He should do more to show her how much he wanted to be with her. He didn’t really know what to do. No one would say he was a romantic. A job needed doing, he got it done. He wished he knew what to do to win Sadie’s heart and affection.
“I don’t know why she’s not here. Maybe something happened with her father. I’m heading over to her place to find out.” He had to go and see for himself, because staying here another minute would only mean an evening spent worrying, which would drive him crazier than he felt right now.
Rory went back through the kitchen and into the laundry room to stuff his feet back in his boots. Ready to leave, he held the door handle, but stopped at his grandfather’s words.
“It’s okay to love her, Rory. She won’t leave you like your parents did.”
This certainly had nothing to do with his parents. He didn’t think she’d leave him. Certainly not without cause. But did he give her enough reason to stay? He feared he’d held back too much of himself from Sadie.
His mind spun. He didn’t share his thoughts or feelings with his grandfather. He didn’t share them with anyone most of the time.
“That’s not what this is about,” he denied, hoping his grandfather would drop all this so he could figure out what to do about Sadie on his own.
“Isn’t it? Isn’t that the reason you hold on to Ford and Colt and me and this ranch so tight? Isn’t that the reason you’ve never let anyone close to you, because you’re afraid they’ll leave?”
Rory walked out and closed the door between him and his grandfather. He closed the door on the conversation. Rory wasn’t afraid of being left alone. But the thought of his future on this ranch without a wife and children made his future seem empty and lonely.
If he missed Sadie the way he did now, what would it be like if she was there every day, in his bed, in his life? He didn’t want to think of having all that happiness and the possibility he could lose it if she left him. But, he realized now he’d risk the hurt to have at least a little bit of happiness—for however long it lasted.
Rory pulled up in front of Sadie’s house and slammed on the brakes. A sense of dread washed through his system, knotting his gut at the sight of the front door left wide open. Sadie’s truck wasn’t here. Where was she? The possible answers to that question rolled through his mind and unsettled him even more.
He jumped out of the truck and scanned the surrounding yard, paying particular attention to the open barn doors. Nothing moved in the dark interior. No sound that someone lurked nearby. Nothing but the empty yard and whispering wind.
He rushed to the house and leaped the porch steps. The quiet disturbed him, but the trail of blood leading back into the house stopped his heart, constricted his chest, and made it impossible to breathe.
He sidestepped the drops of blood and smeared drag marks and followed the trail back to Mr. Higgins’s room. He stood in the doorway, his mind rebelling against the bloody scene in front of him. The bedcovers draped over the side of the bed and pooled on the floor. A smashed lamp lay on its side, the dented shade tilted, the bright bulb a blinding light, highlighting the blood splattered on the floor and walls. The right side of the night table beside the bed had been jarred and shoved into the wall, leaving a hole where the corner went through the sheetrock. A bloody shirt lay balled and crumpled on the mattress, like someone had used it as a compress against a terrible wound.
“What the fuck?”
Lost in his dark thoughts, Rory hadn’t heard anyone come in. He spun toward the shocked voice and spotted the last person he expected to see. He reacted without thinking. Rory grabbed Connor and shoved him back through the bedroom door and slammed him into the hallway wall. Pictures of him and Sadie growing up through the years rattled against the wall along with Connor’s bones. Rory held him off the ground, his forearm pressed to Connor’s throat. The nasty gash across his cheek had scabbed over, but the angry red splotch along the edges indicated it had become infected. Rory didn’t care about that; he only wanted to know one thing. “Where is she?”
Connor gasped and tried to speak, but Rory had cut off his air. Rory adjusted his arm across Connor’s collarbones, but didn’t let him go.
“Tell me where she is.” The dead calm in his voice didn’t reveal the chaos of fear and desperation eating away at Rory’s insides.
“I don’t know.”
“If you hurt her, if that asshole you call a friend laid one finger on her, I swear to God . . .”
“I didn’t. He’s not here. Swear. I came back to tell her I’m sorry about . . . about everything.”