“Why not?” I ask with more conviction than anything else I’ve said today.

“Do you love her?” I look at her like she’s crazy, because I definitely wouldn’t be this fucked up over a woman I didn’t love. “How do you know you love her, though?”

“Really, Ry? Are you going to treat me like an idiot now?” I’m getting more irritated by the minute.

“No,” she says, backpedaling. “You’ve loved lots of girlfriends, so why is she the one that you’re in love with? How do you know it’s real?”

“She knocked me on my ass, Ry.” The comment comes out before I can stop it, and I know I sound pathetic but don’t care because if I can be dead honest with anyone, it’s with my sister. “Because my heart races out of control at just the thought of getting to see her again. Because she’s all I – never mind.” I stop, knowing how ridiculous I sound.

“I get it. Believe me, I get it. You may love her, but unless she gives you something to go off now, unless she contacts you, then you have no right to be in her business. It sucks and it’s brutal and I know that feeling when your chest aches so damn bad you can’t breathe… but that’s love. It makes you crazy insane and doesn’t always work out.”

The flip side of being so comfortable talking to my sister is that she’s just as honest with feedback even when I don’t want to hear it. Like right now.

“You’re making no sense,” I mutter, not having expected her to solve my problems but at least wanting something a little more clear to go on.

“How so?”

“Well in one breath you say that it’s real love and imply how rare it is, which makes me think it’s worth fighting for, and in the next you tell me I can’t fight for it unless she gives me a reason to. Talk about fucking confusing.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s all you’re going to give me?” I groan through the smile that graces my lips for the first time in what feels like forever. “You suck at this because you’re deliriously happy.”

“Yep on all accounts,” she says as she scoots to the edge of her chair. “This is so hard for me because I’m trying to be objective, to tell you that if you really feel how you feel and if she gives you a single opening, you need to fight like hell for her, and at the same time I hate her because she did this to you. She doesn’t deserve you, Tanner. You know what Mom says, ‘Cheating on a good person is like throwing away a diamond and picking up a rock.’”

“The question is, am I the diamond or am I the rock?” I murmur as she steps forward and presses a kiss to the top of my head.

I watch the ocean for a long time after she leaves, lost in my thoughts and not sure if I want to hold on or to purge the memories that are still so vivid I can taste them. I wander into the house, grab a beer, and settle down on the couch, Rylee’s comment about me not being Prince Charming on constant repeat for some reason.

Maybe it’s by the third beer in that I realize she’s right. Completely right. I’m the farthest thing from Prince Charming. I’m a reporter who rides an adrenaline rush instead of a horse. I have nothing to offer someone long term except for constant worry for my safety, missed birthdays, lonely anniversaries, and middle-of-the-night phone calls due to time zone differences. Dating casually is one thing, but there is no room for happily-ever-afters in my world. Look at Pauly and the number of wives he’s lost count of because they couldn’t handle the loneliness.

And even if I did rush in to try and save the day, who exactly am I saving her from? A husband who flew thousands of miles in a heartbeat because his wife was injured? Yeah, because that screams, “I’m a husband who doesn’t care.” Not.

Suck it up, Thomas. You were played. Now man up and get over it.

“Fuck,” I sigh out into the empty room, feeling so out of place in my own home. Setting my empty beer bottle down, I shift on the couch so that my head is on one armrest and my feet are on the other. The problem is when I look up toward my ceiling, the cracks I’m so used to tracing as I work through my thoughts aren’t there. Restless, I move onto my side so that I can look elsewhere, when something jabs my rib cage. Shifting again, I reach down to find my cell phone there, but when I pick it up to toss it on the table and glance at the screen, my heart stops for a beat.

It was all a lie and none of it was a lie. —Rookie

It takes me a moment to really believe that the message could be from her, but I can’t deny she’s the only person I’ve ever called that nickname. I slowly exhale the breath I’m holding. Just when I’ve decided to get the fuck over her, she comes and slaps me in the face. No, not a slap in the face. She’s given me something to go off, and in Rylee’s book that’s a sign I can start fighting for her.

Damn. I guess it’s time for Prince Charming to learn how to ride a horse.

Chapter 26




Several times in my career I’ve heard the saying, “Ideas pull the trigger, but it’s instinct that loads the gun.” Until the moment I walked through the Kansas City International Airport, I never thought it would pertain to me. Or have led me to this moment.

I was disappointed but not surprised when I called the cell phone number that texted me, only to find that the call went unanswered and there wasn’t a voice mail. A quick Internet search told me the number was most likely from a disposable cell phone, meaning it was untraceable.

And even though my gut reaction was to immediately call her back, I was still confused. If she didn’t want me to come after her, why did she text me? Why send me a cryptic message instead of just letting me be?

I’m a reporter, someone who asks the tough questions in situations that are not easily answered. She had to know I’d go apeshit over having a clue to something that I couldn’t figure out. Was that her point? Was she in trouble and needed help, or was she just trying to tell me she was sorry in some fucked-up way? Or even worse, was she toying with me again to see if I’d come running and play right back into her hands?

I hated wondering as much as I hated thinking she needed me but was playing me at the same time.

The whole thing didn’t sit well with me. So after I had spent days calling in favors and being put on the back burner, one of my old military liaisons turned federal agent turned source took pity on me. Well, pity mixed with the delivery of a rare bottle of aged Macallan for the Scotch aficionado. Regardless, he attempted to trace the cell phone number for me.

And three days later I may not have had much more than that it was a disposable cell phone with no contract or traceability, but there was a single ping off a cell tower that occurred when the text went out. A single black dot on a map that gave me a triangulation range and let me narrow down a general location of where she was: the Kansas City area.

Something about it fit for me. The funny look on her face that first time we met up with Omid when I said, “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” tells me that I’m in the right place. But my problem is that I don’t have much more to go on than intuition, a determined heart, and a pocketful of hope. On top of that, the pocket has a hole in its bottom, an hourglass of sorts, and I’ve promised myself that this time around, when the hope bleeds out, I’m done.

My gut tells me that I need to visit the hospitals, need to work that angle because she was transferred to a U.S. hospital and will need to continue with her care even if she’s been sent home already. It’s a long shot at best, but she gave me an opening, and if I don’t follow through with it, I’ll always wonder what if. I’ll always question whether she was my once-in-a-lifetime and I passed her up.

By early evening I’m wiped out and feel like I’ve exhausted every existing avenue. I’ve been to all of the hospitals – Saint Luke’s, University, North Kansas City, Select Specialty, and even Kansas Heart – trying to leave no stone unturned. But not a single person recognizes her picture; nor will anyone confirm or deny that a Beaux or BJ Croslyn has been or is a patient. I’m so desperate to find her that I’m willing to try Children’s Mercy just to make sure that all of my t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted.

With my head back against the headrest of my rental car, I debate what to do next. Should I just say fuck it and catch a flight home? I mean really, what the hell am I doing here, looking for the pot of gold that doesn’t exist? Desperation doesn’t look good on anyone, least of all on me, and I reek of it these days.

Sitting in the parking lot of a strip mall, I glance at the map in my hand with the circles around the hospital icons as I set it down, unsure where to go from here. I was so gung ho when I got here and now just feel pathetic. The radio drones on, and I switch the station out of boredom, stopping when I come to a Cardinals baseball game and just leave it on for background noise as I debate my next move.

The smart thing would be to get a hotel, wait for shift change, and then head back to the hospitals, flash her picture, and try with the different employees. If I’m here, I’d better satisfy my need to be thorough when investigating a story, because that’s how I’m trying to treat this, like it’s a story. It’s the only way I can approach the Beaux situation and consider the possibility I might not get the outcome I want. Put the filter up, turn the emotions off, treat it like the hard beat I had in the Middle East.

I start the car and turn out of the parking lot with thoughts of heading to a hotel, grabbing a quick shower, and then heading back to the hospital circuit. “And Ramirez hits one hard.” The announcer from the game breaks through my scattered thoughts. “It’s going, going, and it’s gone! A home run for the rookie to tie the game.”

It takes a few seconds for the words to sink in, but the minute they do, I flip a U-turn across the double yellow line and head back to the hospital because an idea has seated itself – and I swear that I know it’s going to be the break I’ve been looking for. Within minutes, I’m at Saint Luke’s, where I buy flowers in the gift shop, and then head to the front desk to greet the new person manning the desk.

“Hi there, what can I do for you today?”

I fidget back and forth as if I’m antsy, a nervous smile plastered to my face so that I can play the part, but at the same time I am nervous. “I think I’m at the right hospital. I just… I just need to see her.” While I speak, I dig in my pocket to make sure my boarding pass falls onto the desk between us.

“Calm down, sir,” she says sweetly, her head angled to the side and her eyes wide behind the lenses of her glasses. “Who are you looking for?”

“My girlfriend. I’ve been in the Middle East, and she was hurt. Brought here or University… I can’t remember which one because it was such a whirlwind, but I was able to get leave from my unit and I got here as soon as I could and I came straight from the airport and now I just need to find her to make sure she’s okay,” I ramble on as her smile softens.

“Of course you’re flustered. Thank you for your service, sir,” she says, and I nod at the assumption she makes about my being in the military, hating myself for implying it but at the same time, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do and everyone loves a man in the service. Especially a middle-aged woman who could have sons of her own and can appreciate a man trying to get home to the woman he loves. “Now what’s her name and I can look her up for you, see what room she’s in?”

“Thank you so much.” I set the vase of flowers down and keep up the act to look scattered by collecting my boarding pass and stuffing it in my pocket. “Her name is BJ or Beaux Croslyn… but she goes by Rookie, Rookie Croslyn. So I’d try that,” I say, my hopes lodged in my throat as I spell out the last name for her.

“Just give me one second, sweetheart,” she says. Her fingernails click over the keyboard as I watch the reflection of the screen in her glasses, the blue hue an easy thing to see, but it’s the slight frown on her lips as her eyes flicker back to mine that has my heart stopping in my chest. She knows something. The hesitation, the pause in her fingers, and furrow of her brow tell me more than any words could. “I’m so sorry. There’s no one by that name,” she responds, shattering any hope I’d had. A defeated thank-you is on my lips when she murmurs to herself, “Only a Rookie Thomas.”