Like, at all.
But, God, I wanted to curl up in my mom’s lap and cry my damn eyes out. And since she probably would’ve thought I was dying or something if I tried to do something that dramatic without explaining the reason, I was basically stuck.
Just the same way I’d been stuck for six damn years.
All too soon, we arrived at the resort and outside my bungalow. I could have jumped out of the truck and dashed to the door with a casual wave goodbye. But I wasn’t in the mood for that.
Sure, I was ready to crash into bed and sleep for all of America, but I wanted to resolve my man issues as well.
I got out of the truck without looking at Coop, but Nolan jumped out at exactly the same time and pulled me into a hug.
With my face against his chest, breathing in his scent, and his arms wrapped around me, I was completely safe and at home. That was where I wanted to be, right there in his orbit.
He kissed the top of my head. “I want you, and I can wait as long as it takes.” He planted another kiss on my head. “Coop feels the same way, too. I know he does. Take tonight for yourself and contact us tomorrow if you want to. No pressure.”
With that, he let me go, stepped back, and then got into the truck next to Cooper.
I almost expected them to drive off, but they wouldn’t do that until they saw me safely open the door to my bungalow, enter, and close it behind me. Those guys were ever considerate and perfect, and I’d be a fool to let them go.
And yet I did.
Once inside, I went to the window and watched them drive away before settling in for a quiet night alone.
Chapter Sixteen
Nolan Reed
In the morning, me and Coop and the farm hands rose with the dawn as usual and went to work on the ranch. Between us, we checked the horses, the herd, and the fences.
Coop took the truck to clear up stray fallen branches and tackled a blockage that caused the water in the gully to run slower than it should.
I did what I like to call the Chicken Run after the film, which basically involved collecting the eggs from the chicken coop. The little ladies were laying extra well this morning, whereas yesterday, they laid practically nothing. The storm messed them up.
Finally, me and Coop had time to sit and talk. We were in the kitchen for some lunchtime grub after a full day’s work, all done by midday. I was about to ask what he wanted to do about Poppy, seeing as he hadn’t mentioned her, when his phone rang.
Cooper flashed me the caller display.
Vic Price.
It was a good sign to see Vic calling; he must have recovered following his night in the hospital.
Several hours after we’d left Poppy at the hotel the night before and when we were just about to go to our beds, Chrissy had called. She told Coop that his older brother had been in a car crash, but not to worry, it didn’t seem serious, and he was merely being kept in the hospital overnight as a precaution.
So we hadn’t worried.
Vic actually owned half the ranch with Cooper, and he still kept a room there, but he hadn’t slept in it since a stopover at Christmas. He’d never had that buzz for farm life like Cooper and me. Vic had no real desire to live and work on the ranch. He was born to be a cop and live in town; that was the life that excited him.
More worrying perhaps was that the crash also put Cameron in the hospital, leaving the neighborhood down a couple of cops when it needed them. We had no word on Cam other than he also stayed in overnight, so we assumed it was nothing too serious for either of them.
“How are you feeling, Vic? You all right?”
Coop looked back at the phone with such a strange expression that I put down my sandwich and focused one hundred percent on trying to listen in.
“What? What do you mean? Missing? Are you sure? Have you checked—sorry, yeah, of course, you have.”
What’s going on? Who’s missing?
“What can we do to help?” Cooper asked Vic. “Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Okay, that’s what we’ll do. I’ll call you with updates.”
He hung up the phone and exhaled slowly before looking over at me. “We have new plans for the afternoon.”
“Who’s missing?”
“It’s Jasmine. Nobody can find her. Poppy and Muriel are the most likely people to have useful information, perhaps a lead; Vic suggests we get them involved in trying to find her.”
“Sounds like police work, so why did he call you?”
“Because Cam’s still in the hospital. He’d be the obvious one to check it out. Vic’s getting discharged right now, so I guess he’s got other stuff to do. And Jasmine isn’t officially missing; she’s just unaccounted for.”