Busted: Promise Harbor, Book 3 (17 page)

It was a reasonable explanation. So why wasn’t she buying it?

“I’ve got it covered,” she said more sharply than she intended.

At least with Jackson helping out for a day or two—she couldn’t imagine him actually sticking around any longer than that—she might get caught up enough to prove to everyone, especially her captain, that she wasn’t struggling as much as they thought. Why else would her boss be worried about something getting missed?

“You know if you need anything I’m there, right?” Phil said.

“I know.” And she appreciated that. They were partners and were supposed to help each other out. But she knew damn well Phil wouldn’t just roll with the punches if she’d been asked to follow up on his reports.

Digging out his keys, Phil left without going over the file, trusting that she’d done her job at the scene last night. She didn’t want to be at work any longer than necessary and got right to work following up on her missing bridesmaid.

Greta’s ex-husband was easy to get ahold of, but not much help. Although he’d been concerned, he didn’t have any idea where she might be. With no accident reports and no reason to suspect foul play, all she could do at this point was keep in touch with Mrs. Brewster and see if her daughter got in touch with her.

The phone on her desk rang just as she was finishing up. Hoping it would be good news, she answered. “Detective Stone.”

“Hayley, it’s me.”

Gavin. Finally.

She perched on the edge of her seat. “Have you lost your mind?”

“No. And don’t tell me you’re surprised by this.”

“That you showed up? No. That you kidnapped her? A little.” Okay, maybe a lot. She knew he hadn’t moved on as much he wanted her to believe. Living in denial had apparently led to a complete breakdown of rational thought when faced with losing Allie to another man.

“I didn’t kidnap her.” They both knew she didn’t really believe that or she would have been all over his ass long before now. “She wanted to come with me. She asked me to take her away.”

“This is crazy, Gav.” She lowered her voice, wanting to keep their conversation more private than the rest of her life had been lately.

“Maybe. Or maybe it makes complete sense.” He sure as hell sounded like he believed that. “Maybe I’m a frickin’ hero. Because if I’d ever set foot in Promise Harbor again, she would have been cheating on Josh with me.”

“Oh, you’re such a big talker.” Hayley grinned at the familiar attitude, missing her best friend more than she’d realized. “You and I both know you would have never done that.”

Gavin might have made off with the bride, but he would have left Promise Harbor before he ever put himself or anyone else in that kind of situation. He had his father to thank for teaching him that painful lesson.

Their mutual hate for their dads had brought them together years ago. Gavin hadn’t been able to forgive his dad for cheating on his mom, and Hayley had been furious that her father had walked out on them. Or so she’d believed for nearly two weeks. Two weeks until his car was found in the harbor. He’d had an accident and apparently went off the road on his way home after a bad fight with her mom.

Both of them had been so mad at the world, it wasn’t any wonder they’d gotten into a lot of trouble. Gotten each other out of a lot of it too.

“Gav,” she began, then hesitated. “Um, speaking of scumbags, your dad was at the wedding.” His whole family had been, but his father would have been the only one embarrassed by his son causing a scene and stealing the bride away.

“This is all your fault, you know,” Gavin told Hayley.

Hayley might have laughed if he didn’t sound so serious. “My fault? If you’d asked my opinion about this plan of yours I would have locked you a cell until the whole thing was over.” A popular threat of hers lately.

“If you’d told me they were getting married before the other day I could have come home and talked to Allie long before it got to this point.”

“I called you about it two weeks ago,” she argued. “It’s not my fault you don’t check your messages when you’re out playing with your bears.” Although she was proud of Gavin turning his life around and finding something to be passionate about, she had gotten a lot of mileage from teasing him about his work with polar bears. Knowing him, he was rolling his eyes at her remark.

“You knew about the engagement for more than two weeks.”

“You told me to stop telling you about Allie.” Each time she’d passed along news of Allie and how she was holding up after her mother got sick, he’d pulled back a little more from the conversation until he avoided the subject altogether.

She’d long ago given up telling him to stop being so stubborn where Allie was concerned. Every time she’d seen Allie with Josh, seen the way the pair had grown closer, especially after her mother’s death, Hayley had wanted to yell at Gavin to do something about it before it was too late.

Well, he’d certainly done something about it now. She just wasn’t sure what he hoped to accomplish. He had his life in Alaska, a life she couldn’t imagine her friend giving up, and Allie had always been dead set on staying close to her family in Promise Harbor.

“I know,” Gavin finally said, then sighed. “I didn’t want to hear about Allie. It hurt too much.”

“Ugh.” She’d give anything to help her best friend find a way to work things out with Allie. “I knew about it for five months, Gav. It was killing me not to tell you, but I knew you’d freak. And then I finally couldn’t take it anymore. But you weren’t calling me back and I didn’t know if you’d gotten the message or what. I knew you were going to freak,” she said again.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say you were right on that one.”

She smiled, deciding not to mention the other times she’d been right too. Like the time she’d talked him out of following the Mohawk trend. “So, she’s in Bend with you?” Hayley guessed.

“Yep.”

Propping her elbows on her desk, she pounded him with questions. “Does she like it? Is she staying? Is this for good? Are you going to get married?” If he was crazy enough to burst into a church for Allie, she couldn’t put a Vegas-like wedding past him.

Gavin laughed, but it didn’t quite mask how tired he sounded. “She’s been in bed since we got here.”

“Good for you.”

He laughed harder, and her stomach warmed hearing some of the tension leave his voice. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but it’s not like that.” He sighed. “She’s exhausted. And sick.”

“But she wants to be there. I think that’s a good thing,” Hayley offered. And he was no doubt doing his damnedest to look after her. But who was looking out for him?

Losing him to Alaska had been a much harder adjustment than she’d anticipated, but she knew he had needed to leave. She should be used to letting go of the people she loved by now. She certainly had enough practice with it.

Too much.

First with her dad, then her best friend and soon Gramps. She squeezed the phone until her fingers hurt, anything to keep the tears she refused to shed at bay. Gramps wasn’t gone yet, she reminded herself.

All of which made it even more important not to let Jackson get under her skin. She couldn’t afford to count on another person who wouldn’t be sticking around.

Ignoring the familiar gut twisting that always signaled the much despised pity-party for one, Hayley pushed around the stack of files on her desk.

“I think she needs to be here,” Gavin said. “She needs someone to take care of her for a change. She needs to be far away so that they can’t need her.”

“I hope it works out this time, Gav.” She wanted him and Allie to work it out. They belonged together, and now that her stubborn ass of a friend realized what Hayley had known for months, maybe he could find a way to make Allie see it too.

“Thanks. I need you to be sure everyone knows she’s okay. She’s here with me and she’s staying. Just make sure no one’s freaking out. Like Owen,” Gavin added. “Or Sophie.”

“Or Josh?” Not that Gavin was worried about the groom left behind.

“Yeah, you can tell Josh that he’s lucky I don’t come back there and kick his ass for letting Allie get this stressed and sick.”

Definitely not worried at all. “Couldn’t tell him even if I wanted to. He took off.” She grinned into the phone, knowing full well what Gavin would think of that unexpected development.

Gavin paused. “What do you mean?”

“He left.”

“Left?”

“Went to Greenbush Island.”

“Why there?”

She waited until Gauthier walked past before she finished. “All I know is that he’d booked the honeymoon suite at the Oceanside Inn there.”

“So he went on the honeymoon?” Gavin prompted, knowing her well enough to guess there was more to it than that if she’d brought it up.

“Technically he went to look for Allie.”

“Allie’s not on Greenbush Island.”

She rolled her eyes, wondering how long he’d gone without getting any sleep. “I know.”

“You lied to him?”

Although Gavin was her best friend and she’d do anything to protect him, she was relieved it hadn’t come to that. Being a cop left her with far fewer options than when they were teenagers. “Didn’t have to. He didn’t ask me.”

“Convenient.”

“Everyone knows we’re close, but maybe Allie didn’t tell him we still keep in touch. Whatever he didn’t know before the wedding, I’m sure his mother filled him in on.”

Jackson had certainly remembered her antics, but Josh had been a year ahead of them and off to college before they’d really hit their stride when it came to the parties, minor vandalism, and joyriding in borrowed vehicles.

“Well, maybe looking for her is just his excuse to go off by himself and lick his wounds,” Gavin said.

Hayley certainly wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. “Oh, he didn’t go alone,” she added, maybe a little too brightly. “He took Devon Grant.”

“He took another woman?” Gavin barely got the words out, clearly stunned that Josh had done something that unpredictable. It had taken Hayley by surprise, but she’d been a bit too distracted by Jackson’s hands at the time to spare the development more than a second thought until now.

“You remember Devon?”

“Sure,” Gavin agreed. “She and Allie were tight in high school.”

“Right.” She gave her friend a second to let it sink in.

“Josh took off on his honeymoon with Allie’s best friend?”

“Ex-best friend.” And if they hadn’t had a falling out a long time ago, they undoubtedly would now. “Josh and Devon were really serious for a while after college.” She remembered hearing that from her mother when Josh moved back to Promise Harbor, but it hadn’t seemed important enough to pass it on to Gavin during his post-Allie phase.

“No way.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “That’s awesome. Good for him.”

She snorted. “You don’t care about Josh.” She tried not to laugh, and failed horribly. “You’re just glad that this means he and Allie won’t be getting back together.”

“He and Allie
won’t
be getting back together.”

“I’m not the one you have to convince.” He may have gotten Allie to Alaska, but keeping her there with him wouldn’t be nearly as easy.

“Yeah, I know.”

Her hand tightened around the phone. “Keep me informed, okay?”

“Definitely.”

“And Gav,” she began, wanting to talk to him about Jackson, about renovating the house or about how sick her gramps was. Wanting to talk about anything for just a minute longer, but he had enough on his mind.

“Yeah?”

“Take care of yourself. And maybe stick around long enough to at least have a drink with me next time, okay?”

“Promise.”

Jackson set his paintbrush down at the sound of the front door opening. He’d been watching the clock for the better part of two hours, wondering how much longer Hayley was going to avoid him.

She’d been damn good at it for the last day and a half. After their scene at Barney’s, Hayley had made sure to steer clear of him, had even left before he arrived for his first day of work this morning.

He’d been almost grateful at the time. He hadn’t slept great and didn’t like that dreams of hockey and Hayley had kept him tossing and turning all night. Bad mood or not, he’d shown up and decided on his own to start with painting the two front rooms.

Busting his ass all day managed to make him forget about his restless night, but only made him want to hang around a little longer to wait for her.

Part of him wanted to see her reaction to the work she’d probably doubted would happen. In truth he’d surprised himself by sticking with it and not calling it a day at lunch and heading to Stone’s. More surprising was how much he’d enjoyed giving both rooms a face-lift and feeling so damn good about the finished product.

The other part of him wanted far more than to impress a stubborn cop he was determined to make like him. He wanted her against him, beneath him, wrapped all the way around him. Every sweet inch of her.

And there would be hell to pay for it.