Somewhere With You (Windswept Bay Book 2) (13 page)

Odell stuck her head out of the dispatch room. “You lookin’ for that hunk of charm and pizazz that was in here. If so, I’ve got a note for you.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?” Shar took the note out of Odell’s outstretched hand.

“Thought you’d take it,” the older woman said, grinning.

“Thanks.” Shar said. “Did he leave?”

“Yep. Caught a taxi over an hour ago. Not that he looked too happy about it. Wrote you that note and asked me to give it to you soon as you were out of surgery.”

Shar’s stomach felt bottomless as she went back outside and tore the note open.

Shar,

You made a difference today. You always do. Keep it up. I had to go. People are waiting and no way out of it today. Like you said, I have things I need to confront.

You were, and always will be, amazing. But then, I’ve found that when I’m somewhere with you…amazing is just to be expected.

Gage

Tears sprang to her eyes. He was gone.

She stood and looked as a sense of panic rose inside her. She’d messed up. Where was he?

He’d been amazing.

He’d come out of nowhere looking like he’d stepped out of a
GQ
magazine in a suit that was tailor made for him…and he’d raced into that water without a care in the world that he was ruining his clothes. He’d just wanted to help save a sea turtle.

From the first moment she’d met him he had a heart for the things that mattered to her. He’d connected with her on a level that no one ever had before. But so had she with him.

As much as she wanted to deny it she couldn’t. Couldn’t fight her love for him because she feared that somehow admitting she cared for him would change who she was because she knew now that argument wasn’t going to work. She loved him.

She needed to see him. To…to talk…to tell him.

She just needed to see him.

She raced inside. “Odell. Where did he go?”

“Honey, I told you. He didn’t tell me. But, I did hear him on the phone with someone and I’m pretty sure it was someone who was at the airport.”

“Thanks. Tell Alex I had to run.”

“I heard you.”

She spun and Alex stood in the doorway. “Drive safe. And don’t be a jerk. Give the guy a chance.”

She laughed. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“Don’t be a jerk. Now go.”

She was already fishing her keys out of her pocket as she headed for the exit.

He had at least an hour head start. It was a long shot but it was all she had and it...

It wasn’t enough.

An hour later she stood in the airport and felt completely devastated that she didn’t see him and at a loss how to find him if he was there.

The only thing she had to go on was that he’d sounded like he was going back to New York and all the flights to New York had already left. So there she stood. In the middle of the terminal wondering why she’d thought she could find him in an airport in the first place.

It wasn’t as if this was a movie where she would catch him just before he went through security. It also, it appeared was not the movie that he suddenly decides not to get on his flight and run through the airport to her. No, this was real life and there were people everywhere. This was real life and things like that didn’t happen.

At least not to her.

And now she had no clue what to do next.

She rubbed her cold arms and waited in the center of the ticket area just in case she was wrong and he was going to show up.

But no, no fairy tale. This was not a Hallmark movie.

But oh how she wished it was.

Chapter Fifteen

Gage hadn’t wanted to leave Florida. And after helping save the turtle he’d at least wanted to tell Shar goodbye. She might not want him in her life but he still wanted to tell her goodbye.

But in the end, while she was tied up in surgery there was no other way. So he left her a note. He had to make it to Stewart Law Offices that afternoon. Larry had pushed the meeting back from four to six o’clock so that Gage’s plane could get him there from Florida. He’d landed and then immediately boarded a helicopter that carried him to a landing pad at the top of the building that housed the offices of both Stewart Law and Lancaster Industries.

He’d walked into Larry’s office at five till six. And now, in utter shock he stared across the desk at the man who obviously knew his own father better than Gage had.

“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me I have a younger brother?” Larry hadn’t stumbled over his words. He’d spoken clearly and still Gage hadn’t processed what he’d just heard Larry say as he read the will his father had left.

“You heard me correctly. As your dad stated, he had another child by Elizabeth Jackson. They were never married, though I can tell you it wasn’t because your father didn’t want to marry her. She refused. Your brother’s name is Brandon Jackson and you were four when he was born.”

Gage stood and paced the width of the room before he stopped to stare out the high rise window. They were twenty floors up; he had a view of the Empire State Building in the distance.

I have a brother.

The news began to sink in. He turned. “Where is he? What does he do? Why haven’t I known this?” He had so many unanswered questions.

“Your dad had planned to tell you. He just died before he got the chance. When you were seven Elizabeth took Brandon from the house at Windswept Bay and disappeared. Your father wasn’t able to locate him before he died.”

Gage laughed gruffly. “Tell me? How hard is it to tell someone something like that?” Apparently harder than he thought considering his dad had died trying to figure out how to break the news. “I could have helped look for him.”

Larry pulled his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Sit down, Gage. And I’ll tell you what I know.”

Anger boiled up inside him. It had been building since he’d found the first photo of his dad and his secret life. The life that he’d looked happier and more satisfied in than Gage had ever known him to look. The life where he’d had a kid who he’d carried on his shoulders. The son he’d sat in the sand and built sandcastles with…both things he’d never done with Gage.

“Why don’t you do that?” He sat back down and stared at Larry. “Shoot. Give it to me straight.”

“Shar, you’ve got to snap out of this.”

Jillian looked up from where she was digging in one of the front flower beds of the resort. She had a full landscaping team to direct and delegate and yet she still had to get her knees and hands into the dirt at least once a day. Shar sat on a large landscape boulder and stared at her.

“I’m just sitting here. Is that a crime?”

Jillian let out an exasperated breath. “Sharleen Sinclair that’s exactly the problem. You don’t just sit. And for you that is a crime. Now, I do not lose my temper all that often, and surely not as much as you do. But you are about to put me over the moon if you don’t snap out of this. You know good and well that you have been moping around for three weeks and I’m just not going to stand for it any longer. Either you get on a plane and fly to New York and fix this, this thing between you and Gage. Or, you get back to being my Superwoman sister who is invincible and determined and…you. That’s you, Shar not this woman of hesitation.”

They glared at each other.

Shar was being a jerk. Alex had told her the same thing. And yet she persisted in being hard to handle. The problem was, she wasn’t sure about anything right now except that she missed Gage. All she’d been able to think about was how he’d told her he loved her and she’d told him basically that he didn’t.

And now he was gone.

Jillian stood and put her hands on her hips and studied her. “But that’s the problem isn’t it? My sister who used to know exactly who she is suddenly isn’t sure about that anymore.”

Shar sucked in a breath and looked away.

“Honey.” Jillian sank down on the rock beside her. “What scares you? We all change. Evolve. If you love the guy then it’s okay.”

“It’s not exactly that. I mean for the longest time I did think that. That if I gave into the emotions I felt when I was with him that I would lose myself. But, now, I just don’t know how to admit it. I mean I know I love him and I want to tell him…but he left and he hasn’t called. What if he changed his mind.”

“You get up and you pack your bags and you get on a plane and you go tell him how you feel. It’s that simple. Get it out in the open.”

“What if I’m too late? What if I’m not too late and he finds out I’m irritable, and bossy and hard to get along with sometim—”

“He knows that already. Everyone does,” Jillian said with a husky laugh. “Stop kidding yourself. You rescue everything—now get up and go rescue yourself.”

Shar thought about that. And she stood. “I need to go home and think.”

“Good. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll come by when I get off and pick up Rufus. He can stay with me.”

“I didn’t say I was going.”

“You’re going and you know it.”

Shar rolled her eyes. “Okay, yes I’m going. But if he rejects me I may never speak to you again.”

Jillian laughed. “Get out of here. Go. Or I’m going to start throwing dirt clods at you.”

“Fine.” Shar started for the parking lot and then turned back and grabbed Jillian in a hug. “Thanks, sis. And I’ll speak to you no matter what happens.”

Jillian hugged her back. “I know. Now, up, up and away. Go make your dreams come true.”

Shar laughed and headed toward her car. This time she’d follow through and she wasn’t coming back until she found him. Until she came clean and told him the truth.

I love him.

And it scared her to death.

She was tossing clothes into a suitcase when Rufus started going crazy barking in the living room. “Calm down, Rufus,” she called. When he didn’t stop and then she heard someone knocking on the door, Shar stopped yanking clothes out of her closet and went to see what was wrong. She stopped when she saw Gage on the deck, Rufus stood with both front paws on the window, and his little tail wagging ferociously as he barked his cute little head off.

Shar’s pulse took flight right along with the jet-fueled butterflies winging their way around inside her chest.

“Open the door, Shar. Please,” he called.

She finally reacted and moved to the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Seeing you.” He reached down and picked up the wiggling ball of fur and laughed as he petted Rufus then he set the pup down and took a step toward her.

She wanted to throw herself into his arms but she held herself back by sheer willpower. “You’ve been gone for over three weeks. No phone call. No checkup on Mustang. On Rufus.”
Or me.
“Just gone.”

He smiled, slow and completely disarming. “You missed me.”

“You just left.”

“You missed me.” He stepped further into the house and closed the door behind him. She took a step back and he took another one toward her. “Admit it.”

She didn’t say anything.
A girl had to have some pride.

He wrapped an arm around her and yanked her close. “I missed you.”

“You have an odd way of showing it.”
What am I doing?
She was going to run him off again.

He chuckled. “You told me I had things I needed to take care of. And so I did. Now I just have business here. And you’re part of it. The most important part.”

Shar couldn’t breathe. She had dreamed of being in his arms again and now she was. She just wanted to melt into him and stay there. “Where have you been?” she asked softly.

“Finishing unfinished business, my father’s will reading included. And now I’m here. And you can’t tell me I’m confused or any of that other stuff you said that night. I love you and I’m here. And until you tell me there is nothing between us I’m going to stick around.”

She stared at him and fought back the sting of tears. And then, she melted and threw her arms around his neck and pulled his head down and kissed him.

He smiled beneath her lips and then he joined in the kiss.

After a long breathless moment she pulled back. “I’ve missed you so. And I was about to get on a plane and come find you.”

“Oh yeah, now you’re going to give me a big head. I can see the headlines:
Shar Sinclair comes after her man.
I like it a lot. ”

She laughed. “Oh, is that what you are?”

“Exactly. And I’m giving you fair warning that, maybe not today or tomorrow, but when you’re ready to get past thinking I’m going to hold you back from saving the world, I’m going to put a ring on your finger. But we’re going to slow this down and I’m going to court you right. Like you deserve to be courted.”

She smiled. “Courted?”

He nodded and kissed the tip of her nose. “We’ll take it long and slow, dinner, movies, save some sea turtles along the way. And then when I think the courting has been long enough to make you believe my love is realistic and forever I’m going to get on my knee and ask you to marry me. But only after a year or maybe two.”