Page 73 of Make Me Yours

I can handle staffing the boat and figuring out how we’re going to pay a crew and still eek out enough profit to stay ahead of our bills.

What I’m not sure I can handle is the truth.

What if what Steven tells me changes everything? What if it burns what I’ve built with Weaver to the ground?

Or…what I thought I’d built.

Could be this love is built on shifting sand.

Guess I’m about to find out.

chapter 25

WEAVER

I don’t hearfrom Sully Saturday night.

I wake up several times, checking my phone for texts I might have missed, but there’s nothing.

Sunday morning passes in continued silence, until I begin to worry that something’s happened. Maybe her grandfather didn’t make it through surgery.

Or maybe…she’srecovering from surgery and too out of it to use her cell.

Fuck.

I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.

Yes, she was fine to text me yesterday, but that doesn’t mean her injuries didn’t take a turn for the worse sometime in the afternoon or early evening. The woman I love could be in a hospital bed right now, and I’ve been sitting here with my thumb up my ass because I was afraid of pushing her to pick me.

But fuck…I want her to pick me.

She’d be better off picking me. The Sullivans are an anchor, wrapped around her ankle, dragging her down, a fact proven yet again yesterday, when I learned the redheaded asshole from the boat is also a Sullivan.

A Sullivan with an anger management problem, who punched the deputy who showed up to question him about the incident on the yacht and ended up getting himself arrested…

I have to get Sully out of here, away from Sea Breeze and her criminal family.

She’s so much better than this. She’s an artist with a gifted eye, an incredibly hard worker, and one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. She deserves the chance to rise in the world, to make her dreams come true without this tangled web of insanity shutting her down at every turn.

With that in mind, I call the hospital to ask if a Gertrude Sullivan has been admitted. The woman says, no, and I sag with relief. When I ask about John Sullivan, she’s able to tell me that he’s in the ICU and in stable condition.

I thank her and end the call, my stomach in a slow, dread-filled free fall.

I’m relieved that Sully’s not lying in a hospital bed and that her grandfather is okay—obviously—but then, why hasn’t she called? Why did I sleep in that big king bed alone last night?

“Track her down and find out,” I mutter to myself, disgusted by my own lack of action.

This isn’t who I am. I don’t sit around, waiting for other people to solve my problems. I go straight to the source and address any issues head-on. Sadly, Sully and I haven’t reached the point in our relationship where we’ve enabled location tracking for each other, but there are relatively few places she could be.

And one of them is right across the highway from my hotel.

I pack my things and head for the elevator, checking out on my way through the lobby. At the hospital, I make my way directly to the ICU, where I know her grandfather is recovering, but it’s still a little while before visiting hours begin. The nurseon duty at the check-in desk encourages me to get a cup of coffee and come back at nine.

After leaving the ICU, I check the various waiting rooms scattered throughout the floor, but there isn’t a Sullivan to be found. I head to the chapel and yoga room next—also Sullivan-free and mostly empty at this early hour—before hitting the cafeteria. I grab that cup of coffee the nurse suggested and wander around the space, finally spotting a few familiar faces in the corner.

I linger beside the coffee station, taking my time adding cream to the burnt-smelling brew as I try to put names with faces. One of the women is definitely Sully’s aunt Cathy, from yesterday, but the older woman and the two middle aged men with her are unfamiliar to me.

The most important detail, of course, is thatmySullivan is nowhere to be seen.

---