Chapter 16
Callie
“Mom, have you seen my cell phone?” I crawl under my childhood bed. Funny, I remember it being a lot bigger.
“No dear. Did you bring it with you?” My mother, standing in the parlor, calls up the stairs.
“I’m sure I had it in the plane.” I’ve searched the beach mansion from the gourmet kitchen to the third-floor bedrooms. It has to be in my room under all this mess. I hang up my clothes, shake out the bedding, and still nothing.
Dammit.I wander to the top of the stairs. “Mom, can I use yours?”
“Sorry dear, I didn’t bring it.” She lowers her sunglasses under her wide-brimmed hat.
There’s an old black touch tone phone sitting on a small table in a nook over-looking the ocean. I pick up the receiver but there’s no dial tone.
Shit.“Maa-ahm.”
She doesn’t answer so I run down the stairs and out onto the deck where she’s lying in a lounge chair. “Why didn’t you call the phone company?”
“I spoke to your Grayson Patten. He said his company had some issues with security. He asked you stay off the internet because the terrorists could trace your IT or something like that.”
“IP mother. That’s how people identify computers.”
“Whatever. This will force you to relax. Think of the baby, dear.”
“Did someone tell Lochlan? I don’t want him to worry.”
“Grayson said he handled everything.”
I’m not buying it and give herthe look.
“He’s your employer. Don’t you trust him?” She flutters her lashes and blinks innocently.
Him, yes. Her, no so much.
The beach house reminds me of summers long past, when my mother and father tried to be a couple. However, even in grade school, it was clear something was wrong. I was brought to the beach by a nanny, my father went off with his friends, and my mother with hers. With both of them teaching, they had light schedules and could have spent more time with me, they just didn’t.
Tears well. Stupid hormones. I’ll be a much better mother and Lochlan, a better dad. At the thought of him, my heart aches.
Honey, I love you. Can you hear me? What’s taking so long?
I don’t want to put him or me in danger but I need him. Except for the kidnapping, we haven’t spent a night apart since we married. I can’t sleep unless I’m cuddled into his warm body, his heavy arm draped across my waist. He’s my alarm clock, his hard cock poking me at the break of dawn. Then, we make love until the real one goes off.
Back in my old bedroom, I pick up a sand dollar. It sits on a ledge with so many others, all a reminder of how lonely my life was until the day I met Lucky.
I grab my pillow, pretending it’s him, and hug it to me.
After, I dress in my preggo bathing suit, I grab a paperback, and head for the beach. “You want to join me mother?”
“No, run along, have fun. I’m going to catch up with some things here.”
I sigh, not at all surprised.
“C’mon you guys. Let’s find some sun.” The two hired to protect me follow and I pause with my hands on my waist. “For goodness sakes, not until you put on your bathing suits. I plan on going into the ocean.”
