ERIN FINLEY HAD plane tickets, ID and her carry-on suitcase set for a romantic long weekend. Too bad the “romantic” part was decidedly absent, since Patrick was not at the airport as promised.
“Flight 8402 to Nashville, now boarding all rows,” the airline’s desk agent announced over a tinny PA system at the gate.
Damn it. Erin checked her phone—still no messages even though she’d texted him. Nervously, she toyed with the handle on her sticker-covered 1940s-era vintage suitcase, wishing Patrick’s black leather duffel sat beside it. Her financial consultant boyfriend loved to tease her about her quirky fashion sense, which was inspired by her work as an antiques dealer and part-time boutique manager. Despite the teasing, he’d developed an artistic side since they’d met. He had taken up painting, a growing passion that he’d credited her with during a really awesome talk they’d recently had about their future. A future finally looking up for Erin. When they’d been in the shopping mall last weekend, she’d caught Patrick having a hushed conversation with a jeweler. She had every reason to think a ring might be in the works.
She checked her watch. They had traveled often in the past few months to make their long-distance relationship work, and he’d never been late for a date before. If anything, this trip should be easier than previous ones as she had stayed in Louisville, Kentucky, for a few weeks to work and he was based in Cincinnati, so, for the first time, they would be flying out of the same airport.
He’d been excited about their visit to Heartache, Tennessee, where he would meet her family for the first time. Staid, sweet Patrick didn’t seem the type to get cold feet, even though he knew all about the strained relationships among the Finley clan, which was why she purposely didn’t spend much time back home. She loved that Patrick shared her values, and she wondered if he might wait to pop the question until they were back in Heartache so she could enjoy the moment with her family—dysfunctional though they might be.
Her phone vibrated, and relief mingled with annoyance when she saw his number appear on the small screen. She thumbed the on button and tucked her cell to her ear.
“They’re boarding now,” she blurted. “Please say you’re already in the airport and past Security.” She stood on her toes to see farther down the concourse, hoping to spot his neat sandy hair and his quick, efficient steps.
“Who is this?” a woman’s voice demanded on the other end of the call.
Confused, Erin sank down to her heels.
“Excuse me?” She held the phone away from her ear to double-check the number.
Patrick’s digits were still on the screen.
“Who. Is. This.” The speaker on the other end sounded tense. Angry.
The tone did nothing to improve Erin’s mood when she was already stressed and nervous.
“I might ask you the same question,” she shot back, raising her voice as the desk agent announced the final boarding call for her flight. “Where is Patrick and why do you have his phone?”
Had he left it behind at Security? Maybe some crazy woman had picked it up.
“You home-wrecking bitch.”
The snarled accusation ripped into Erin’s ear at full volume.
Thoughts of the airport, the flight and the romantic weekend scattered. Her focus narrowed to the call.
“Ex-excuse me?” An icy tingling started in her fingers and spread like a cold frost through her veins.
“Why are there twenty calls to you in my husband’s phone in the last three days?” The woman had shouted the questions.
Husband?
Erin’s heart stopped. Her gut plunged worse than any coaster she’d ever ridden. She walked away from her suitcase to stand at the window overlooking the tarmac. She needed a quieter place. Needed a second to make sense of what was happening.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered, her voice failing her along with her brain cells.
Through the phone, she could hear a man’s voice speaking quietly. Muffled arguing.
Erin tipped her forehead to the cold pane of glass and concentrated on the voices. It couldn’t be Patrick. She knew everything about him. They’d spent almost every weekend together for months, ever since meeting in a remote Vermont town where they’d both been traveling for business. Since then, she’d coordinated several of her trips to coincide with his, never thinking twice about the fact she hadn’t been to his home. He was never there, after all—one of the many ways she’d thought they were alike. They were in love. He was meeting her family for the first time because they’d waited until they were really sure about each other. Erin was a traditional-values kind of girl.
Maybe Patrick had a crazy stalker who had a crush on him or something. A woman who wanted to get rid of the competition.
“Excuse me.” Erin straightened, hoping she could resolve this mess before she had to listen to any more lunacy from whoever had intercepted Patrick’s phone. “Are you still there?”
More muffled voices on the other end.
“Am I here? Hell yes, I’m here,” the woman said. “I will always be here. You, on the other hand, are the intruding—” the string of expletives blistered Erin’s ears “—who had better get out of my husband’s life before I hunt you down and take care of you myself.”
Erin shut out the threats and bad names. She’d grown up with a mom who suffered from severe mood swings, so Erin had plenty of experience withstanding tirades. The trick was to stay level, reasonable and get out of the conversation as fast as possible. Except what if this woman wasn’t a stalker at all? She did have Patrick’s phone.
Her stomach dropped to her toes as she grappled to make sense of this.
“Look, you may have picked up the wrong phone somewhere. My boyfriend is single—”
“Single?” A harsh laugh punctuated the word. “Is that what Pat told you? He has kids—two sons, eight and six years old—you slut. I’m hauling them to baseball games and birthday parties on my own every weekend so he can jet around the country as if he never made vows to me? As if a fancy diamond necklace would make me forget he’s a cheating bastard who can’t stay home with his family?”
The jewelry store.
He hadn’t been buying Erin a ring. He’d been buying a gift for his wife. Something shifted inside her. Her knees wobbled and she slapped one hand on the window for support.
This woman did not have the wrong phone. They were not talking about different men.
The arguing in the background of the call became more heated. Still muffled, but there was a noticeable increase in fervency and volume. Every now and then, she could hear the man’s voice more clearly. Patrick’s voice.
Erin noted it in a marginal way, her main focus on the fact that her whole sense of self had just shattered into a million pieces. The fragments lay at her feet on the industrial gray carpet of the Northern Kentucky airport.
So much for traditional values.
“You want me to put the kids on the phone so you’ll believe me?” the furious woman demanded suddenly. “Would you like to hear what Pat’s children think of the woman destroying our lives—”
Erin’s hands shook as she stabbed the disconnect button and missed. She pressed two more times before her finger made contact with the button and ended the call.
The sudden quiet hum of normal conversations around her felt jarring. Her ears still rang from the accusations and anger. When her phone rang again, her fingers were steadier as she turned the device off. She would never use