Page 21 of Boss Unavowed (Boss 2)

Why now, she thought, as the weight of Rogan being gone and Harley being sick was weighing heavily on her with a pressure she had nothing to compare to. It was all just too much.

“I can’t do this right now,” she said, pulling her door closed and heading off toward the clinic.

FOURTEEN

When Farren finally got home with Harley late into the night, she was exhausted, which seemed to be all she knew anymore. They had diagnosed Harley with an ear infection, which meant her poor baby was in pain, and it just broke her heart.

Thankfully, between the clinic and the 24-hour pharmacy, she was able to get him some relief and he was finally sound asleep in his crib.

She fell into her bed without even bothering to change out of her clothes. It was one o’clock in the morning. What she wouldn’t have given to be able to curl into Rogan’s arms right then.

Tears welled in her eyes as the emotional pain in her chest felt as though it might consume her. She had dreaded this moment for days, the moment she would lie alone in a bed she shared with the man she loves while she wondered if he was lying alone elsewhere, or not.

What could he be doing that he hadn’t called her at all that day? Was he alone? Asleep? Or was he… she couldn’t bring herself to even think it.

She didn’t want to consider that this could be the beginning of the end between them. What would that mean for Harley? What would it mean for her job?

Then there was the issue she had been avoiding, which was her father. He had disappeared on her more than a decade ago, and he hadn’t even so much as called, emailed, or sent up a smoke signal to indicate he was living or dead. She didn’t know why he had left all those years prior, and she had decided a long time ago that she didn’t care.

The question now was what had changed to make him reappear again out of the blue? Was he trying to make amends? Maybe he’d finally gotten into a twelve-step program and was having to make a list of all the people he had wronged. What was that, step eight, or something? She scoffed at the thought.

Maybe he was just around because he wanted something. But what? It’s not like she had anything to give him.

If only Rogan were there to help her sort it all out. She hated feeling like this, and it all just reiterated for her why she preferred numbers, computers, and machines to human problems and complications. She could pick up a computer and know how it was going to work every single time. She could open it up and pinpoint exactly what was wrong with it, then know exactly how to fix it to make it work right again.

She couldn’t exactly open her father up and pinpoint what was wrong with him or Rogan either, for that matter. Worst of all, she’d always had the sinking feeling that what was wrong with them was the one thing they all had in common: her.

When her phone rang from across the room in her bag, she jumped up and rushed over, scrambling to dig it out from where it hid at the bottom. She felt a momentary relief that Rogan was finally calling until she pulled it out and saw that it was Gramma. Disappointment set in once more.

“Gramma, you’re still awake?”

“I’m sorry to call so late, my dear. I just wanted to check on you and see how Harley is doing.”

Farren kicked her shoes off and lay back down on the bed.

“He’s going to be okay. They said he has an ear infection. They gave us an antibiotic and some ear drops. He’s sleeping now.”

“That’s good to hear. What about you? Are you doing okay?”

Farren knew that Gramma could always sense when something was bothering her. She didn’t know how she did it, even from miles away through the phone.

“I’m okay. I’m just tired. I think I’m going to try to get some sleep,” she said.

“Okay, sleep tight, honey. Call me in the morning and let me know how Harley does through the night.”

Farren hung up and held the phone to her chest for several minutes. After going back and forth, she decided to just suck it up and send Rogan a text. It was late, but with everything that had happened that day with Harley being so sick and having to go to the doctor, she figured she owed it to him to let him know, regardless of anything else that was going on.

Then she waited.

And waited.

She sat quiet and still for several moments. She set the phone down on the nightstand next to the baby monitor. She buried her face in the pillow and

sobbed her very heart into it until sleep finally and mercifully overtook her.

*

Rogan’s cell phone lit up with a text on the nightstand next to where he had been trying to sleep earlier. The phone went dark again in the empty room.

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