Him, Waverley, and Chelsea, stranded who knew where? His heart raced, and it felt like someone had placed a lead weight on his chest.
Get it together.
He was the Irish Prince. He'd built a company from scratch, stood up against fierce competitors, and come out ahead of them all.
Nothing bad would happen. He could call …
Who exactly could he call to fix this? He didn't even know where they were. If he'd just taken the plane …
Chelsea's hand landed on his knee, oddly comforting, although he should be the one making things easier for her. After all, she hadn't even wanted to go on this trip.
"Are you okay?" Chelsea said.
"I'm fine."
She raised an eyebrow. "Because you look a little panicked."
"I don't get panicked."
"Okay. But you get anxious in situations where you haven't planned everything down to the last detail. And you didn't exactly plan on being stranded here with your daughter."
He looked back at Waverley, the pinch of panic tightening a little. How had she noticed? He made a point of keeping his anxiety carefully hidden, and this wasn't the first time she'd hinted she recognized his unwelcome reaction to situations outside the realm of his control. "Exactly why I can't afford to be panicked."
"Okay. Where are we, Jimmy?" she asked the driver. He'd closed his eyes and rested his head back on the seat, but he stirred and peered at her.
"Ohio. Some small town not far from the interstate. I needed to get some ibuprofen, sorry." Jimmy sounded truly apologetic, but it didn't tamp back on the lump rising in Aiden's throat.
A cop car pulled up alongside their vehicle. Waverley stirred, sat up, and blinked around. "Where are we?" she asked, sounding disoriented.
"Ohio," Chelsea answered, removing her hand from Aiden's knee. He felt the loss of it and was tempted to snatch her hand back. "Have you ever been to Ohio?"
"No … " The little girl elongated the o's at the end of the word, her wide eyes focused on the police car. "Are we pulled over?"
"Nope." Chelsea opened her door, letting more bright sunshine into the vehicle. Jimmy cringed, but Chelsea didn't look back inside, instead stretching her lovely little body out in the warm rays from above. "Looks like there is a parade coming through. C'mon, Waverley. Let's go check it out."
"But-" Aiden began. It wasn't safe. And where was the car with his security team?
Neither of the girls listened to him. Waverley popped out of the car, leaving her door hanging open, and Jimmy seemed to wither a bit more. Probably too much sunlight. Aiden remembered reading somewhere that light was bad for migraines.
"Hey, Jimmy, why don't you crawl into the back and shut your eyes for a while?" Chelsea said, peeking in her door. "It's darker back there. We'll go check out this parade and be back in a bit. Sound good?"
Aiden opened and closed his mouth like a fish. The panic still scraped at him, but he recognized his own weakness-he hated feeling out of control, as if by simply maneuvering the world around him, he kept sanity in place. Chelsea was breaking all the rules. One didn't just go roaming around a strange town in the armpit of America. "Chelsea, I think … "
She grinned back at him, taking Waverley's hand when the girl reached her side. "Oh, hush, Aiden. It'll be fun. Come on. Live a little."
He was way outside his element, in a situation beyond his control and in an unfamiliar place. He could see now that Chelsea had been right-some sort of parade was making its way down the broad country street-and likely his daughter would enjoy the experience.
But it was also a place of unfamiliar potential dangers. A really bad idea.
For Waverley, and all the years he'd missed with her, he'd try, though. "Yeah, Jimmy. Grab some shut eye, and we'll be back shortly."
"Thanks, boss," Jimmy said, while Aiden got out of the car and stepped into the unknown.
Chapter Six
Chelsea
She knew Aiden didn't do surprises well. Hell, he'd abolished company surprise parties, even in cases of birthdays and retirements, not because he didn't like them socializing … but because he hated disorder.
After working with him for so many years, she'd realized that what others mistook as him being a control freak was something else entirely. The man might be wealthy, powerful, and sometimes even feared-but he freaked out when he was off his precious schedules. She wasn't a doctor, so she couldn't begin to try to label what was off about Aiden Kelley, but she could recognize it and had in the past found ways to make some things easier for him and those around him.