Page 20 of Midnight Embrace

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We’ll have to break into his apartment.

Huh.

That would never have occurred to her. But the instant Raul said it, she realized just how worried she was, because she didn’t immediately reject the idea. It would be an invasion of Toby’s privacy, sure. But if something had happened to him …

And though she’d never say it out loud, Raul looked like the kind of person who actually could break into an apartment. She meant that in the nicest possible way.

Emma looked out over the Bay as they took the tram back toward the Castro. She was by the window again, Raul to her left like a living wall. He was turned slightly toward her, his broad shoulders blocking her view of the inside of the tram. She was essentially boxed in, which was something she ordinarily disliked. But not now.

Now she realized how worried she’d been, at what was going on in the financial markets, at Toby’s disappearance. She’d learned to live with a low-level buzz of constant worry that sometimes flared into a deafening roar.

Now, that buzz calmed down, and though the worry was still there, she also felt protected from it, as if he’d thrown a force field of strength around her. In theory, that was annoying. She didn’t need protection. She’d spent her entire life being unprotected and she was just fine with that. If Raul had been even the slightest bit obnoxious, it would have helped to reject it. She could be aggrieved and superior. But he wasn’t. He was calm, objective, clear that he was here to help her, but that she was in charge.

This whole situation might be nothing. But then again, it might be something. And if it was, she was grateful to Raul for lending her his strength.

It didn’t hurt that he was incredibly good-looking, super male without being macho and was not a jerk. Or at least he hadn’t said or done one stupid or jerkish thing in the time they’d been together.

Most guys she’d dated said something stupid or were jerks in the first ten minutes.

He was giving her … a little respite from the worry and anxiety that had plagued her these past days, and she was grateful. It wasn’t anything he’d done – basically all he’d done was to listen to her, and check her building’s security – but, rather, simply who he was. Calm and reassuring.

They rounded the Bay and the Bay Bridge, lit up in the evening sky, appeared.

“Really nice,” Raul said and she turned to him.

“Yeah. It’s a really beautiful city.”

“But?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“There was a ‘but’ in your voice.”

“Was there? I don’t see –” But she did. She sighed, almost sorry that Raul’s perspicacity ran to emotional undertones and not just home security. Undertones she hadn’t even been aware of. “Yeah. It’s just gorgeous, but everything and everyone here is so – so transient.”

He was listening to her carefully. “It’s a tech city. Tech moves fast.”

“It does. People move in, mainly make money, some lose it, and then they move out. When I first arrived, I made some friends but over the course of a year they all moved away. I made a second round of friends and they all moved away, too.”

“That must be hard for someone who moved around all through her childhood and might maybe want some stability.”

Emma blinked. Raul was seeing maybetoomuch. She turned her head back to the window as they rattled up Market Street. It was a ride she normally enjoyed, particularly at night, rolling up to the gaudily lit Castro district. It was a part of the city that came alive at night and as the final red drained from the sky, it lit up.

Going to Heaven was such a long shot. She was never going to find out what happened to Toby there. What was she thinking? Raul was going to throw away over $200 plus whatever they spent on drinks on a wild goose chase, not to mention the meal.

He didn’t seem to mind – in fact he insisted on dinner and the club – but still. It was all going to be pointless. And – and if she did find Toby? And he had decided to take an extended vacation with some new love? Or had just accepted another job? And she turned over rocks to find him and he was just annoyed?

That would be awful. She’d have to apologize … but no.

Toby was super serious at work. If he took a few days off, he’d have meticulously arranged things so that he was covered at work. He wouldn’t leave her dangling. She’d been doing the work of two these past days. He wouldn’t do that to her. And he wouldn’t have accepted another job without telling her. He told her about his new hair stylist, for heaven’s sake, he’d tell her about –

“Now!” Emma stood up. She’d been so taken up in her head she hadn’t noticed where they were. The tram was about to head up to Twin Peaks. If they missed the stop, they’d have to walk steeply downhill. “We get off now!”

The tram braking to a stop caught her off-guard and she stumbled a second. Just for a second, though, because Raul’s strong hand steadied her. He felt so steady and secure it was like she couldn’t fall, even if she wanted to.

Raul murmured something to the driver and he waited a few seconds more than usual at the stop. That was her fault, for getting up too late.

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