Chapter 33

[Clay]

Nearing the twenty-four hour mark since the discovery of missing persons, I’m lying awake on my bed, staring at the dark ceiling. Nearly one full day since I’ve seen Mavis and Dutton, and I’m coming out of my skin.

I’d wallow in sadness if I wasn’t so angry. Angry that they are gone. Angry that I’m certain someone took them. Angry that it isn’t Wesley which means I have no idea who it is, other than the possibility of some mysterious man peeping through my window two nights ago.

I’ve failed Mavis. Accepting that failure, though, means I’ve given up and I’m not giving up.

She’s out there somewhere with Dutton, and until they are safely returned to me, I won’t rest.

I’ve never wished daylight to appear so quickly as I have lying on my bed, waiting for the seconds to tick by.

Unfortunately, the new day is just as gloomy as yesterday. Snow is lightly falling again this morning. The weather is cold, although I don’t think I feel the temperature. At the moment, I’m numb. Frozen with fear.

At first light, a crew has been assembled to start searching the woods closest to where the car skidded off the road. If a second set of tracks had been apparent in the gravel shoulder, it was covered by Perry’s tow truck, through no fault of his, when his truck pulled up and then backed into the ditch to pull Mavis’s car out.

Mavis and Dutton won’t have set off on foot without being coerced. Still, Stone thinks a group should scope out the closest woods. He doesn’t let me go.

And Mavis and Dutton could be anywhere, and nowhere near Sterling Falls by now, if someone picked them up. Someone I don’t have a clue to recognize.

I’m kicking myself once more that I don’t have a better description of the man who stood at the window. In my head, he keeps merging with the dick in the Walmart aisle but that doesn’t seem right or fair. Not that a stranger insulting Dutton deserves fairness, but I don’t want an innocent man apprehended for a crime he didn’t commit.

Still . . . I can’t quell the niggling sensation that the two men might be the same person.

Roughly an hour later, the rest of my family convenes at my house again. While Sebastian and Ford wanted to be part of the search crew, Stone asked them to come here instead. Which I’m assuming is for moral support, but I’m starting to feel suffocated by the concern of my family.

Knox is with the fire department, volunteering his time, while Stone is manning the situation from my kitchen table instead of his office.

And while all this is happening, I’m hiding in the long hallway, in the place opposite where a stranger stood the other night, staring outside. Eventually, I press my forehead to the glass and close my eyes a second. I breathe in the emptiness. The silence without Mavis and Dutton filling my home. The loss of Mavis and Dutton will crush me. There is no simple way to describe the pain.

Like a shattered piece of pottery, the pieces of me will be unrepairable.

The sensation is something I’ve always feared. Watching my father lose the love of his life, then drown himself in bottle after bottle, I never wanted to know love like he felt because I didn’t want to know such heartbreaking loss. It didn’t stop me from wanting to help people. To save them . I just never wanted to feel saved myself, for fear the rescue would end.

As I open my eyes, a figure is walking up my drive. A woman wearing a coat I don’t recognize, carrying a child. A child with a blanket wrapped over him.

“Butterfly,” I whisper, pulling my head back from the window for a clearer view.

I blink once, drawing them better into focus as they continue toward the house.

“Mavis.” I yell, like she can hear me through the glass. Then I’m running for the front door, ignoring the shift in my family as people stand from the couch and Stone enters the living room from the kitchen.

I’m out the door without coat or hat or care as I race toward Mavis and Dutton. My vision blurs but I keep my sight on them until my arms are around them both and I’m kissing Mavis’s head.

“Oh my God, butterfly. Thank God.” I pull back, hands on her arms, scanning her face, looking for injury while at the same time focusing on her standing before me. She’s here, beneath my hands.

Then I notice the blue marks beneath her eyes and the stiffness in her shoulders. I have so many questions and they all tumble out at the same time.

“Are you okay? Is Dutton?” I place my hand on the back of his head, and he turns toward me, reaching out his arms for me. Tugging him to me, I press kisses in his hair while still addressing Mavis. “What happened? Where have you been? Who hurt you?”

Tears roll down Mavis’s face, her mouth falling open and then closing again. She trembles while shaking her head. I’m asking too much too fast.

Unable to be another second without touching her, I wrap my arm around her again. And then, she’s hugging Dutton and me at the same time. The leather jacket over her shoulders smells like stale cigarettes and cheap cologne, and it slips to the ground with her embrace.

Suddenly, the deep rumble of several motorcycles hits my ears, followed by the crunch of gravel as three imposing metal machines roll up my drive. The noise is deafening until they stop only a few feet from us. My brother Judd rides, and Sebastian owns a bike, but their rides are nothing like these powerhouses.

After the first man shuts off his engine, he kicks the stand and climbs off the motorcycle. For a moment, Mavis and I stare in the same direction, our arms wrapped around one another until Dutton whispers, “Granddad.”

Recognition slowly happens. The eyes uncovered by sunglasses are the same as Mavis’s. Dark hair is released from the helmet. He lowers a scarf that covers his nose, mouth, and neck.

Time stands still as Mavis doesn’t move forward and the man keeps his distance.

“Baby girl,” he states, his voice rough from age.

“Daddy?” She steps out from underneath my arms and stares back at her father. “What are you doing here ?”

She doesn’t sound surprised to see him as much as she’s bewildered he is in my driveway.

“I got your message.” His gaze transfers to me. “You must be Clay.”

Mavis turns only her head, an apology as well as stark vulnerability on her face, but she has nothing to apologize for. Or anything to fear.

However, I am a bit concerned. I don’t know what this man and his biker brothers are doing here either. While I’d called him with my concerns for Mavis’s safety, he was short with his responses, ending our call with “I’m on it.”

I had no idea what that meant. Yet, here he is.

“Thanks for the call,” he offers me.

Mavis’s brows lift. “You called my dad?”

“Butterfly, I would have gone to the ends of the earth to find you.”

“Butterfly?” Her father chokes and we both turn back to him. The large man’s hard eyes soften a bit as he looks at his daughter. “He knows your nana’s name for you?”

Her nana called her that name? I had no idea. It hits me as I stand here, there is so much I still don’t know about Mavis in the a few short months I’ve known her, but I want to know it all like I once told her. I want time to learn everything.

I slip my arm around Mavis’s waist, gently tugging her so her back hits my chest while Dutton clings to my neck and side. I don’t know if the move is my fear that Mavis will go off with them, or a protective statement that I won’t let her go without a fight.

Her father catches the movement. I’m staking my claim.

“This what you want now?” He nods at us, while his eyes remain on his daughter. Then his gaze shifts over my shoulder. I don’t dare turn for the house or my family whom I’m certain are flanking me protectively as they watch this play out.

“This is what I’ve always wanted,” she tells him.

“Always were a little different.”

I’m not certain if the comment is an insult or compliment, or simply a statement that Mavis wanted something other than the lifestyle she’d been brought up in. Either way, she stiffens beneath my arm, and I squeeze, hopefully reminding her I love her as she is.

“Not shacking up with him like you did with that fool Wesley.” Her father wants confirmation.

“Daddy,” she groans.

“With all due respect, sir.” I begin. “Speak to her again like that, and we’ll have a problem.”

He eyes me like he can’t imagine what sort of trouble I’d make. And while I’m not a fighter by nature, I’m also easily twenty-plus years younger than him and I’ll hold my own until the last strike.

Slowly, his mouth ticks up and I see the similarity to Mavis’s smile.

“Got some big balls.” He chuckles.

“Daddy,” Mavis chides. “Not in front of Dutton.”

His thick brows lift, as if something crossed his mind.

“How come my grandson isn’t giving this old man a hug?” He tips up his chin, waiting for me to release Dutton, but Dutton isn’t letting me go, burrowing his face into my neck. His cold nose against my skin reminds me we are outside in the November chill. I should be inviting everyone inside but all I really want is to collect Mavis and Dutton and take us to my bed, where I’ll keep them wrapped in a protective cocoon.

“It’s been a long twenty-four hours,” Mavis answers.

“He hurt you?” Her father isn’t talking about me anymore, and I want to know who he references.

Mavis shakes her head, lowering it. “He just wants to chat.”

“We’re going there next, but I wanted to see for myself that you were safe and whole.” Her father pauses a second. “I love you, baby girl.”

“I know, Daddy.” With that, she uses her hand to remove my arm from her waist and she slowly walks to her father. There’s no rush in her steps, more like she’s hesitating, but the second he opens his arms, she melts into them, letting his leather-covered limbs engulf her. He kisses the top of her head, mutters something to her, and she looks up at him.

With a slow smile on her face, she responds, glances at me, and then pulls out of his arms.

“Dutton.” Her father’s tone is sharp. “Give Granddad a hug and then I’ll let you be.”

Dutton wiggles from my arms and rushes to his grandpa, whose entire demeanor changes. He smiles wide as he hikes Dutton easily into the air, tossing him upward and catching him before tucking him into his side. He says something to Dutton as well and Dutton wraps his arms around the man’s neck, but quickly releases him.

“Look after your mama,” he says, patting Dutton’s behind before setting his grandson on his feet and watching him rush back to Mavis.

The motorcycle man does another swiping gaze over me and whomever is behind me.

“I’m still gonna be available whenever you need me,” he states to Mavis.

“ If I need you,” she replies, but slowly smiles back at him.

“Don’t get sassy like your sister,” he teases. “And call your mama again. She’ll want to know you’re safe.”

He nods at me, with no other acknowledgement, and climbs back on his bike. Mavis walks with Dutton back to me and curls into my side. I wrap both arms around her again, squeezing her tight as her father and his two men turn in my drive and then disappear down my driveway, the crunch of gravel softening, the scream of motorcycles picking up as they first hit pavement.

Then silence.

I kiss the top of Mavis’s head. “Let’s get inside.”

Releasing her, I reach down for Dutton and hike him up to my hip. When I turn around, my family is standing in a straight line. Ford and Sebastian both stand with arms crossed over their chests. Judd has his hands lowered behind his back. Stone has his hand hitched into his belt, fingers near his holstered gun. Even Vale is standing in the cold without a jacket, hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans.

A man who has siblings who love him cannot do worse.

Families come in all combinations. Siblings with no functioning parent. A mother to her sister’s child. An orphan with an aunt that loves him. A set of men collected by a common interest. And yet, love is no less in any form where family is concerned. The desire to keep the ones we love safe and protected, comforted and claimed is no different.

And this is my family. My siblings and their extended families.

Mavis and Dutton.

The two who have claimed my heart. Forever.