Page 32 of Grant’s Heat

“I’m going to start there. That’s where we were when I told her about the accident this afternoon. As we left, she was rambling about needing to finish cleaning, so it’s the first place I thought of too.” Another drag of my hand through my hair later, I prompted, “What else? What about places that were special to Sean and her? Where they met, maybe? Where he proposed? I don’t know. I feel like I’m grasping at straws…”

“No…no!” she protested. “Those are good ideas! I’ll text you a few addresses of those places and if I think of any other special spots.”

The woman’s voice crumbled at the end of her sentence. My chest squeezed and my heart ached. Though I knew Bas was probably nearby, I felt bonded to Abbigail right now in a way he might not understand. It was strange but reassuring to be talking to someone who cared as deeply about Rio as I did.

“We’ll find her, Abs,” I declared. “I promise.”

She sniffed. “I believe you, Grant. I do.”

“Maybe she will just head home. Is anyone watching her house?”

“Wait. You’re not there?” A surprised tone usurped her grief.

“No. Why would I be there?”

“I don’t know. I…I just assumed you would be. I have no idea why, though. I mean, why would you be there?”

There was a long, extremely awkward pause as we both digested what had just been said. How many other people just assumed, or just knew, how close Rio and I had become?

“I need to go lie down,” she said, suddenly sounding very tired. “I’ll text you those addresses.”

“Thank you, Abbigail. I’ll do my best to find her.”

“I know you will, Grant. Thank you.”

As we disconnected, I expected my gut to unwind by at least a fraction. When it didn’t, I grimaced. Shit. Maybe I needed to take a giant step back and check myself here. What the hell was I doing, running around after a newly dead man’s widow like I had every right to be doing so?

I could tell myself, along with everyone else, that I was just worried about my friend, a woman I’d grown fond of over the past several months. I could validate it further with the excuse that we’d worked together and that I’d helped keep her safe—as part of a job and nothing more.

And if I could keep selling that load of horseshit to everyone, I could probably unload that rusty heap of metal spanning the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Thank God I bought this place furnished, so I at least had a place to flop down while I waited for my car to arrive—and berate myself some more. As I sank into the plush sofa and stared out across the city lights of Los Angeles, the horrible details of this afternoon’s accident played over and over in my mind. I almost wished Elijah had never filled me in on exactly what had transpired at the Edge’s construction site…the tragic mishap that had claimed Sean Gibson’s life. But I knew that once Rio settled down, she’d insist on knowing the specifics for herself.

I just prayed I wasn’t the one she turned to for the explanation.

But if she did, I wouldn’t refuse her.

I was incapable of telling that woman no, no matter what she asked me for. Those big, whiskey-colored eyes. The long, sable lashes that outlined them more expertly than any cosmetics brand could dream of. Mother Nature had gifted the woman with the most unique, stunning beauty.

But her genetics had also played a bizarre joke on her.

That gorgeousness danced with a brilliant and bright but confounding and curiously confused mind. A brain that worked like no one else I’d ever met. The woman could enchant me in one moment and enrage me in the next. There was never a boring moment around her.

God help me.

Because her whole package called to me like no other woman had ever done before, and even now—God strike me where I sat, even this soon after her husband’s tragic death, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

And my thoughts weren’t completely pure ones.

But the guilt that was mounting because of those thoughts was starting to overwhelm and unsettle me.

Did the universe really punish people for wanting things they shouldn’t? Was this accident some sort of cosmic retribution for my misguided attempt at “friendship” with Rio—the woman I secretly desired? Had I brought on this whole mess with my impure thoughts and fantasies?

I’d never been a religious or spiritual man, and even allowing such ridiculous ideas to run around in my mind seemed like maybe I was the one who was losing it. Or perhaps she was rubbing off on me a little. That thought made me chuckle out loud into the stillness of my empty home, reminding me I needed to get up off my ass and get out into the city’s nighttime streets and search for the woman like I’d promised her loved ones I would do.

Because no matter what fate’s reason was for all this upheaval, one fact blared as a surety here.

Things were going to get worse before they got better.