Our Now and Forever(89)

“Nashville,” Caleb answered with annoyance. As if he needed to report in with his whereabouts like a kid out after curfew.

“Is your mother with you?” his father asked, taking Caleb by surprise.

“Why? Did you lose her?” Caleb wouldn’t expect his mother to pull this cluster of an intervention without telling her husband she was leaving.

Sounding more tired than Caleb remembered, Jackson said, “I came home from work late last night to find out from the maid that she’d flown up there to see you. But Rosa didn’t know when she was coming back.”

Caleb doubted that whatever kept his father out late the night before had anything to do with work.

“She showed up without warning yesterday.” Curious if his father had also been keeping Snow’s secret all this time, he asked, “Mother claims that Snow left with another man on the night she disappeared. You know anything about that?”

“I didn’t see anybody out there.”

So both of his parents were holding out on him. Freaking amazing.

“She didn’t meet some guy at the end of the driveway?”

“Not that I saw.”

“You saw Snow take off in the middle of the night and didn’t go after her?” Could his father not have mentioned this fact sooner? Like the next day when Caleb had been frantic.

“If you recall, not long before she left, you told me the only reason you had to stay married to her was to save her from taking half of everything.” Pausing to speak to someone in the room with him, Jackson returned to the conversation, saying, “For all I knew, you’d come to your senses and sent her packing.”

“Did you talk to her before she left?”

“Why would I talk to her?” Frustration and impatience laced his father’s words. “I watched her go from the window in my study. And why does any of this matter? Your mother said you found her so we could serve the papers and get this over with.”

His mother had lied. She’d pushed the one button she knew would get her what she wanted. Snow out of her son’s life.

“I need to go.”

“When are you coming home?” the older man asked.

“Never,” Caleb said, ending the call and grabbing his keys.



Just like the previous day, Snow spent Saturday driving around Nashville, visiting every spot to which Caleb had ever taken her. She even checked the locations he’d merely mentioned as places they should go. Asking at every hotel was impossible, but she checked several parking lots for his Jeep. She finally reached Deb, who’d pulled a double shift the night before and had no idea if Caleb was in town. Her former roommate had been surprised by the switch in roles, from hunted to hunter, but Snow was beyond thinking about her pride, nor was she up for explanations.

She just wanted to find her husband.

Around sundown, Snow was forced to admit the likelihood that Caleb was well on his way to Baton Rouge, if he hadn’t reached that destination already. She attempted to call Lorelei to let her know she was coming home, but her phone had died while she’d been trolling the Nashville streets. Thanks to a blown fuse that she’d meant to replace, she had no way to charge the phone without pulling over and finding an outlet.

All Snow wanted at that moment was to curl up in her bed and cry. Caleb’s scent lingering on her sheets would rip her chest open even more than it already was, but at least she would have some tiny piece of him to hold on to.

Squaring her shoulders, she drove north on I-65, assuring herself that this wasn’t over. What was twenty-four hours compared to eighteen months? If she had to fly down to Louisiana and beg at his doorstep, Snow would do it. She’d take a lie detector test, sell the store and move to be close to him. Whatever it took, giving up was not an option.

She didn’t blame Caleb for believing his mother. The woman possessed ninja-like manipulation skills, and her son had been on the receiving end of them his entire life. There was no way for Snow to prove that she’d never cheated. As much as her heart wanted to scream that she shouldn’t have to prove anything, that if he loved her he’d believe her, Snow was realistic enough to know that life didn’t work that way.

If put in the same position, she couldn’t say how she’d react. Except that everything she knew of Caleb said he’d never cheat.

The tears remained in check until she reached the Ardent Springs exit. The store would have closed an hour before, which gave Snow the excuse she needed to go straight home. By the time she turned off Main Street, her cheeks were soaked and she’d used every napkin in her glove box to wipe her nose. Though she’d taken a quick shower before leaving her hotel that morning, she’d been wearing the same clothes since yesterday morning, with the one concession of a new package of underwear.