Patrick wasn’t the first man to put her second and now—after Remy—he wasn’t the last. Remy was more loyal to his dead wife than Patrick had ever been to the mother of his children.
At least Remy was honest about it. How ironic that his honorability made her hurt all the more. And made her realize how very little Patrick had honored her.
Patrick started to argue. “Youareimportant?—”
“Please don’t call me again.” She spoke on top of him, blurting the words in a rush before disconnecting the call.
Stuffing her phone in the pocket of her sweatshirt, she hoped it was the last she heard from him. She’d gotten the answer she was curious about and it provided zero comfort.
She shuffled down the stairs knowing she was now too keyed up to sleep. She grabbed a folded blanket from anottoman in the living room and brought it outside on the patio with her. Stars winked in the cool night air as she dropped into the love seat. It was funny how she’d fought so hard to avoid romantic entanglements these past months only to find herself incredibly tangled.
Patrick didn’t count except that she felt five times the guilt now, knowing he’d left his wife. His kids.
That broke her heart, even if he had been planning to leave his family all along.
But Remy…she closed her eyes as the night air whispered over her skin like a lover’s sigh. Things were only going to get more complicated where he was concerned. As much as that worried her, she was already in too deep to walk away.
The bonfire whippedfrom a sudden gust of breeze, flames arcing sideways while Remy climbed the hill toward the sounds of music and laughter.
Erin had been correct. He wouldn’t have located this spot on his own. He had ended up stopping at a gas station to ask where to find the soccer field, and that had gotten him here well enough. His head was too twisted with worries about Sarah for him to make sense of what had happened with Erin so he’d used it as an excuse to run. He hadn’t thought far enough ahead to the aftermath of his first time being with another woman, figuring he and Erin would both be back to their own lives with some good memories to take with them.
Now? He trudged faster up the hill and tried not to think about how long he might be stuck in Heartache. How long he’d have to pretend he had it all together when evenhis eighteen-year-old daughter didn’t trust him enough to confide in him.
Clearing the last ridge above the soccer field, Remy saw the shadowy outline of a tailgate party. He didn’t know how the trucks had gotten up here—certainly not via the path he’d taken—but there were five pickups parked in a way that the vehicles made a half circle around the bonfire. There were probably twenty-five or thirty kids either watching the flames, dancing in truck beds, or chasing each other around the cottonwood trees. A country tune crooned from a stereo system.
For a moment, he wished he’d brought Erin. Maybe she would have been able to find Sarah more discreetly than he could since she probably knew some of these kids. Because, however he approached this on his own, Sarah was going to accuse him of embarrassing her.
With no help for it now, he marched into the fray, flattening the tall grass with every step.
“Excuse me.” He approached a couple of teenage boys who fought the wind to light a cigarette. “I’m trying to find my daughter. Have you seen Sarah Weldon?”
“The new girl?” one of them asked, tucking the unlit cigarette behind his ear before pocketing his lighter.
“She was over there,” the other boy answered, pointing to a spot beyond the ring of trucks, near a sprawling red oak. “With Lucas.”
“Thanks.” Remy moved away from the fire just as a log slipped and sent sparks flying.
A few girls squealed as bits of red-hot cinders blew everywhere. The bad feeling in the pit of his stomach grew. What if she’d concocted a story for Theresa about being scared to return home when she really just wanted to hang out with some guy she’d met? She hadn’t said anythingabout Lucas to him, but that didn’t mean much these days. There was a lot she didn’t tell him.
Losing patience with wandering around in the dark, he shouted for her.
“Sarah!”
The group quieted, heads swiveling in his direction.
Damage done, he shouted again, “Sarah, I’ve come to take you home.”
Nearby, a girl seated on the front fender of one of the trucks scooted closer to her boyfriend, whispering. No doubt the presence of a strange man among the group was scary. Damn it. He stalked away from the kids around the fire and headed toward the woods where the boys had said they saw her earlier.
With someone named Lucas.
“Dad?”
A shadow broke free from the tree line nearby. The figure hurried forward.
“Sarah.” He marched toward her, seeing no sign of anyone else with her, although it was hard to see into the dark cluster of red oaks and cottonwoods. “What are you doing out here?”
White fluff from the cottonwood seeds rained down as another wind gusted. They stood halfway between the bonfire and the trees in a no-man’s-land between the two. It was quieter even moving twenty yards from the stereo system.
