Before going to bed Tuesday night, I tried again. I assumed he must’ve been busy or the cell reception was even worse at the hotel, but I figured as long as I sent him emails, he’d at least get them at some point.
Cora found me on the beach Wednesday and sat with me while the waves wore Aria out. She asked for my number, and I sheepishly explained how I was currently without a phone. The pity in her stare nearly killed me, especially since I’d just gotten through spilling most of my life to her—leaving out the heavy parts only Stevie had been privy to—but I could tell she hadn’t meant it to come across that way. Instead, she told me where her house was, just down the street, and we made plans to meet up next week. I couldn’t hide my elation over having a new friend.
I wasn’t tired, but by ten, I forced myself to go to sleep. I anticipated the next day would be long, despite my shifts only being six hours. Trying to parent and work was no easy feat, but thankfully, Aria had been elected the princess of Geneva Key Public Library. The other women fawned all over her, helping me when I needed it. She now also had her very own makeshift sleeping quarters in the storage room, too. But even with all that, it still took mental preparation before a workday.
A loud crash had me jolting upright in bed, the covers tossed to the side in an instinctual move to flee at the awakening sound. It was still dark outside, not enough light from the moon casting in to see more than a shadow when my bedroom door flung wide open and bounced off the wall. I never shut it all the way in case Aria needed me in the mornings, which had left me vulnerable to the man entering my room. The natural reaction for most was to scream, but I couldn’t. Pushed up on one hand, my arm extended and elbow locked behind me, not even covered by the sheets that now sat piled in the middle of the bed, I was frozen in fear. My mouth hung open, but not a sound came out. Time seemed to pass in slow motion, although it couldn’t have all happened in more than two or three seconds.
The shadow of a large man with wide, broad shoulders moved from the doorway into my personal space. He stalked toward me, practically crossing the room in only a few strides of his long legs until he was on top of me. I closed my eyes tightly and pressed my hands to his chest in a lame attempt to push him away while he sat half on the bed, straddling my legs with one foot still planted on the floor. But the moment his hand came to cradle my face, my skin basking in the warmth of his panicked words, I lost every ounce of will to fight.
“Are you okay? Fuck, Jade…tell me you’re all right,” he begged while quickly running his hands over me—my face, my shoulders, arms and legs. It was as if he’d found me in a ditch, thrown from a car, taking my last breath, and he had to inspect me from head to toe.
I wasn’t sure where the fear had come from, but as soon as I turned to the side and noticed the red digits on the clock next to the bed telling me it was after four in the morning, my first thought was Aria…and my own panic ensued. I must’ve said her name aloud, because in an instant, Cash was off the bed, storming back through the doorway into the hall. I followed him, stopping just outside her room, and with bated breath, watched Cash in the glow of her nightlight lean over the tiny bed. When he stood, his posture deflated, his shoulders no longer holding the same rigidness as before. And in his audible sigh, I felt his relief. She was safe.
He moved into the hallway, and I took a step back, giving him space to pull the door enough to leave her a crack for the morning. As soon as he stood in front of me, he tugged me against him, his arms around my shoulders, his hands woven in my hair as he held me to his hard chest. His whispered words settled over me like a comforting blanket when he said, “I was so worried, Jade.”
I pushed against him just enough to peer into his eyes, made darker by the shadows cast in the unlit hallway. “I don’t understand? Why were you worried? What happened?” Then it dawned on me. Being startled from sleep didn’t leave me with much cognizant thought about what day it was. “You’re home early…why? Is everything okay?”
Rather than answer me, he took my hand, laced our fingers together, and led me to my room, past the dilapidated baby gate that now lay in a crumpled mess on the floor. In his haste to get to me, he must not have remembered its presence.
I headed for the bed, flipped on the lamp on the side table, and climbed onto the mattress with my knees bent, feet tucked beneath me. He followed behind me, but rather than sit like he had the other night, he dropped himself onto the edge of the bed, less than a foot in front of me, his feet still set on the floor, and threw himself onto his back with his arm hooked over his eyes.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Sleep still hung in my voice.
After a long sigh, he finally dropped his arm, but instead of looking at me, he kept his focus on the ceiling. “I haven’t talked to you since Monday afternoon. When I didn’t hear from you that night, I assumed you’d gone to bed early since you spent so long at the beach. But then you didn’t answer or return my calls on Tuesday. I started to get worried then, but I told myself you had work and had probably gotten busy when you got back home, so I tried to ignore it. I figured I was being paranoid. Until I couldn’t get ahold of you today. Your phone just kept going to voicemail, and I assumed something was wrong. I thought maybe your ex had found you or something.”
I slipped my hand into his, pressing our palms together, and earned his attention for the first time since we came back to my room. “I emailed you…several times. You didn’t get them?”
His brow furrowed while he stared at me. “No.” Before I could offer him the same reassurance he’d gifted me when I’d needed it, his voice lowered and he added, “Are you leaving? Is that why you haven’t answered my calls and only sent me emails? To tell me that what happened this weekend was too much and you’ve decided to leave?”
It was evident in not only his downtrodden tone, but also in his sorrowful gaze, that his question hadn’t been meant as an accusation, but rather, it came from a place of utter fear. I couldn’t explain it, but his deep concern over the possibility that I’d leave him did something to me. It gave me an inside glimpse into his feelings, and more than any touch he’d ever offered me, it let me believe he truly cared. There was no false hope on my part. It was as if he’d just given me his heart.
“Cash…I think Aria gave my phone to the fish.”
He blinked several times, probably trying to translate my words. In his defense, not only had I been in a deep sleep less than ten minutes ago, but I’d also been lost in the abstraction of his soft-spoken words, the sentiment hidden in his worry.