Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
She wasn’t home. Her phone and purse were gone, as well as her toothbrush and some of her stuff from the bathroom counter.
That was when I remembered that she’d gone to visit a friend for a couple of nights. I’d expected her back by tonight, but we must’ve gotten our wires crossed somehow. And I couldn’t exactly demand that she drop everything to be at my beck and call. Although the idea was definitely appealing.
I sent her a quick text to let her know I was home, that I missed her, and to call me in the morning, no matter what time it was.
Sleep didn’t come easily, despite how exhausted I was. It seemed that in the short time that I’d had Rhiannon in my bed, I’d gotten to the point where I slept like shit without her.
Once I passed out, I slept until eleven and cursed a blue streak when I checked the time. There still wasn’t a message back from Rhiannon, and the one I’d sent didn’t appear to have been read.
I was gonna spank my woman’s ass when I finally saw her. Unfortunately, that had to wait because I had an appointment with a potential client at noon, so I didn’t have time to swing by In Bloom and see her first.
By the time I reached the location for my meeting, I’d already called her half a dozen times. I told myself she was just busy, but something about her radio silence didn’t sit well.
She was scheduled to make a delivery to Porter Grant’s house in a couple of hours, so at least I’d see her then. And the longer I didn’t hear from her, the higher her number of spankings became. She wouldn’t be able to sit tomorrow.
Even with my focus split, I managed to close the deal. We shook on it, then I hopped in my truck and broke every speed record on the way to Grant’s house.
Rhiannon was due with my delivery fifteen minutes after I arrived. She was never late, so as the minutes ticked by, worry began to squeeze my chest. When one of Harvey’s regular delivery guys pulled up, the feeling that something was very wrong intensified.
Finally, I called Harvey.
“In Bloom,” he answered.
“It’s Viper. Rhiannon isn’t answering her phone, can I talk to her?”
Harvey was silent for a few beats, then he took a long breath. “She’s…she's not here. I assumed she was with you. She mentioned you’d be getting in late, so I told her to take the day off. As usual, she said no, but when she didn’t come in, I figured you’d convinced her to stay home.”
The pressure was cutting off my air supply, so my voice sounded choked, when I asked, “When was the last time you saw her?”
“Yesterday afternoon. After she got your flowers, she left to do two small deliveries before going home.”
“The flowers…” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I didn’t send them. She didn’t tell you?”
“She assumed they were from you, but I wasn’t sure when I noticed the card hadn’t been signed. I didn’t want to worry Rhiannon if there wasn’t a reason for it, so I looked through the video feed. They were delivered from a shop in the next town, who took the order over the phone. I figured they had to be from you.”
“No.” I opened my eyes and stalked toward my truck. “Think, Harvey,” I growled. “Think back over the past few months. Was there anything, no matter how small, that was different or stood out to you? Even for just a moment.”
“No, I can’t think…wait.”
I hopped into the cab of my truck and slammed the door shut. “What?” I snapped. I was vaguely aware that I was being unnecessarily harsh, but the fear clouding my mind had taken over, and I didn’t give a fuck.
I started the truck and headed away from the house while he answered. “It didn’t seem significant at the time, but…well, over the past several months, some of our orders from a distributor were incorrect.”
“Incorrect how?”
“Extra flowers mostly. They never wanted them back, so we sold them at a discounted price. Most of them weren’t worth selling because of the time of year.”
Those panolas she’d mentioned to me must’ve been one of those mistakes. “Did they give you an idea of why it kept happening?”
“They blamed it on an incompetent employee, but it did seem odd to me that they would keep letting them make the same mistake without taking them off my account.”
I pulled onto the compound and headed straight for the clubhouse, driving like a bat outta hell. “Was there anything, anything, that these extra plants had in common?”
After parking, I sat in the truck while I finished my call.
“Now that I think about it, they were all purple in some way. And several of them were flowers that Rhiannon had ordered herself.”