Page 273 of Come Back to Me

I’m in love.

And the man I love had the audacity to pull another disappearing act!

(And failed to translate nervous Tee, who was suffering from foot-in-mouth syndrome. He should have instinctively known I was declaring my undying devotion with my eyes,right?)

His absence is the reason I slip off to bed hella early, though I could be rubbing shoulders with Liam Donnghal and every other New York Stars’ player in attendance.

Because it’s official, love bites.

And as cool as the hockey players are, they’re not as cool as my man.

By the time I step out of the bathroom after a two-hour soak, my anxiety rebounds when he still isn’t back from wherever the hell he went in the first place.

As I lie there, alone in the dark, in my big, empty, Cody-less bed, I wonder how I’m ever going to get to sleep with all these feelings rattling around inside me.

We need to talk. But tomorrow, I’m flying out to Toronto with Zee for two days and I don’t want to do this over the phone.

Curling onto my side, I scoff out a laugh when I realize how we’ve had months to have this conversation, but I tamped it down and chose to keep us secret.

No wonder I’m on the brink of explosion.

“It’s all his fault,” I fume, punching my pillow. “If he hadn’t sent me that goddamn ‘Dear John,’ then we’d have just fallen in love the normal way! Instead, I’ve been left with all this love in me building up like a gas leak. One lit match and BOOM.”

I plunk back onto my pillow and stare at the ceiling.

Keeping us a secret, I recognize, protected future me from Pigeon Creek’s scrutiny if he lit up our relationship and left me to deal with the blast.

This whole fake un-dating thing has been an exercise in building trust. I was just too emotionally dumb to realize that.

And now that I have, now that I know he loves me back, now that I know he won’t yank at my heartstrings like this is a game of Jenga, he decides to misread all my signals and vanish!

“GAH!”

Thoroughly agitated, I manage to sleep by some small miracle, hoping Cody will wake me up when he climbs into bed with me.

Only, I wake up alone.

Mind infuriated, heart full of longing, soul missing its other half enough I could throttle him, I grouchily get my shit together so I can confront him.

But he’s not in his wing.

Nor is he anywhere in the house—even a severely hungover, mid-breakfast-prepping Mrs. Abelman doesn’t know where he is.

It’s official—the next time I see him, I won’t be gifting him one of the garnet pebbles that I bought when we were in Saskatoon together.

I’ll be throwing it at his head.

Tee

Later that morning

“Daddy!”

“Hey, snookums.” Dad presses a kiss to my cheek, hauls me around by the shoulders, and jerks me left and right, getting into my face to study me. “Why haven’t you been coming home to visit me?” He pouts. “You only wanna chat with Nonna, huh? I see how it is.”

His laughter is so cheerful that it instantly makes my pulse spike in delight. My lips even curve, which is a miracle considering I’ve been frowning since I searched the ranch and didn’t find Cody in his den or at the stables.

Where is he?!

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