“I’m going to bed to pass out. I’ll be okay until morning,” she assured him.
He frowned, still not convinced, but he relented. “If you need me tonight, no matter the time, call and I’ll be here.”
She wanted him to stay as much as she needed him to go. The latter won out, and she nodded, sniffling. “You’re my knight. Of course you will.”
He kissed her forehead, lingering just a second too long. “Lock the door behind me.”
She watched him through the window; as usual he paused, listening for the click of the dead bolt before turning toward the stairs. Usually, he jogged down them. Tonight, he trudged as if drained of energy.
Emily drank in the last few glimpses of him until his SUV turned the corner. With tears streaming down her face and a crushing emptiness in her chest, she climbed the stairs to pack. In the morning, when he arrived with breakfast—mammoth blueberry muffins from The Sweet Spot on the corner and a chai latte, her usual—she’d be gone. Because if she stayed another minute, she’d never be strong enough to go.
***
Alec arrived before nine the next morning. Coffee tray in one hand, pastry bag in the other, he let himself in with the key the Petersons had given him years ago—when his mother’s overdose left him with an absentee father and a life that was falling apart. They’d also given him a home, tough love that helped him turn things around at school, and a future. Mostly, they were the family he so desperately needed: kind yet firm surrogate parents, Ethan, the friend who’d become a brother,and Emily, a kid sister he’d loved like his own, who had grown into a beautiful young woman. Now, she had no family left—except him.
“Em?” he called. “You up?”
Silence answered. He told himself she was still asleep, but, after yesterday, a cold ripple of fear ran up his spine. He took the stairs two at a time.
“Emily!” he thundered as he pushed into her bedroom. It was tiny, not much larger than a walk-in closet, but she had refused to take the master after her parents died, as had Ethan.
One glance told him everything. The bed made, the dresser stripped of photos, the still life her mother had painted gone from the wall, and her music box, the cardboard kind with the revolving ballerina, missing from its usual place dead-center on her vanity.
The little brat had lied to his face and planned her escape while he held her, comforted her, believed her.
Rage flared, and he turned and punched the wall. Plaster dust rained down. Physical pain didn’t register. He sank onto the bed and buried his face in his hands.
While she’d gone through her ordeal, leaning on him, what she didn’t seem to realize was he needed her too. Maybe running was how she coped. He didn’t operate that way. Regardless of his feelings, she’d left.
He fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed. The recorded message—subscriber not taking calls right now—punched the air from his lungs. He stared at the screen, stunned. She was blocking him.
In an explosion of frustrated energy, he hurled the city-issued iPhone. It hit the wall with a deafening crack and shattered, fragments skittering across the floor.
He didn’t give a fuck.
“If that’s how she wants it,” he snarled. “So be it.”
But as he picked up the pieces of his decimated phone, his brain switched back on. He had resources—contacts, databases, a detective’s instincts—and he’d use them. No way in hell would he allow her to erase him from her life.
He loved her, not with the simple, brotherly affection he used to. Somewhere along the way it had deepened, and it was past time to stop pretending otherwise.
She’d loved him for years. Anyone who wasn’t blind could see it. Her eyes, warm brown and unguarded, always told on her. But when she was ten, and he was a senior in high school, he considered it puppy love and figured she’d grow out of it. At fifteen, the light in her eyes when she looked at him hadn’t faded. When she came of age, he knew he had to admit his true feelings. But it wasn’t the right time after the tragedy of losing her parents.
He’d waited—for grief, for space, for the right moment to tell Ethan he had a thing for his little sister. What he wouldn’t give to have him here and be facing that problem today.
He scanned the room once more—hangers in a bare closet, the dresser cleared of makeup and perfume, her bookshelves once stuffed with cookbooks and food magazines now empty.
“She won’t give up on culinary school,” he told the empty air.
As he returned downstairs, he devised a plan. He’d have to wait until Monday, two long maddening days, to track her down on campus and confront her. What happened after that hinged on her answers.
One thing bothered him about waiting. Ethan’s loss had overwhelmed her, her emotions were raw, her behavior erratic. She wasn’t thinking straight. With little money, she could easily end up somewhere dangerous. Staying with a friend would be the best choice, but after working and living in the city for years, he was out of touch with who she hung out with these days. She would likely have made new friends at school, leaving him with no idea who she would turn to after shutting him out.
He scanned the spotless first floor and silently cursed her neat-freak quirk. He had better odds of winning the lottery than finding a clue to her whereabouts on the neat-as-a-pin desk or the wiped-clean whiteboard on the side of the refrigerator.
In Emily’s mind, order equaled control and therefore security, which, for a young woman who had so little of both, he completely understood.
When his gaze landed on the kitchen trash can, he strode across the room and stepped on the foot lever. That it was empty didn’t surprise him in the least.
