“No, I didn’t do anything stupid,” I sigh, pouring a glass of sweet tea. “You’d have been proud.”

“Let’s not get crazy,” Mallory huffs through the phone. “You had to have done something to make her balk.”

“Why is it always the guy’s fault? Why can’t it just be something in her head that caused this?”

“Because I live in reality.”

Sighing, I try to get the edge off the ball of anxiety I’m dealing with. I might have been able to manage giving her actual space had she not gotten sick. I may have even been able to deal with just checking on her once or twice if I didn’t know something was actually wrong. Without Heath, I probably wouldn’t know.

Luckily for me, he gave me a heads-up this morning when I called her phone. Now I wait for her to show up at my house like she promised in a text an hour ago.

“She wasn’t at yoga today,” Mallory mentions.

“She’s supposed to be here any minute. She’s sick. Her dad is too. I swung by there this afternoon to check on him,” I add quickly.

“I didn’t realize you were so close with her dad.”

“He likes me,” I shrug before taking a drink of the tea. I think back to our conversation about his favorite fishing holes and the map he tried to make me to find the biggest ginseng patch in Georgia. “They don’t make them like him anymore.”

The doorbell rings in the front hall and I put my drink down. “Hey, Ellie is here. I gotta go. Tell Graham I’ll call him later since you hogged the conversation.”

“Will do. See ya, Ford.”

Slipping my phone into my pocket, I jog to the front door. I don’t even look, but I should’ve. Maybe it would’ve prepared me for what I was going to see.

Ellie is standing on the stoop, her face swollen and blotchy. Her eyes are glassy and it’s obvious she’s been crying. For a while. Not one or two tears, but enough to make the whites of her eyes almost pink.

“What’s wrong?” I take her hand and pull her inside, positioning her under the chandelier so I can get a better look at her. “Are you okay? What happened?”

She seems unharmed. Physically, anyway. I don’t know what to do as her bottom lip starts to tremble, so I pull her into a hug.

“Did someone hurt you? Is your dad okay?”

She nods against my shirt. I pull her in tighter, my heart in my throat. “You’re scaring the shit out of me.”

“I need to talk to you.”

Her face is pressed against me, the words muffled, and I can barely make them out. She’s stiff at first, as if she doesn’t want held. But after a few seconds, her hands are dipping beneath my shirt and lying flat against my back.

“Ellie, I need you to explain this.”

Her back begins to shake. The sound of muted sobs slips through her efforts to contain them. The combination causes my heart to lodge in my throat, adrenaline to spike.

I guide her backwards so I can see her face. She has red lines in her skin, her lips plumped from crying, I guess. Her hair is matted against her face. “What is going on?”

She still refuses to say anything, just looks at me with tear-filled puppy dog eyes. I have to laugh or I’m going to lose my cool.

“Come on.” I take her hand and lead her into the kitchen. I get her situated at the island and hand her a glass of tea. “Tea fixes everything. Or that’s what my mom says. I find it not to be true, but it’s the best I have off the cuff.”

She laughs, blinking back tears. “Thank you.”

Rifling through drawers, I locate a cloth and dampen it. When I turn to hand it to her, I see her watching me. There’s something in her eyes I can’t pinpoint. Whatever it is, it stops me in my tracks.

“Babe, you’re going to have to start explaining this because I’m struggling to stay calm.”

Her head nods back and forth and I can almost see the words stuck in her throat.

“Is it your dad?”

“No.” The word is strangled, thick in the air. She takes a shaky sip of the tea.

“Halcyon?” I offer, getting exasperated.

“No.”

“Ellie,” I sigh, taking a deep breath, “I—”

My phone rings in my pocket and with an irritated glance, I pull it out. “It’s Barrett. He can wait.”

“Get it,” she says, her hand lying on the base of her throat. “Get it and give me a second, okay?”

“You sure? I’m happy to send him to voicemail.”

“Please get it.”

“Yeah?” I say into the receiver.

“Hey, Ford. You okay?” Barrett asks.

“Fine. What’s up?”

He starts in about his possible next political move. All I want to do is to tell him how much of a fuck I don’t give right now and turn back to Ellie. To what matters.

Instead, I turn away from her so she doesn’t see the irritation in my eyes. I know that won’t help her tell me what’s happened. And I need to know. Now.

“Hey, Barrett,” I say, rounding the corner into the dining room. “I don’t mean to be a dick, but I have my hands full right now with some things, and I need to call you back.”

“No problem,” he says. “Take care of you first. Talk to you soon, man.”

“See ya.”

Ending the call, I turn the corner.

She’s gone.

“Damn it, Ellie!”

My truck roars to life as her phone goes to voicemail again. I have no idea where she went or why or what in the hell has happened to make her this shaken up.

I shouldn’t have turned my back. I should’ve given her all my attention.

With one hand on the wheel and the other swiping across my contacts list, I call Violet. She picks up as the wheels hit the street.

“Hello?”

“Violet, it’s Ford. Where’s Ellie?”

“She’s with you, isn’t she?” There’s a panic in her voice that almost sends me over the edge.

“No, she’s not. She was and just walked out. She was a mess when she got there and I have no idea why.”

“Where are you?”

“On the road. I’m … I don’t even know where I’m going, Violet. I just need to find her.”

A soft laugh wafts through the phone. I hear her click me to speakerphone. “First of all, calm down. Okay?”

“Calm down? And why are you laughing?” I boom. “This is not funny.”

“No, it’s not,” she says. “But trust me when I tell you that it’s going to be all right.”

“So you know what she was upset about?” I ask, re-gripping the wheel.

“Yes.”

My palm smacks off the console. “Great. Then tell me or tell me where to find her because I’m a nervous fucking wreck.”

There’s an extended silence that does nothing for my anxiety as I pull out onto the road taking me into Savannah. “Violet?”

“Okay. She’s headed home. She just sent me a text.”

I blow a U-turn in the middle of the highway, my tires squealing, and go the other direction.

“What the hell was that?” she shrieks.

“I had to go the other way.”

“Nice.”

I crack a turn to the south, my headlights bouncing off the street signs along the road. My heart is going even faster than my truck, neither of which are safe.