And Edward repeated his determination to wait for Sally.
Chloe felt that George was looking at her. There was no way that he was going to tell Edward to move on, that he’d wait for Sally.
George wasn’t going to leave Edward. The man was his assignment.
“Let’s go with Daniel’s suggestion!” Chloe said. “Let’s call her and tell her and she can head straight to the restaurant.”
“Great idea!” Edward said, pulling out his phone. He speed-dialed Sally’s number, then frowned.
He obviously got her answering machine. “Hey, call me, please! We’re all out on our usual bar-slash-deck area, but the natives are restless. And hungry. They want to head into the steakhouse for Italian Night. But call me when you get this, please! Let me know that you’ve gotten this message!”
He tapped a button on his phone screen to end the call.
“You guys go—” he said again.
“Hey, no! Please,” Wes told him. “You go be with your people and Chloe and I will enjoy some of this beautiful ocean air and the sight of the sea with the sun setting over it all! We’re the odd ones out here, really, and—”
“I hardly think of the two of you as the odds one out!” Edward told him.
Chloe laughed softly. “It just means that compared to you all, we’re computer and cybersecurity illiterate! You guys go! Please. We’ll wait, and if she calls you, Edward, just give us a call.”
“Gotta get your number,” Edward said.
“Of course!” Wes gave it to him.
There was nothing that anyone could ever draw off the number he’d given; cyber techs who were absolutely amazing were seeing to it that nothing could be culled off theirphones, whether someone had the number or even the phone itself.
“Come on, oh, great chief!” Jeff Henderson told him. “We’ll get a great table and we’ll be able to describe all the specialties to our latecomers when they get there!”
The group, now including Gina and Jonas, moved on. When they were gone, Wes looking at Chloe.
“Do you think that something is wrong?” he asked her. “With Sally? You know that she’s not on our list—”
“But she might be on someone else’s list!” Chloe told him. “Wes, I’m even thinking that maybe we should look for her.”
He frowned, but nodded slowly. “If you think so.”
“Not ‘as I wish?’” she asked.
He shrugged and smiled. “That, too. But she might be on her way out here.”
“I’m having one of those feelings—”
“Then by all means, we’ll look!” he said.
“You don’t think that she’ll look at her phone and call Edward if she’s all right?” Chloe asked. “It doesn’t matter. One of us can stay here. Oh, I don’t know what cabin she’s in. We’ll need to call and get someone on a list—”
“Aha! I can help there. I know what cabin she’s in,” Wes said.
“How?”
“I saw her coming out behind us one morning when we were heading to breakfast. She’s just two doors down from us, two doors toward the aft, starboard side, same as us. Should we head to her cabin?”
Chloe nodded. “Wes, she has such a thing for Edward! She just wouldn’t let him go anywhere without her, knowing that he does want her to be with him.”
“Let’s go, then.”
Wes rose. They left their almost untouched nonalcoholicbeers on the table and headed back into the hallway, hurried to the elevator, and then to their deck.
