I nodded against his chest.
“You’re getting a new number, soon as we can get to the phone store.”
I nodded again.
“You’re not going to fight me on that?” He chuckled in disbelief. “That’s a first.”
“Why would I fight you? I was already planning on changing it, I just haven’t had a chance. Things have been a bit…” I looked up at him and shrugged. “Chaoticaround here.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“I can’t believe it’s been forty-eight hours and we still don’t know anything.”
The words hit him like a bucket of ice water. There was a heavy pause before he spoke. “Not for lack of trying.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply?—”
“I know you didn’t.”
With a light neck-squeeze, he released me. Reaching for my beer bottle, he brought it to his lips and chugged down the rest in one long gulp. Then, he walked to the fridge, pulled out another one, snapped off the top, and took a long pull.
I watched him do this in silence, nearly chewing through my lip. I didn’t know what to say; how to make this better for him. I knew how hard he was working. I also knew how much pressure he was under. I’d seen firsthand the toll a case like this could take on those assigned to solve it. There were shadows under his beautiful eyes and I didn’t doubt he’d soon have a few more steaks of silver at his temples from the stress.
Lucky for Cade, the look worked for him.
A few minutes passed and he didn’t speak another word. His hands splayed out on the countertop. He stared down at them for a while in deep reflection. Intermittently, he took long sips of his beer.
What he didnotdo was share his thoughts.
He probably thought he couldn’t, I realized belatedly. His ex-wife had never wanted to hear about his day. Her fragile disposition couldn’t handle the darkness he was keeping pent up inside.
But I wasn’t fragile.
I could do this for him.
Bethis for him.
“It might help if you unloaded some of that weight off your shoulders, honey,” I murmured softly.
His head came up. “Not much to say that won’t depress you.”
“I’ll be depressed whether you share or not. If you need to talk, I’m here to listen.”
His eyes warmed a bit, some of the bleakness disappearing as he looked at me. “I’m just tired.”
“You haven’t been sleeping much.”
“I can survive without sleep. What I’m really tired of is looking into Georgia O’Banion’s eyes every time she comes down to the station for an update, and telling her we have jack shit.” He shook his head. “I don’t blame her for storming The Banshee tonight. If it was my kid out there missing…”
He’d never stop looking. Never stop trying. Because when Cade Hightower loved someone…
He never let them go.
The thought made my heart flutter.
“It doesn’t make sense. We’ve searched the whole damn town. Covered the neighborhood those kids were in with a fine-toothed comb. There’s no trace of Rory.” He took another pull of beer. “Search party today was a bust. Scuba divers didn’t find a damn thing under the docks. Cadaver dogs didn’t catch a scent. Trackers couldn’t sniff out a trail.”
“That’s got to be frustrating.”