Except for a welcoming bark from Sarge, the house was dark and silent.
He frowned and walked through, trotting upstairs and then back down, flipping on lights. “Davey, buddy! Where are you?”
In the kitchen he found a note in Georgiana’s perfect handwriting. “Took Davey for ice cream! Back soon!”
That was nice, right? But he felt a little uneasy. Georgiana wasn’t an exclamation point type of person.
He walked through the house, scanning everything. A juice box lay on its side on the coffee table dribbling juice, and there were toys scattered across the family room floor. The front closet, where he kept a box of Wendy’s things he’d planned to go through, was open. And the lid on the box was askew.
That wasn’t like Ferguson and Georgiana. They were almost obsessively neat.
None of it necessarily meant anything. His in-laws knew about the box, and it would be just like them to start going through it without him. Putting the kindest interpretation on it, maybe they had wanted to show Davey something from his mother’s past.
As for the mess, he knew exactly how that could happen. Probably, Davey had gotten cranky and refused to put away his toys, and they had whisked him out rather than letting him have a tantrum and a scene. Paul had been there. He understood.
There was nothing to worry about. At the workshop today, the presenter had reiterated that feeling scared or nervous, feeling that sense of impending doom, didn’t necessarily mean anything about the real world. It was a function of the PTSD brain.
He drew in a couple of deep breaths, said a quick prayer, then relaxed his shoulders. He should take advantage of having a little time to relax.
He glanced over toward Amber’s house, something he did fairly often. He had gotten the message from her about Davey going off in his jeep and had been briefly worried, but she’d called back and left a second message that everything was fine. He’d gotten both of them at the same time, one after another, when he’d finished his morning workshop session.
What had she seen? This was the perfect chance to talk to her, before Davey got home.
He was halfway to her place before he told himself the truth: he just really wanted to see her.
And he wasn’t going to second-guess himself. He jogged up her steps and knocked on the door.
When she opened it, his hope of a friendly greeting died a quick death. Her jaw was clenched square and she wasn’t smiling. Her hair was pulled back under a scarf and she wasn’t wearing makeup. Her eyes were actually a little red.
His heart lurched. “Is everything okay? Hannah?”
“She’s fine. Out with friends. And it depends on what you mean by everything.” She didn’t invite him in. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest. Shutting him out.
“I, um, wanted to talk to you about those messages, find out more about what you saw.”
She let out an obvious sigh. “I told you everything I know,” she said.
“Please? Can we talk a few minutes?”
Another sigh. “Come in,” she said, and unlatched the door for him. “Where’s Davey?”
“Ferguson and Georgiana took him to Goody’s,” he said.
She led the way into the front room and sat down on the edge of a chair. Not on the couch where they could be friendly.
Oh, well. A short visit was better than none. “Can you tell me what you saw, what worried you?”
“I’m sure everything’s fine,” she said. “I saw Davey driving the toy jeep down the beach and got worried because there was no adult with him, so after I called you I went over and told Ferguson and Georgiana. Ferguson came out and ran down and caught up with Davey. No harm done.”
Paul frowned. “They didn’t know Davey had driven off?”
“No, and they didn’t want to believe me, not until they checked for themselves and saw that he was gone. But that’s no big surprise. They don’t like me.”
He hated that he couldn’t contradict her bald statement. “They have issues.”
“No doubt.”
And then there was a little awkward silence between them. She raised an eyebrow as if daring him to say something. Or maybe she just wanted him to leave.
“Listen,” he said, “speaking of what you saw...can we talk a little bit about what you saw last night?”
She lifted her eyebrows and her chin at the same time. “Really?”
He cleared his throat. “I asked Kayla out and I shouldn’t have.”
Amber waved a hand as if to shoo away his words. “No need to explain anything to me. I don’t have a claim on you.”
“I know. In fact, you told me I should try to be with someone else, and I thought you were probably right, but you weren’t. I shouldn’t have listened.”
“Considering that she spent the night, seems like things must have gone pretty well.” There were patches of red on her cheeks and her voice was a little high, almost shrill, which wasn’t like her.
So that was it. She’d seen Kayla’s car. “She did spend the night, but not for the reason you’re thinking.” He sucked in a breath and then told her about the PTSD attack, and how Kayla had stayed on the couch to make sure Davey was okay.
She gave him an icy smile. “That’s a creative story to explain having another woman at your house. I’ve never heard that one before. Well done.”
He plowed ahead, ignoring her tone. “My counselor had recommended that I attend a weekend retreat, but I didn’t listen. After the fireworks threw me into a panic attack, I called him to see if I could get in on the last day, and he agreed. Then I called Ferguson and Georgiana to see if they
