Page 53 of Royal Icing

She swiveled and took in the cabin, searching for her lost pants. She’d been too out of it to really inspect her surroundings the night before. Embers glowed in the fireplace. A workbench backed up to one wall. A variety of tools were scattered on top, wood shavings littering the floor. It smelled like sawdust and wet dog.

Cooper looked at her and whined. Damn, he probably had to pee.

She peered out the dusty window. Patches of blue sky peeked out behind gray clouds. It seemed like the storm was over, at least.

She swiveled to look back at Leo. What was she going to tell her mom about this?

Shit.Her mom. She hadn’t checked in with her the night before, thanks to the whole almost-dying thing. She dropped to her knees and dug through the pile of slightly damp clothes. Would her phone even work?

Anxiety flared deep and hot, extinguishing all other thoughts.

Her phone slipped from the pile and clattered to the floor. Leo woke with a start.

“How are you doing?” he asked sleepily.

“I’m fine. I just…” She frantically pressed the power button on her phone. Nothing.

“Everything okay?”

“My phone’s not working. I shouldn’t be surprised.” She tried to sound casual, but the words felt clawed from her throat.

What if her mom had fallen in the night and no one was around to help? What if she’d had another stroke and couldn’t reach her phone?

Leo rose to his feet. His body didn’t even have the audacity to crack like a sack full of marbles, and he didn’t make any efforts to cover his bare chest and torso.

She only partially noticed, as she was stabbing at her phone, trying to get it to turn on. She didn’t have access to the nanny cams. Anything could have happened.

“Hey,” he said, approaching cautiously. “It’s probably too waterlogged to work. Let’s go get it in a bowl of rice and put on some dry clothes.”

“I need it to work,” she said, clicking the power button over and over.

“Emma,” he said softly. He laid his hand over hers. “Are you worried about your mom?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to banish the anxiety from her body. “Yeah. The last time—the last time I couldn’t reach her, it was because she’d had her stroke. She called me, and I couldn’t answer it because I was at work and there was a very strict no-cell-phone policy. She was having a medical emergency, and I didn’t even know about it. I didn’t find her until two hours later. It was all my fault. If I had answered the call, or if I would’ve found her earlier, things would be so much different now.”

There it was. Her most shameful truth. The damage to her mother’s body wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if Emma had just caught it earlier. While Lisa’s fiery spirit and sharp mind were still intact, her physical limitations had left her depressed and restless.

It was reason number three thousand why Emma needed this trip to go well. Her mom was trapped, a prisoner in her own body. With a little bit of money for better physical and occupational therapy, she could start to bring back some of that quality of life and independence.

Worry was written on Leo’s face. He pulled a cordless phone off the wall and handed it to her. “Call her.”

“Oh, I don’t know if she’ll answer. It’s like, 2 a.m. her time.”

He bent over and stepped into his jeans. “Just call her. I’m sure she’s fine, but this way, you can know for sure.”

Their eyes met, and the panic subsided just a little.

“Thank you.” She turned her back to him and dialed her mom’s phone number.

It rang three times before picking up.

“Hello?” a groggy voice called.

“Mom, it’s me.”

“Oh, sweetheart. Is everything okay?”

She sounded fine. Emma’s panic dropped to a barely noticeable hum.