Page 16 of Lavender and Lightning

I sigh and shake my head. “It’s only going to delay the inevitable.”

“If he needs help getting with the program, I’ve been taking some jujitsu classes and I’m pretty sure I could take him,” Gabby says, half joking.

I laugh outright. Rhett has trained to fight most of his life, and while I don’t think he’d hurt Gabby if she tried to kick his ass, I don’t think he would take it lying down, either.

“You can jump him in a dark alley if I can’t get him to calm down. Promise,” I say, giving her one last hug.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, babe.” Gabby laughs before heading up the stairs to the apartment she and Wila occupy above the store.

Turning back to the parking lot, I square my shoulders, bracing myself for impact.

eight

Rhett

“You’regoingtoputa rut in the hardwood if you don’t stop,” Lucas drones.

I throw a growl over my shoulder but stop my pacing at the picture window overlooking the backyard. I can’t see Lucas, but I can smell him. His fresh cotton and sugar scent, something that usually soothes even my worst moods, is thick in the air, but isn’t putting a dent in my foul mental state.

It’d started when I went down to Lydia’s room this morning, fully intending to spend the day with her in bed, like we’d done on a few lazy weekends before the accident. Hours and hours of just being close, talking, occasionally touching and more. But her bed was cold and empty, and her scent stale in the air. I’d gone into a panic, checking every door and window lock in the house for signs of a break-in. When I’d gotten to the garage and found Lex’s car gone, it’d hit me. Lydia had gone to work despite her promising me she wouldn’t.

Fear and worry have morphed into frustration and dread, and Lydia’s refusal to answer my calls and messages has only stoked the fire in my gut. I’d worked out twice today, even going as far as to spar with Mateo until we both dripped with sweat and were ready to collapse, but nothing has helped.

“She’s fine, Rhett. You need to calm down—”

“Easy for you to say. She’s answering you,” I snarl over Lucas, guilt appearing in my chest for only a moment before it’s burned away.

“You’re blowing this way out of proportion. It’s not like she’s been kidnapped,” he continues, his even tone grating on my already raw nerves.

“She fucking could 'ave been, t’ough. We shouldn’t have given 'er a room so close to an exterior door,” I retort, running a hand roughly through my hair.

“It’s impossible to remove that risk without locking her in a windowless cell. Which you sure as shit aren’t going to,” Lucas snaps.

I turn to find him sitting up and glaring at me over the back of the sectional. Even if I hate myself for it, I can’t deny that the thought of Lydia hurt or worse has made me consider crazier ideas. But the voice of my mother that lives permanently in my head shrieks in rage, scolding me until I can get that urge under control. Sarah Cooper-Nolan would be ashamed of her son if she could see what I’ve turned into. I can’t stop, though. I don’t know how to shut off these instincts that make me want to take Lydia into a bomb-proof bunker and keep her there until we’ve handled the threats against her.

“I’m going to Wila’s. Don’t wait up,” I mumble, heading toward the mudroom.

“You’re still hours early! At least wait—”

I don’t hear the end of his protest as I slide on shoes and storm across the porch. I’m out of the garage before I can think better of it, but I don’t miss Lucas’s disapproving stare out of the front windows as he watches me leave.

Lydia gets one point in her argument for staying at her apartment during the work week. The commute between Bristol Point to the Old Town portion of State Street is at least double that of the distance between her old building and her job. And it puts me on some of the more heavily congested roads in the city, though I purposefully avoid the intersection of Decatur Road and Garrison Boulevard, the place where I almost lost her.

I pull into Lydia’s usual parking spot in the large lot behind the row of six buildings that make up this block. The lot is half full of cars belonging to employees of the businesses surrounding the flower shop. Most of the business owners live above their storefronts, like the Fitzgeralds, and I have a friendly relationship with almost all of them. During the restoration project, I’d gotten to know them, and the Foundation owns a fair number of buildings, so we like to keep up with the leaseholders.

Lydia’s estimated return time comes and goes, and I get more restless with each passing minute. The sun sets behind the three-story buildings, and darkness settles over the city, the streetlights flickering to life overhead. It’s only through sheer force of will that I stop myself from calling Lydia until she picks up and demanding to know where she is. The rational part of my brain knows that there’s probably an innocent explanation for her tardiness. But it’s drowned out by the rest of my mind and its stream of increasingly dire worst-case-scenarios.

Only a rumbling engine and a pair of headlights turning the corner, making their way toward me, stop the worst of my thoughts. Seeing Lydia in her black pants and white shirt, her arm in its sling and strapped to her chest as she climbs out of the cab, settles me a little more. Though I can’t deny the primal surge of annoyance as she looks at my car and then purposefully turns away.

It takes a while for the three women to finish up whatever they’re doing, and each second Lydia isn’t by my side winds my gut into tighter and tighter coils. By the time she’s sliding into my passenger seat, only the wave of her soft lilac and lavender scent keeps me from snapping. She’s safe and back where she belongs. That’s what matters. I have to remember that, even as the darkest part of my alpha nature wants to lay into her for scaring me like this. And punish her enough to make her second guess ever doing something like this again. But that is a voice I have no issue shoving aside. For now.

“Rhett—”

“Do you ‘ave any idea how fucking terrifying it was to go down to your room, expecting you to be there, only to find your bed cold and empty?”

Okay, maybe I couldn’t shove the anger away entirely. But after spending a whole day terrified that something awful had happened, I’m owed the right to growl a little. I start the car and pull away, heading toward the lot exit and home.

“That’s not fair,” she retorts with a huff.

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