Page 19 of Creatures in the Night

“This is more important,” I pointed out.

“What am I? An amateur?” Cathal huffed. “I’ve got this.”

“Everyone can go,” Desmond announced. “I’ll stay here with Cathal to see if we can’t find out anything more.”

I glanced at my watch, and there was no way that Shea wasn’t at home waiting for me. It was too late to still be out with her parents, and we still had a few things to discuss before I got her in bed with me. Since she didn’t have to work tomorrow, I planned on keeping her up all night, and if she had any doubts about who she belonged to, they were going to be gone by morning.

Chapter 12

Shea~

Normally, I wasn’t a coffee person, though you’d never guess it when you factored in my career choice, but being up for over twenty hours was no joke, even if I was going to be able to sleep all of Saturday to restart my clock.

Towards the end of the dinner with my parents, I’d gotten a call from one of the nightshift supervisors, asking me if I’d like some last-minute overtime. While overtime was something that I did often, never on my wedding day. However, once it dawned on me that I had no idea where Noah was, it occurred to me that the day might as well have been just like any other.

So, after a dinner where my parents and I had pretended that we weren’t sleeping in the jaws of a dangerous shark, I had agreed to the overtime, then had asked my parents to drive me back to my place, so that I could get ready for work. When Declan had notified them of when and where Noah and I would be getting married, we had agreed to arrive together, so I’d left my car at home.

Now, as for letting Noah know that I was working an extra shift tonight, I didn’t have his phone number, and if he had mine, he hadn’t used it yet. In fact, after the meeting in the parking lot, the only interaction that I’d had with the man had been when he’d decided to send someone to my house to retrieve a couple of packed bags. Clueless to what had been going on, when I had phoned my parents, they had informed me that Noah had been satisfied with a couple of overnight bags until he could get me fully moved into his home after the wedding.

Luckily for me, I hadn’t packed everything. Planning on only a few days of living out of a duffle bag, I had packed enough clothes and scrubs to get me through Sunday and Monday. By then, I imagined that I’d be completely moved into Noah’s house, and since it made sense that his place would already be furnished, I’d been debating selling my stuff or renting out my condo as a furnished apartment. I wasn’t sure yet what I was going to do, but I knew that I didn’t want to sell it. I didn’t feel like losing my final safety net in this marriage, and I could always sell it later if I had to.

At any rate, even though I’d been able to sleep in this morning because it’d been my day off, I’d gotten up at eight, so by the time that I got back home in the morning, I was going to hit the twenty-two-hour mark of my day, and coffee was needed to manage that kind of activity.

I could also admit that I was looking forward to sleeping Saturday away. After hearing the truth from Declan and overhearing how I was the exact opposite of what turned my husband on, I wasn’t ready to sleep beside him. Hell, I didn’t even know where he lived. I was expected to walk into a house that I’d never been in before, then sleep peacefully next to a man that didn’t want me, and if that wasn’t stupid, then I didn’t know what was. My hope was that I could go home to sleep since I didn’t have his phone number or address. Yeah, I could always have my parents get it for me, but it wasn’t worth the effort for me. In fact, now that I knew how Noah preferred blondes with better figures than mine, I was hoping that I could talk him into living separately, doing what needed to be done once he was ready for kids. Honestly, it sounded like a win/win for both of us.

“You are a godsend, Shea.” I turned to see the nightshift supervisor, Lily Nickleson, grinning at me. “When Lisbeth got here, she looked horrible, but she swore she could make it through her shift, and I wanted to believe her. However, I draw the line at vomiting.”

“As you should,” I teased.

She let out a stressed-out sigh. “It’s always so hard to get someone in during the weekend.”

“I’m glad I could help,” I said, meaning it. “I mean, every penny that I can get to go towards my mansion in the Hamptons is worth it.”

“I’m more of a mansion in the woods kind of person,” she replied wistfully.

“Serious talk, I’d love a small cabin in wilderness so thick that even Amazon shipping could not find me,” I said. “Or an island that I could call my own.”

Lily grinned. “Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but Amazon will find you anywhere. It says so on their site, I think.”

“That sounds a lot like stalking,” I quipped.

“It is,” she remarked. “But because it’s a billion-dollar corporation that’s taken over the world, it’s legal. You can ask the Supreme Court.”

Just then, my phone started ringing, but when I pulled it out of my pocket, I didn’t recognize the number, so I declined the call, knowing that there’d never be getting rid of scam calls completely.

“Scam Likely?”

I rolled my eyes. “Always. In fact, with as much as they call me, they should be paying half my phone bill.”

Lily laughed. “No shit.”

“Honestly, if it weren’t for my parents, I’d just leave my phone in my locker,” I told her. “It’s a miracle and a curse all at the same time.”

When my phone rang again, I pulled it out to see the same number, which gave me pause this time. Usually, scammers abused different numbers, and I also remembered that I didn’t have Noah’s phone number. Still, it was just a little after midnight, so why would he be calling me so late?

Glancing at Lily, I said, “It’s the same number, so I’m going to take this.”

“Oh, okay,” she rushed out. “Thanks again for coming in, Shea.”

---