Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(15)

“You’ll have to ignore the mess.” He untangled himself from her bags and set them on the couch. “I’m in the process of remodeling.”

She turned a slow circle in the living room, looking over the stack of hardwood in the corner he’d yet to lay and up the scuffed stairs that led to the even shabbier second floor. “No, it’s fine. How long have you lived here?”

Shrugging out of his coat, he hung it on the hook near the door, desperate for space. “Just about a year.” He turned for the archway that led to the kitchen. “I’ll call you a tow truck.”

The cordless sat on the counter under dinged-up white cabinets he couldn’t wait to rip out. Since he couldn’t count on cell service on a good day out here, and he knew the storm would only make that service worse now, he reached for the phone book from the drawer to look up the number for a tow. Just as he wrapped his hand around the book, the lights went out and the hum of the furnace clicked off, dousing the kitchen in darkness.

He glanced toward the water-stained ceiling and then to the cordless on the counter. All he could see were shadows. One click of the phone illuminated the LCD screen and confirmed the cordless had battery life but no signal. “Shit.”

“I think the power just went out,” Raegan said from the doorway behind him.

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.

Fabric rustled at his back. “I still have some battery life in my cell.”

“It won’t work.”

She lifted her head as he turned, cell phone in hand, her delicate features illuminated by the soft blue light from her phone’s screen. “What?”

“The signal’s spotty this far out. The whole area’s a dead zone. With the storm you won’t get anything.”

Her cheeks paled as she checked her signal. Worry rippled over her face as she keyed into the reality that they were stuck together until the power came back on.

He tried not to be disappointed by that reaction, told himself he didn’t want to be stuck with her either, but couldn’t quite shake the familiar emptiness growing wider inside him.

Dammit. Why the hell had she come all the way out here in the first place?

His annoyance increased by the second. Shoving the cordless back on its stand, he moved by her and pulled the cabinet open where he kept candles and flashlights. “Does your boyfriend know where you are right now?”

“Alec, he’s not my—”

He shot her a look over his shoulder, and the words died on her lips. Just before her cell’s screen darkened he caught the guilt in her green irises. Guilt that only widened that emptiness inside until it was a vast canyon of nothing.

“No,” she said quietly. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

Alec found a flashlight and checked the batteries. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled when he finds out.”

Flicking the light on, he moved past her and back into the living room where he set the flashlight on the hearth and reached for more firewood to keep the fire going.

“I’m sorry that I showed up here unannounced and put a crimp in your night,” she said from the kitchen doorway. “I just . . .” She sighed. “I wanted to make sure you were okay after everything that happened today. You left the party so fast, I . . .”

The worry he heard in her voice caused a little of his irritation to ebb. She hadn’t come here to mess with his head as he wanted to believe. She’d driven all the way out here in a snowstorm because she cared. More than she still should for someone like him.

“I’m fine, Raegan.” He tossed a log onto the fire and moved it with the poker. He’d put her through enough hell when they’d been married. He could be civil now. “And I’m not drinking, in case that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t even have anything in the house.”

“No one would blame you if you wanted to. Not after this day.”

He laughed, but the sound held no humor. “There are plenty of things you can blame me for. Not having alcohol on hand isn’t one of them.”

“I didn’t—”

“Look.” He turned toward her, ready to be done with this conversation for good. “I appreciate the concern but I’m fine. I know Ethan probably made you think otherwise, but he’s just being his normal worrywart self for no reason. I’m not drinking, I’m not gonna drink, and I’m done discussing it, okay?”

She studied him in the firelight for several long seconds, and even though her face was cast in shadows, he knew what she was looking for. Proof he really was sober, that he was telling the truth, that she’d come out here for nothing.

The first he knew he could pass. His eyes had been clear ever since the day he’d awoken in that hospital with his family around him asking what the hell he’d been thinking. He hadn’t touched a drop of liquor since. But the second . . . telling the truth . . . he was sure she could see right through that like a veil.

“Okay,” she said softly, breaking the eye contact and looking down at the floor.

Okay. He exhaled, relieved they were off the subject of his addiction, but his heart rate still didn’t slow. Because now that they had nothing pressing to talk about, the awkwardness of the situation hit him full force.

“It’s late.” He set the poker back in its holder. “I’ll grab some blankets so you can sleep on the couch. The power should be back on by morning. If not, the neighbor up the road has a truck we can use to pull your car out.”