back now,” I told the officer.
“Were there three people in the jeep?” Garrett asked and the question was loaded. The wrong answer and Garrett was going to crack right here beside me.
“I’m not sure. We just need to get back,” the officer responded.
I turned the truck around and followed him out. We were still at least a couple of hours from being at the house. Garrett kept his eyes focused out the window, while Lee kept her head leaned over in my lap. The windows were rolled down and the cool air felt good on my face. There was something calming about the drive back. It was quiet except for the humming of the truck engine. After a few minutes, Lee’s body slacked on my lap, and I knew that she’d fallen asleep. She was exhausted, physically and mentally.
We may have been driving faster, but it seemed like the trip back was much quicker than when we left to go search. Our timing was good, and I spotted the dark green jeep when we pulled back onto the driveway. Garrett was out of his truck and in a sprint before I even got his truck parked.
I could see Jude’s cowboy hat from out of the truck window, and I closed my eyes tightly. He was okay. Leaning my head back against the headrest, I finally let out a sigh of relief. I rubbed my hands roughly over my face and felt the exhaustion kick in.
“Lee,” I said. “We’re back.”
She sat up quickly and looked out the window. I knew she’d spot that hat just like I had. She looked up at me, and then quickly scrambled to get out of the truck. I climbed out and walked a step behind her over to where Tex was standing.
His eyes grew wide at the sight of her.
The way she stomped through the gravel had me wondering what in the hell she was about to do. She was a woman on a mission.
Once she stood within a foot of him, I realized what she was about to do but I flinched when I saw her hand connect with his face. She slapped him so hard that you could hear it from a hundred feet away. Everyone turned to look and see what all the commotion was about. She never said a word to him, but she didn’t have to.
When she turned around, I could see the tears streaming down her face. “Take me home, Josh.”
Maybe I was just in shock, but I didn’t have to say a word to Tex. Lee said it for me when she smacked the hell out of him and left him standing there with his mouth hanging open.
I followed her back to the car where I wanted to high five her, or spin her around, or something, anything to show her just how proud of her I was. I’d never had a prouder moment in my life.
That moment diminished as fast as it came when I saw her face. She was hurting bad. It was a mixture of so many emotions that I didn’t know what to do. I just needed to get her home where the two of us could snuggle up, and where she could rest. She just needed some rest, and something to take her mind off of everything. She needed a spring break.
Twenty-Five
Paislee
The next couple of days I spent stowed away in my bedroom. So much had happened in such a short amount of time, that all I wanted to do was sleep it off. And, I guess a part of me wanted to pretend that it didn’t happen. I let Josh take care of me like I was a sick kid, because I didn’t want to get up off my bed. He never told me that I was taking it too far, so I milked it for all it was worth.
College was stressful enough without having guy troubles. So many people had told me that these years would be the best, but I was beginning to wonder what planet they’d come from. So far I’d suffered severe embarrassment, followed by a couple of pokes to the ticker, and I’d successfully hit a guy in his face on the day that his house burned down and his dog died.
It was official. For summer break, I was going to the beach, one that was in another time zone.
My cell phone rang from my nightstand, but I ignored it as usual. The most important people I knew were close enough for me to touch, at least I thought so. The bed felt awfully cold behind me. I tried to kick Josh who was supposed to be lying in the bed behind me, but there was nothing. When I turned over, I realized he wasn’t there. The bathroom light was off, and my room was dark and quiet. I didn’t even know what time of day it was.
Thank you room darkening curtains.
Despite the nagging voice in my head telling me not to, I picked up my phone anyway. I’d been oblivious to it for the past couple of days. Just pretending that it was broke so that I wouldn’t look at it. I never knew how unbelievable it would feel to lay that thing down.
The bright screen came to life and I had to squint just to be able to see it.
Whoa. I had fourteen missed calls, eleven new text messages, and a full voicemail box. I didn’t even know that many people. Like literally, I only had ten people saved in my phone. Popularity wasn’t my thing.
I sat up in my bed, resting my back against the wooden headboard. Scrolling through
the missed calls, there were a few numbers I didn’t recognize, but I had a couple from Garrett, and Josh had called me once, which was weird. I hadn’t left his side that I could remember. Except for today. I had no idea where he’d run off to. The one thing that stood out to me the most was a missed call from Jude. It was only one call, but it was the most significant of them all.
Just seeing his name on my screen was hard to swallow. What could he possibly have to say to me? I mean, I slapped him as hard as I could in the face without even thinking.
I cannot believe I did that.
I’d never before been angry enough to hit someone like that. Sure I’d slapped Josh on the arm or the ass or something. I never did it to hurt him. He was always just a big pain in my ass.
The way I smacked Jude was different. I had all these emotions toying with me inside. Each and every one of them was screaming at me for different reasons. I was furious with him for scaring me, and bitterly unhappy that he’d hurt me, and most of all I was sick at the thought of something happening to him or his family. It felt like I’d stepped into a hornet’s nest and was attacked. The only reaction I had was pain, and I wanted him to feel it just like I had.
That’s pretty messed up.
The guy had just found out that his house was gone, and everything inside it. Could I be any more childish and shallow? Jesus!
The thought of it made me want to crawl back under the sheets again and hide away from the ugly world outside.
I was about to. I was really about to forget that I had text messages to read, and voicemails to listen to, and go back to bed.
But Josh had to bring his big fat head into the room, and ruin it.
He switched on the light, making me cringe at the sight of it.
“Get your ass up out of that bed. We’ve got things to do today.”
My face remained stoic. He was frighteningly cheerful so I knew it had to be morning. I was wishing I had one of those coffee mugs with the middle fingers on the bottom that was filled with steaming hot coffee. That way when I sipped my deliciousness I’d be flipping him off at the same time. The inventor of that mug was my spirit animal.
He walked into my bathroom, flipped on the light, and then started the shower. I think he was trying to nicely tell me that I was stinky. A girl can take a hint.
“Fine. I’m up.” I threw back the covers. “But I expect coffee when I get out of that shower or I’m going back to bed.”
“You’re so dramatic. We’ve got a lot to do today.”
I held up my hand. “I don’t want to know about it, until I’ve had my coffee.”
He growled, and out the door he went.
I loved him. I needed to plan something really nice for him soon for putting up with my two-day bed binge. That was what I was calling it.
Slipping off my clothes, I stepped into the shower and washed off the binge stink. My only motivation was the thought of coffee.
***
It was amazing what a little makeup could do.
Josh was waiting on my bed for me when I came out of the bathroom. He was holding a very large cup of coffee, and I swear I wanted to kiss him. Just on the cheek, though. No more of that lip-to-lip contact between the two of us.
“You sure look sexy with that coffee in your hands.” I admired the steam rolling off the cup.
“Keep your grubby paws off, Lady.”
“Hey!” I pouted. “My paws are squeaky clean.” I reached out my hand for the cup, and moaned as the first taste hit my tongue. Josh was probably wishing he’d given me a moment alone with my cup. It was probably like watching bad porn.
He rolled his eyes, and stood up from the bed.
“What are we doing today anyway? You got me up and showered.”
“I invited everybody down to the lake tonight. We’re going to camp out,” he said, like it was no big deal.
“Our lake?” I asked. I knew when he said he invited everybody that he was talking about people from UTN.
He smirked. “Yes, our lake.” His hands raked through his hair and pushed it back away from his face. “We’re going to charge a camping fee, and try to raise some money for Tex.”
He looked like he was waiting for me to say something snarky, or maybe he was waiting for my refusal to go, but I didn’t have one. It was a really nice thing to do.
“I know how you feel about him right now, and I know he’s the reason you’ve been moping around…”
I stopped him. “It’s fine. I think it’s nice that you guys want to do something to help. Especially you, considering that the two of you haven’t really hit if off.”
“Garrett’s my friend, and Tex is his cousin. It’s all one big cluster-fuck, but you know I don’t hold grudges.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I just found out about how bad his parents were. I had no idea what he was going through. Garrett said that his parents were going to take Tex’s parents back home with them for a while until things got better. They had home insurance that will most likely take care of the rebuild, but Tex has a lot of expenses right now. Not to mention the nursing care that he’s been paying for.”
I allowed myself a minute to take it all in before responding. I felt like the biggest ass for not being more of a friend to Jude. I needed to tuck my prideful tail between my legs. So what he didn’t want to be with me, it wasn’t the end of the world. There were bigger things happening than my self-righteous pity party.
“So what do we need to do?” I asked.
Twenty-Six
Josh
There was my girl, stepping up when times got hard. I knew it would take her a little bit, but that she’d see that helping was the right thing to do. Normally it would be the other way around, and she’d have to convince me, but Garrett was a good friend to me. I wanted to do something to help.
I’d talked my dad into letting me use the 4x4 truck to haul all of our supplies to the lake. He was okay with it, but it took a little more arm-twisting to get him to make the first donation. He told me to have Mom write out a check, which I was thankful for. Mom was far more generous than he ever would’ve been. She may have been flawed in many ways, but that woman loved her charity work.
She wrote me out a check for five thousand dollars and I tucked it away in my wallet. I knew that if we raised nothing else, that the five grand was a damn good donation.
I loaded up the truck with the coolers, the grill, and all the camping supplies. I even loaded up the two canopies we had stored away. Mom said there was a chance of rain, and I was hoping it would stay away, but we had to be prepared for anything. I didn’t want everyone’s night ruined because of a storm.
Lee jumped right into planning mode when I told her what I needed her to do. She said she’d meet me later at the lake. I needed her to pick up some food, and a few supplies from the store. Garrett was bringing the alcohol of course, but I told him beer only. We didn’t need a bunch of different shit. All I wanted was a good party with beer and burgers, nothing more, nothing less.
The truck was loaded down, and I backed it in as close as I could to the docks. The party was starting at four and we only had a few hours to get things set up.
“This is going to be great. Thanks for putting all of this together, Josh,” Garrett said as he grabbed a cooler from the back of the truck.
“No problem, Buddy. I’m here to help,” I replied. “Did you tell Tex?”
“Yeah. He didn’t take it too well.”
I nodded. “I get it. It can’t be easy to take handouts from people.”
Garrett grunted as he lifted one side of the canopy off the truck. “I don’t know if it was the fact that we were helping or if it was because you were helping.”
That shit was done and over with a long time ago, and I wanted us all to get over it. There was no sense in him hating me. “Look, I’ll talk to him about it. I don’t hate the guy. I was more pissed off at myself than anything.”
“I get it,” Garrett agreed. “I’m not sure why he’s still upset a
bout that mess anyway. I think he’s just trying to deal with everything that’s going on with his folks, and that he’s just carrying around all this weight on his shoulders. You know?”
“Yeah. That’s a lot to have to worry about when you’re just a college kid,” I admitted. He handled things better than I ever could.
“He really does appreciate the help, even if he doesn’t say it. I know he does, and I tried to explain to him that we were just helping him stay afloat until he could get the house started back up. I know he’s been staying in that shit ass cabin for the past couple of days, and I’m not sure it even has running water back there. I told him that this way he could get a hotel, or hell even live at the dorms with us if he had to. All we’re trying to do is help. Whatever way that we can,” he said.
“Right.” I shook my head. “Is he coming tonight?” I asked. I really hoped that he would so that I’d get a chance to make things right with him, and tell him just how wrong he was about Lee.
“I don’t know.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I hope that he does. He needs a minute to just let off some steam, and get away from that house. My parents were leaving town this morning, and I know he’s going to feel lost. I don’t want him being by himself.”
“Why don’t you text him and tell him that I’d really like to talk to him tonight. Tell him I want to apologize. Maybe then he’ll come, and if he doesn’t…” I shrugged. “We’ll have a good time, and tomorrow you can deliver him some money,” I suggested.
“Good deal, Man.”
Obi and a couple of the other guys showed up about a half an hour after we did, so we had plenty of hands to help set up.
We went ahead and put up the canopies because the clouds were thick and dark. We needed protection from the rain in case it decided to happen on a whim. Well, some of us needed protection. Every crack of thunder brought a new smile to Lee’s face.
Do you love me? (Trinity Series Book 1) Page 14