He sighed. “I feel like I’m abandoning you here.”
“This big mean city doesn’t scare me,” she joked. “But think of her alone in LA, or Salt Lake?”
“It’s hard to think of her when I’ve not met her.”
“She’s a good kid. Karen’s right…her boyfriend was all over her. She’s probably still in town,” Zach told his brother.
Michael rubbed his hands over his face. “You sure?”
“I’m sure. Go. Call me when you land.”
Michael held out his hands and she hugged him, felt his lips on the top of her head. He didn’t even try a kiss to her lips.
“Take care of her,” he told Zach.
She noticed Zach’s Adam’s apple bob a couple of times. “I will.”
She stood beside Zach as Michael pulled out of the driveway and down the street. They returned her bags to the house and closed the door.
“Do you know where Nolan lives?”
“Yeah. I drove him home a couple of times when he first started working for my dad. Before he started driving.”
“I think the fastest way to find Becky is to find Nolan.”
She opened her suitcase, removed a cardigan sweater, and threw it over her shoulders.
Zach was staring at her when she stood.
“Are you going to explain what you said before Mike got in the truck?”
Rena already knew about Michael and her pending break-up…the rest of them would find out soon enough. Karen didn’t want Zach to hear this from anyone else. “Michael and I are getting divorced.”
Zach held his breath. “What…when?”
“We’ll file in a few months, maybe sooner. We haven’t discussed the details.”
“Discuss the details?”
She turned her back on him, closed her suitcase. “It’s all very friendly.”
He took her arm and turned her to face him. “Why didn’t you tell me? Before I kissed you? After?”
“Because it doesn’t change anything. I’m still married to your brother and Michael has no idea of our attraction. He would hate it.”
“But you don’t love him.” She heard the relief in his voice, saw the confusion in his eyes.
“I will always love your brother…as a friend.”
Her words did something to him. Zach pulled her close and placed his palm on her cheek. Without words, he kissed her. There wasn’t any hesitation this time, just pent-up passion as he possessed her lips. Apparently, her concerns about still being married to Michael didn’t affect Zach in the least. One hand ran down her back and pulled her close while the other slipped into her hair. Her will started to slip and the need to kiss Zach deeper, feel him everywhere, crawled up her spine like tiny pinpricks.
Michael wasn’t even out of the city and she was in the arms of his brother.
With her body trembling with sensation and heat, she pulled away, and kept Zach from reaching for her again.
“Zach, please. I can’t…”
“But you want to.”
“I’d think that was obvious.”
She turned away, hoping he wouldn’t see her hesitation. “We need to find Nolan. See where he stashed his girlfriend.”
Karen didn’t ask if Zach would help. She just assumed he would and walked out the door.
They were driving to the edge of town to where Nolan lived, searching for a teenage pregnant girl, and Zach couldn’t stop smiling.
They were getting divorced.
The words were music, in Technicolor, inside his head. It’s friendly, she’d said…we’ll file in a few months, she’d said. He knew Karen and Michael weren’t right. He had questions still, but Karen wasn’t answering any of them. Fine. He could wait.
Michael would hate it.
He would but it wasn’t going to keep him from pursuing Karen. There was no use pretending otherwise.
“What’s Nolan’s last name?”
“Parker.”
They drove into the trailer park just off the freeway and crawled to Nolan’s space number.
“Why are mobile home parks always off a highway?” Karen asked.
“Cheap land.”
“Do you think Nolan would keep Becky here?”
“If I remember right, Nolan’s dad is an alcoholic. I doubt Nolan would expose Becky to that.”
“Eweh. Not good.”
Zach pulled his truck to the side of the road in front of Nolan’s childhood home and cut the engine. “Wait here. I’ll see if he’s home.” He glanced behind the truck. “I don’t see his car.”
He jogged up the short steps of the singlewide and knocked on the door. It wasn’t quite dusk, but the sun was low enough on the horizon for the lights of the TV set to flicker through the windows. When no one answered the door, he knocked longer and harder.
“Coming. Damn!”
Zach backed up and waited.
The man Zach assumed was Nolan’s father swung the door wide and glared with glossy eyes at him. “Yeah?”
The man reeked of whiskey and stale cigarettes.
“I’m looking for Nolan.”
“You and everyone else. He’s not here.” Instead of offering anything else, the man attempted to close the door.
Zach stopped him by putting his hand on the door. “When did you see him last?”
Mr. Parker glared at Zach’s hand and wobbled on his feet. “You a cop?”
“I’m his boss.”
“Tell you the same thing I told the pigs. He comes and goes as he pleases. And there ain’t no girl here.”
“Do you expect him back?”
“What about comes and goes as he pleases did you misunderstand, boss-man?”
Zach figured that Nolan’s dad didn’t know if he’d be back.
“Thanks.” Zach noticed Karen’s anxious gaze as he rounded the front of the truck. He shook his head as he climbed back into the cab.
“He’s not here.”
“Where do you think he is?”
He shrugged. “We could wait until morning and see if he shows up for work. Talk to him then.”
Karen squeezed the bridge of her nose. “But if I’m wrong and Nolan stayed in town, and Becky ran off…the longer we go without that information the farther away she’ll get. Who knows what will happen to her.”
Zach shifted in his seat and looked at Karen full on. “If you’re right and Nolan is keeping her safe, we’ll find out in the morning.”