Free Luke (A Redemption Romance #1) by Anna Scott Page B

time. My mom would come take care of him in the morning, if I needed her to.
    Hours later, the situation was finally resolved, the officer was in the hospital with a gunshot wound to the thigh. The sight of him bandages around his leg reminded me so much of Nolan after he’d been injured that it sent me into a tailspin.
    Over the next several days, I did my best to call Rory. When I talked to her, she was distant. I wanted to connect with her, but my head was fucked. I wanted to see her, to spend time with her, but between her schedule and mine, it was damn near impossible.
    My nightmares had increased dramatically. Not only were they coming every night, but they seemed to come each time I closed my eyes. I was exhausted, fucked in the head and pissed.
    By the following week, having not seen Rory once, not being able to get her to talk to me at all like she had the week we’d spent together, she stopped taking my calls. She’d text me back eventually, but it was always some stupid, too busy , response that just pissed me off. Every part of me wanted to march over there, ring her sweet little neck and show her how it could be between us; but her walls were up high.
    I wondered if it was the reality of my job, which I wasn’t willing to change, or something else that had her holding back from me. My mind was so screwed by lack of sleep, missing her, and visiting the officer who’d been shot I couldn’t make sense of anything. I knew that I needed time away from her now, time to let her come to her own decision. I kept texting her every day, just to check in, but stopped making the effort to get her to talk to me.
    Eventually, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from going over there, but for now, I had to try and hold myself together. I wanted her to come to me, to open up to me. She had to be with me because it was she wanted, not because I pushed her into something when she was vulnerable. I felt like I was dying inside without the sweet scent of her hair on my pillow at night.
    What really pissed me off was when Reed called me - nosey bastard - to ask what was going on between Rory and me. He asked if I’d made my move, like he had a right to know. I wouldn’t tell him shit. I sensed some underlying concern in Reed’s voice when he mentioned her. Reed wasn’t telling me something about Aurora, but I wasn’t going to act like some pansy-ass and ask him either. If I wanted to know what was going on with her, I’d relocate my balls and go talk to her.
    My mind was everywhere. I was a pussy if I didn’t go after her. I was a pussy if I chased her. I was a pussy because I was fucked in the head and because of the dreams. It was true that no one could ever be harder on yourself than you.
    Two weeks after I left her bed, Reed called me in a panic. He couldn’t find Rory. Her car was in her driveway; he was there, at her house and she wasn’t coming to the door. He was freaked that she was inside, hurt or something. He told me that every time he’d talked to her since the funeral, she seemed sad, and he was worried.
    I knew that she wouldn’t do what Nolan had, I knew it. I also knew that if Reed didn’t find her soon, I would go looking for her too. With Reed’s contacts, and mine, there wasn’t much he couldn’t find, we would find her, where ever she was hiding. Somehow, I just knew that she was okay, but she’d been in hiding for over a week now.

Aurora
    It had been ten days since I’d seen Luke. The night of Nolan’s funeral we’d gone to sleep together, but his work phone rang in the middle of the night with an emergency. I realized how strange it had been that he hadn’t been called away at all, the entire week he’d stayed with me.
    He’d gotten up, grabbed his stuff from the guest room, called Rusty to ‘come’, kissed me on the forehead and told me to go back to sleep. I hadn’t seen him since. We’d texted and talked a few times, he told me how busy work was and I didn’t press him.