Jace is already dusting off his hands on his overalls and headed outside. “I’ll come with you.”
“No, you stay.” I hold up a hand. Jace looks ready to argue. “There’s no sense in putting more people at risk than necessary. She might be back at the house already, safe and sound.”
“And if that’s the case,” Jace says, pointing an accusing finger. “You need to grovel like all hell, Walker. I’m serious. Whatever you were planning, times it by a hundred.”
My hand is on the door, my shoulder against it, ready to shove it open against the wind. I glance back just for a second at the severity of his tone.
“What do you mean?”
“Her friend died on the track. Nick Carson. Four months ago.”
“Yeah…” I hadn’t known his name, but I knew she’d lost a—
“But her dad passed away from cancer. Last year.”
Everything inside me seems to shrivel and I instantly feel sick with shame.
“What?” I breathe.
“He was off the track for over a year before he passed. So was Lizzie. She’s never mentioned it, but the way I read it in the magazines, she nursed the poor guy right up until the end.”
“You have no clue how to handle that kind of slow ugliness…”My own words echo in my head. Taunting me. “…because you never stick it out when things get hard.”
I throw my anger into the door and wrench it open, leave it swinging wildly in the wind. Then I sprint for the truck without a backwards glance. No more delays. I need to find Lizzie.
“You just don’t have the stomach for real trauma.”
Please, don’t let that be the last thing I ever say to her. Whether it’s by storm or airplane, please don’t let her be taken from me. Not now. And, if I’m a lucky enough idiot that she’ll forgive me, not ever.