“Do you think that’s what they’re doing? Pretending he’s not gone?”
“It’s what I did for a long time.”
Too long, in fact. Tate should have dealt with his mother’s disappearance, but instead, he’d simply stayed away from thehouse because then he could pretend that his mom wasn’t gone. Not the most healthy way to deal with death. But in the beginning, he’d held out hope that she was alive. He didn’t have that hope anymore.
“I’m sorry.”
Cat’s hand was on his arm, the fingers warm even through his suit jacket.
“I’m sorry, too,” he sighed, forcing a smile. “What a day. I hate being maudlin.”
“You’re a person who likes to be happy,” Cat remarked. “It’s one of the things I love about you. You’re always looking for the rainbow. I want to be like that.”
“I’m not sure I fit that description, but I am more of an optimist than, say…Cooper.”
“That’s not a high hurdle to jump.”
“He’s more optimistic these last few years,” Tate said. “Even more now that he’s with Jane.”
Tate placed the wallet and the phones on the coffee table and the suitcase on the floor next to it.
“There’s no time like the present,” he said. “Alexa wants the blue cashmere sweater and the photos from his personal phone.”
Tate and Cat sat down on the rug and unzipped the suitcase, flipping it open. Despite the piece of luggage having been bouncing around airports for the last few days, the contents appeared to be fairly undisturbed.
“Tyler is a neat packer,” Cat observed. “I guess he would be since he traveled so much.”
“You traveled all the time. How are you at packing?”
“I was a last-minute packer,” Cat laughed. “I just threw an armful of clothes into the suitcase a few minutes before leaving for the airport. If anything was folded, it was because that’s how I took it from the drawer. Let’s just say I went with the chaos theory.”
“I bet no matter what you were wearing, you always looked beautiful.”
Cat could be dressed in a burlap bag and still be the most gorgeous woman on the planet, as far as he was concerned.
“Other people might argue that statement.”
“Other people can go fuck themselves,” Tate stated firmly. “I know what I’m talking about.”
“Are you saying that so you’ll get lucky? Because if you are, you’re on the right track.”
Cat was giving him that look that he loved so much. The kind that promised all sorts of dirty, sweaty debauchery. He was a lucky man.
“Hold that thought, baby. Let’s get this done, and then I’m all yours.”
Had he ever belonged to anyone else since she’d left? He didn’t think so. She’d held his heart even when he’d denied still feeling anything. He’d only been fooling himself.
The suitcase was well-organized. Tyler had placed an extra pair of shoes in a plastic bag so any dirt wouldn’t get on the clean clothes. Pants in one section, shirts in another, socks and underwear in a third, along with a small leather bag with toiletries. There was also a spiral notebook tucked between a pair of jeans and the blue cashmere sweater.
“That must be the sweater that Alexa wants,” Cat said, picking it up from the stack. “Wait, there’s something stuck to it. I think it’s a piece of jewelry.”
Cat’s fingers disentangled a shiny object and then held it up. A gold and opal teardrop earring.
“I’ll get a plastic bag for that,” Tate said. “It probably belongs to Alexa. I bet she thinks she’s lost it.”
“It’s pretty,” Cat observed, holding it up to the light. “It’s a nice opal, too. Some are so milky, but this has some fire to it.She’ll be glad to get it back. Maybe we should look for the other one. It might be stuck to another piece of clothing.”
They placed the earring on the coffee table until it could be wrapped up safely later, along with the sweater.
