Page 107 of Small Town Sizzle

He will never hurt my kids again!

I pull the trigger just as my nephew snaps up and launches himself at Devon.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Garrett

The cabin felt suffocating, so I drove back to Mom’s house. It feels just as stifling, if not more. At least at the cabin, I could sit out on the lake and let the water calm me. Every second ticks by, heavy and slow, each one dragging me further into my own head. I sit on the couch, staring at my phone, willing it to light up with a call or a text from Maya. Nothing.

I call her again. Straight to voicemail. I leave another message.

“Maya, it’s me. Can you call me back? Just… just let me know if Alex is okay, if he’s back, if he wants to talk. Please.” My voice cracks on the last word, and I hang up, gripping the phone so tightly my knuckles turn white.

I text her this time.

“I just want to make sure Alex is okay. You can give him my number. If he wants to talk or hang out or whatever, I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”

Nothing. The silence is deafening. I scrub a hand through my hair, pacing back and forth in the living room.

What if something’s wrong? What if Alex is hurt? What if he’s so mad that he does something stupid like I did at his age?

My gut twists with anxiety, but I have no way of knowing. She’s not answering.

My phone buzzes, and I look down to see an anonymous message from the guy who stood me up the other day.

“I think you’ll recognize this woman. It seems that my fiancée was your wife at the time. They won’t keep me quiet about this anymore.”

As I’m about to ask how he knows about my wife, a picture comes through. Sure enough, it’s a picture of a man and my ex-wife, her hair dyed a jet-black color, in an engagement announcement dated around when I was overseas working on a project, while we were still married. Her name wasn’t the same, though.

“I’ve been threatened and I’m laying low for now, so no in-person meetings. I’ll reach out again when the time is right.”

I blow out a breath, letting his words roll over me. I knew Javier probably wasn’t the first person my wife had cheated on me with, but he was the one I had proof of. I’m not even surprised now to find there was someone else.

When Paige had told me there was a woman asking questions, was it her? Has she been trying to steal the land from my mother?

I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. I’ll worry about her at another time. My biggest concern is Alex and making sure that he’s okay.

I know that I should be patient right now, but I can’t think of anything else. Maybe I should have taken my brother up on the offer to have dinner at his house.

I dial Ethan’s number.

“Let me guess, you’re losing your mind?” he chuckles as he answers.

“I think I wore a hole in the floor.”

“Easy fix. I’m a pro at it. Mom used to pace when she was worried, too.”

“I did notice there seemed to be a certain path that I was following,” I chuckle.

“You don’t have to have dinner with us, but you’re still welcome to come over.”

“I don’t want to talk about this in front of Mason and Chantelle.”

“Shoot, they’ll be in their rooms locked away with their devices as soon as we’re done eating,” he laughs. “They wouldn’t know if there was a nuclear bomb exploding.”

I chuckle.

Ethan has always been really good at keeping me preoccupied.