Ethan was trying to focus on his marketing VP when the chime of his cell phone distracted him. Admittedly, his attention hadn’t been on Veronica. Instead, he’d been dwelling on Lily’s visit to his office. When he opened the message to find her route, his stomach twisted in knots.
“I’m sorry, Veronica, but I need to cut short this meeting.” Grasping his phone, he pushed away from his desk, taking only a moment to pack up his laptop and secure it in the bag before leaving the office. The VP hadn’t even left the room yet.
He paused by Mrs. Pond’s desk, looking for the other woman. His eyebrows drew together when he saw a note she had left, excusing herself for the rest of the day based on Mrs. Cole’s advice.
The phone started ringing as he turned to leave, but he ignored it. It could be a potential investor or client, but he didn’t care. Right then, his wife was his first priority, and he cursed the way he’d handled it earlier.
As he got in his car, heading for the freeway to try to catch up to the SUV, he shook his head at his own behavior. He didn’t for one minute believe the world was about to end. In his opinion, it had been some maneuver on Damian’s part to drive a wedge between them and send her scurrying to his arms for safety.
Even so, he shouldn’t have been so dismissive or angry about her attempts to get him to leave the city. If he couldn’t talk her out of the silliness, he should have reassured her and gone along with her. At worst, they would have spent the weekend in the cozy vineyard house, making love and reconnecting with each other. They could have laughed about it later, and Damian would have lost some of his status in Lily’s eyes.
He supposed he should be grateful she was heading to Yakima Valley instead of going to whatever mystery rendezvous her “friend” had offered. It indicated she hadn’t completely given up on their marriage, despite their problems.
The silence was nerve racking, so he flipped on the radio, scanning stations randomly in search of talk radio. Music was not his thing. The satellite system soon tuned to a talk show in progress, featuring someone named Alec Johns.
“Now, if SurvivoMan’s blog is accurate, all this will be gone in hours. I hope you’ve been listening to this show and the others who’ve been warning about this. Now, I know, folks, that I didn’t warn you about a solar event specifically, but I’ve been telling you stuff will hit the fan sooner or later. If you didn’t get prepared, it’s on you, folks. Now, it’s probably too late. Now, you’ve wasted your opportunity to be ahead in the survival game. Now, you’ll have to survive on your wits. I say humanity is doomed, based on the witless among us. Now, get your family and bug out. Now is the time to act. You’re down to the last few hours—”
With disgust, Ethan switched the station. People like that fear-mongering fool irritated him. They were as bad as the fire-and-brimstone preachers, always spreading fear of the end of the world, along with a solution that would only cost you a little bit of money… “Shysters.”
The soothing sounds of a stock report filled the car, and he relaxed, though the tiniest seed of doubt had sprouted in his mind. What if Damian had been telling Lily the truth? How could he protect his wife in some kind of crazy new world without safety and familiarity? His four-year stint in the Army seemed about a million miles away from his current life, and he knew he wasn’t prepared. That thought made him almost as anxious as the miles separating him from his family.