Kallum was gasping like a fish on land. “Your best—Inever—your best friend??? Excuse me, sir, I’m righthere.”
I patted his shoulder and then gave Grace a little pat too. “Okay, she’s my best friend under six feet tall.”
He gave me a reproving look. “Better.”
“But really, where is she? I’ve been practicing what to say in the shower, and I...” I took a deep breath. “Well, I’m never going to be ready and I literally have no idea what to say, so I might as well just fling myself off the proverbial cliff.”
“I think she went up to the resort for lunch,” said Kallum. “Something about her brother and his family showing up unannounced?”
Her brother? “Weird,” I said, remembering how strained their relationship was. But if she was having lunch with him, then that was probably a good thing. And then I let out a small huff-groan. I was ready to apologizenow, to fix my mistakes right away. The idea of waiting was agony.
“Sunny will be back any moment now,” Kallum assured me. “Relax. Have a Capri-Sun. Watch strangers tie big red bows onto random things in your house.”
But Sunny was not back any moment now.
The Hope Channel crew finished strewing greenery and twinkle lights everywhere and packed up and left, everyone having been paid and thanked. Steph showed up with wine;Kallum lay down with Grace on the soft rug by the library fire and they both fell asleep, Grace sprawled across Kallum’s chest, pacifier firmly clutched in one hand. Winnie was already asleep on the couch nearby—Bee told me in a whisper that Winnie couldn’t medicate her narcolepsy while she was pregnant, so spontaneous naps were not an uncommon thing for her right now.
The light was fading, a chunky snow had started to fall, and I was getting worried.
“Have you heard from her yet?” I asked Bee for the trillionth time as we stood around the kitchen island, along with a bleary-eyed Winnie, who had just risen from her couch slumber. Kallum and Grace were still snoring on my library rug.
Bee shook her head. She looked worried. Everyone was starting to look worried.
And I was losing my fucking mind.
“And no one knows how to get a hold of her brother?” I asked.
“Well, I sent him a DM, but his last post was from two years ago, so I wouldn’t say he’s the most online guy,” said Bee. “Ugh, I wish her location would justupdate.”
“It’s a little weird that you two share your location with each other, babe,” Nolan said.
Bee rolled her eyes. “Oh, like everyone doesn’t watch their friends’ dots all day to see what they’re doing and also to check if they’ve gone to their lash extension appointments yet.”
“It’s true,” Winnie offered. “Me and Addison do it all the time. She and Krysta were at an upscale potato salad restaurant for lunch today.”
From down the corridor, I heard the front doors blow open. All of us rushed from the kitchen, me faster than the rest, my heart pounding with relief—
But it was just Jack, holding a laundry hamper full of meat, cheese, and fruit, while MissCrumpets scuttled around his feet.
A full-on storm howled behind him. Teddy and I wrestled the doors shut, and Nolan took the hamper from Jack while he bent down to brush the snow out of MissCrumpets’s fur. “It’s carnage out there,” Jack said, his voice muffled by a scarf that was decorated with Georgia O’Keeffe flowers. “I saw at least two or three abandoned cars on the way up. I think we need to seriously consider a mansion slumber party tonight, because it’s not safe to drive back down the mountain.”
We looked at one another, and then Bee, Teddy, and I all reached for our phones again.
“It’s not even ringing through now,” I said in despair, having been the first one to try calling Sunny again.
“Maybe she decided to stay up at the lodge,” Steph suggested. “That would have been the sensible thing to do.”
“Sunny is a woman of action and of courage and also she never checks her weather app, so I’m not sure she would have stayed at the lodge,” Bee said, chewing on her lip.
My hands itched. My stomach was a slimy, meaty cinch of panic.
“I’m going to find her,” I said, turning to go get my coat.
“Isaac!”
“It’s not safe—”
“Someone sit on him—”
