Page 35

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

ROWAN

“ I need to purchase a plane ticket.”

The woman stares back at me, her expression unenthused. “To where and when?”

My eyes scan the list of flights behind her and I see one that’s leaving a little after Hadley’s. The timing is perfect, so long as there are tickets available. I read off the flight information from the board before looking back at her.

She gives me a strange look, popping a bubble of gum before she pulls it into her mouth with an obnoxious chew. Her attention is directed back to her computer screen and she moves the mouse around, clicking a few different times.

I adjust Lucy in the baby carrier strapped to my chest, rolling my wrist toward my body as I check the time again. Hadley’s flight leaves very soon and they’ll most likely begin boarding soon.

“One ticket, correct?”

“Yes, please,” I tell her, reaching into my back pocket to pull out my wallet. I flip it open, taking out my credit card and ID, before setting them down on the counter.

“Do you have any bags you’re checking?”

“No.”

She purses her lips, cocking her head to the side as she looks at me and Lucy. I know the policies. I don’t need a ticket for Lucy and if we were actually flying, she could sit on my lap. The woman doesn’t make any comments and turns her attention back to the computer in front of her. It feels like an eternity stretches as she enters in my information, making sure everything is correct before finally printing out the boarding pass.

She slides my cards back to me and I don’t bother putting them in my wallet. Instead, I shove them into my front pocket since I’m going to need my ID to get through security anyway. I adjust Lucy in my arms as the woman finally hands me the stub.

“Thank you and I hope you have a nice trip,” she says, raising a questioning eyebrow as I grab it from her in a haste.

“Thanks.” I mumble out the word as I’m already spinning on my heel, my eyes scanning the space as my mind draws a blank on what I’m doing or where I’m going. I know I need to find Hadley and that’s the only thing that fucking matters.

Naturally, when I make my way over to security, there’s a line, and I quickly find my place in it, rocking back and forth in an effort to keep Lucy content. I have everything I need to make her a bottle in the diaper bag I brought, but I just need to get through security first .

I can’t stop from looking at my watch every step we take that gets us closer to the end of the line. I can’t help but feel like I’m running out of time at this point. There’s twenty minutes left until they start boarding for her flight and—holy shit—what if I don’t make it?

Anxiety builds in the pit of my stomach, but I can’t let it consume me. Not now. Not when I’m so close to reaching her. If I don’t get there in time, they won’t let me on the plane to get her. I don’t want to text her to let her know I’m coming for her, but if she ends up getting on the plane, I might have to do that because the last thing I’m going to do is let her get on a plane to the other side of the country without hearing what I have to say.

Lucy and I get through the first step of security. My boarding pass and ID are scanned and we’re on our way to the final part. I kick my shoes off, shoving them into one of the plastic bins before putting the diaper bag in the one after mine. Because I have Lucy in my arms, I’m waved through one of the metal detectors instead of the one that does a full-body scan, and I keep on moving. When I get over to the belt, I find my shoes and drop them onto the floor, slipping them on as I wait for the diaper bag.

I see it coming out from the scanning machine and it’s inching closer. At the last minute, it juts into a different lane and slides down to one of the TSA agents. What. The. Fuck.

I cannot afford a hang-up like this right now.

“Sir, is this your bag?” one of the agents at the end of the line questions me as he sees me eyeing it from where I’m standing.

“Yes,” I tell him, jerking my chin as I try to give Lucy a pacifier. She pushes it away and instead shoves her fist into her mouth, sucking on her fingers vigorously. I need that damn bag so I can make her the quickest bottle of my life. “Is there something wrong?”

“It appears it was flagged for an item that doesn’t pass security.” He stares at the screen for a moment and I swear I can hear the ticking of the clock inside my brain. “Do I have your permission to search the bag and find the item?”

“Absolutely.” I dip my head again without any hesitation. He could throw out the entire fucking bag at this point and I wouldn’t care.

Okay, that’s a lie. I need to be able to make Luce a bottle as soon as humanly possible.

The man unzips the pockets, going through each one, before he pulls out a filled water bottle from inside the biggest compartment. “Here’s the culprit.” He chuckles, shaking his head as he holds it up to me. “Liquids more than three ounces are not allowed.”

Dear God, I’m an idiot.

“I must have forgotten that it was in there.”

He smiles, setting the bottle to the side. “It happens more often than you would think. I’m going to have to dispose of the bottle.”

“Yeah, sure. Do whatever you have to with it.”

I don’t want to draw more attention to myself by asking him to hurry up, but this man needs to hurry the fuck up. Rolling my wrist, I glance at my watch again. Ten minutes. Ten minutes until they start boarding and I’m still waiting for this stupid diaper bag.

He finally finishes zipping it up, making whatever notes he has to make in his system before handing the diaper bag back to me. “Here you are, sir. I hope you have a safe flight and a nice trip.”

“Thanks,” I mumble, barely paying attention to him as I sling the bag over my shoulder and quickly rush over to one of the benches. I drop down onto it, checking the time. I need to move quickly and now I don’t have a water bottle.

Goddammit.

I dump the formula into the bottle, shoving everything back into the bag before rising to my feet again. The diaper bag hangs on my shoulder and I hold Lucy against my chest as I stride over to the closest convenience store. I luck out and find a bottle of room temperature water and promptly buy it. I pour the amount needed into the baby bottle and shake it vigorously.

Shoving the bottle of water into the bag, I take Lucy from the carrier, cradling her in one arm as I take the bottle in my other hand and slide it into her mouth. She looks up at me, her gaze soft as she begins to suckle on it. “I know, Luce. We have to hurry or we’re not going to get to her in time.”

I don’t even know where to find her.

Moving over to one of the boards, it takes me a few seconds to find her flight and which gate she’s at. Looking at my watch again, my stomach sinks. There’s two minutes left and the gate is down a separate corridor.

“I don’t know if we’re going to make it, Luce.”

She stares at me, blinking as she continues to drink her bottle. Holding her close against me, my footsteps are rushed, my strides long, as I try to get to the gate as quickly as I can without jostling Lucy around too much. It’s such a precarious balance because the last thing I want to do is upset her or make her sick from moving her around like this while she’s trying to eat.

There’s a part of me that feels like a terrible father right now, but then there’s my heart...and I know deep down I have to find Hadley.

As I round the corner and step into the corridor where her gate is, I see the sign for the one she’s at and it’s three gates away. Just as I start to move down the hall, I hear the sound of a voice coming across the speaker from her gate.

“We’re now going to begin boarding for zone 2. Please line up by the desk and have your boarding pass ready to go.”

My stomach falls onto the floor.

Fuck.

I’m so goddamn close. I don’t know which group she’s boarding with but I can only hope she didn’t board with the first zone. My footsteps are even more rushed and I hold Lucy closer, her little hands lifting to hold on to the bottle. The movement from her isn’t intentional but my heart still constricts because it feels like she’s doing it to try and help me.

We make our way to the gate and I stop short, my eyes surveying the entire area, looking for any sight of her. My heart pounds erratically against my rib cage, threatening to break free as I try to find her. My eyes slide along the people in line, dread washing over me when I don’t see her.

I don’t see her anywhere, which means she’s already on the plane.

If I call her and she gets off the plane, she won’t be able to get back on. I’m going to completely derail her plans and I just hope she feels the same way about me, or else I’m about to fuck everything up for her.

“Rowan?”

My heart immediately stops in my chest, my breath catching in my throat. I spin around on my heel, my head whipping around as I find her standing right there. My eyes widen as shock and relief flood me. “Hadley.”

She tilts her head to the side, her eyebrows pulling together as she assesses me and Lucy with a perplexed look on her face. “What...what are you doing here?”

My nostrils expand, my heart skipping a beat in my chest. “I can’t let you get on that plane, outlaw.”

She swallows roughly, her lips parting as she lets out a soft breath. “Why?”

“Because I can’t let you go.” I pause, rolling my lips between my teeth, my tongue darting out to wet them. “I’m in love with you, Hadley, and if I let you get on that plane without telling you the truth, I don’t know that I’d ever be able to live with myself.”

Her eyes widen and she stares back at me with an unreadable expression. “You’re in love with me? ”

“Yes.” I pull the bottle from Lucy’s mouth as she finishes and I notice she’s in a milk coma in my arms. I tuck the bottle in my back pocket. “I don’t know when it started, but I only realized when it was far too late. When I had already begun to fall, and now I just can’t get you out of my fucking head. You’re everywhere I turn, everywhere I look.” I pause, letting out a ragged breath. “I love you, Hadley Reed. And I don’t want you to go.”

“But you don’t need me anymore...” she says softly, her voice trailing off as tears fill her eyes.

Closing the distance between us, I reach for the side of her face with my free hand, sliding my palm against her cheek as I push my fingers through her auburn hair. “But we do,” I admit, my voice soft as my eyes probe hers. “Just not in the way we once did. We don’t need your help, but we need you .”

Tears fall down her cheeks and I catch some with the pad of my thumb. “Please don’t get on that plane, baby. Come home with us, where you belong.” I let out a breath, emotion welling in my throat. “I want to wake up every morning with you in my bed. I want to find you curled up on the couch with Lucy tucked in your arms. I want to find you creeping in my pottery shed late at night.”

“I do not creep,” she says, laughter falling from her lips as her eyes shimmer.

“You totally do.” I chuckle, shaking my head as a smirk lifts the corner of my lips. “But I want it to be you. You’re the one who is supposed to be with me.”

“What about my job? They’re expecting me. ”

My heart clenches and I tilt my head to the side, my thumb drifting across her skin. “Do you want to go?”

“No, not really.” She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth as she shakes her head. “I never wanted to go.”

“Tell them you can’t make it.” I let out a ragged breath, my heart crawling into my throat. “Plans can change, outlaw.”

“Isn’t that the truth, because falling in love with you was never a part of mine, but you made it inevitable. There was no way to stop this from happening and I wouldn’t have wanted to even if I could,” she says softly, her hands reaching up to drag my face down to hers. “I love you, Rowan. I’ve loved you for a long time,” she breathes against my lips, her mouth capturing me in the softest kiss. “You made your save, now take me home.”

I pull back from her, my eyes getting lost in the brown and green hues. I can’t believe I almost let her get away. She stares back at me with a ferocity that rocks me to my core. She’s nestled in my heart, seeping into my soul, and I know that’s exactly where she belongs.

Hadley Reed everywhere and everything . . .

And I know I’ll never let her go.