Page 61 of Protecting Hailey

How will this work?

I loved my brothers. We’d been through hell and back together. We made an unspoken promise to always be there for each other. I knew I would meet someone someday. I’d just thought we’d always live in New York.

Well, I still had a few weeks to figure this out. For now, I would enjoy being with Hailey here in L.A.

When I opened the door, I called out to her. “Hailey, I’m back.”

She didn’t answer.

“Hailey,” I called, walking through the house. Stepping into her bedroom, I saw the T-shirt she’d worn to bed last night on the floor. “Hailey?”

My pulse began to beat faster. I wasn’t one to panic, but I didn’t like not knowing where she was. I remembered her wanting to go for a swim, so I checked the pool.

Except for a coffee mug sitting on a small round table next to a lounger, the backyard was empty, too.

Where could she be?

My footsteps quickened as I checked the dining room, the study, and then the bathroom. I hadn’t checked the kitchen because it was closest to the foyer. If she’d been in there, she would have heard me call.

Then, imagining an accident had befallen her, I ran in there as fast as I could. I scanned every inch of the white porcelain floor. While I was relieved to not find her hurt, panic started to set in.

I was about to call her cell phone when a piece of cream paper caught my attention on the kitchen island. Grabbing the paper, I read the note: Went to pick up my mom. Will be back in an hour to explain the whole thing. Love you.

I crumbled the piece of paper in my fist and growled. She’d defied a direct order and I would punish any soldier severely for doing that. But she wasn’t a soldier. She was… my lover? No. That didn’t sound right. My girlfriend? Did we need to declare that at our age? Regardless of the label, she was the best thing to have ever happened to me.

I quickly pulled out my phone to find her location. I exhaled when I saw she hadn’t turned that off. She must have had a good reason to run out. Perhaps her mother called her in distress? I would have hoped she’d have called me, but I was starting to understand her need to rush out now that I was anxious to do so myself.

I grabbed my car keys and strode through the foyer, prepared to retrieve Hailey and her mother, when Anne’s blue Mercedes pulled into the driveway.

I exhaled loudly, not having realized how worried I was until my knees nearly gave out from the relief.

Her mother’s high heels clicked on the stone walkway and I stepped to the side, waiting for Hailey to come out of the car.

“Hello, Christian. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Anne. How are you?”

“Good, good.”

My brow furrowed. The pick-up wasn’t an emergency then. A bit of my frustration returned. I looked back to the car, but the tinted windows disguised any movement.

Anne walked past me and into the home. “Hailey,” she called, and I blinked several times.

What the fuck?

“Hailey, sweetie, come down. I’ve got something to discuss with you.”

“Anne,” I said, returning inside. “Hailey isn’t here. She left a note saying she’s with you.”

“With me? What are you talking about?”

Confusion gave way to panic again. My heart raced and my palms felt clammy. Blood rushed through my ears. I was deaf to Anne’s next words. Her mouth moved, but her words were muddled and distant.

Think, Chris. What the hell just happened?

Did Hailey write the note in distress? Did she really believe that her mother needed her? Smoothing out the paper, I used every bit of psychological training that I had.

Her last words, Love you, reassured me that those words were hers. She wasn’t coerced to write the note. Her handwriting was neat, if a little slanted, which told me she was in a rush but wasn’t being held at gunpoint. Hailey believed what she had written.

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