I was outside smoking with Sanchez, when Joe came to find me. I feared the worst, so I was relieved when he asked me to keep an eye on the house. He headed off with his dad to do some black ops shit to try and find Molly. I always knew his old man had clout, but I never would have guessed his dad was that connected. For the first time since Molly’s disappearance, I felt hope that we might have a chance of getting her and the little spud back.
After he left, I paced the house, chased off reporters who got too close to the yard, and tried to make myself useful. When Joe came back with no news, I tried to hide my disappointment. I left for a bit and hit a home improvement store. I figured the house could use new locks, in case Draven had copied the keys. It seems idiotic in retrospect, but the mind plays tricks on itself when it’s trying hard to cope with the terrible things people do to one another.
Joe came back out in the middle of the night, but one look at him and I could see he wasn’t in the mood to talk. Truth be told, I wasn’t either. He left the next morning with his dad, and I did my best to keep from losing my mind. The reporters were getting more aggressive and as snarky as hell. When one of them yelled questions at Granny, she grabbed the garden hose and promptly soaked both him and his camera operator. He’s lucky. If Mason and I hadn’t been so busy laughing, we might have beaten them both to a pulp.
Word came later that night that Joe’s dad had located Molly and Logan and that they were alive. I nearly collapsed, the relief was so palpable. But the news wasn’t all good. Joe had been the first one on the scene when they found them, and Draven had been armed. All I knew was that he was still breathing. By the time I got to the hospital with the rest of the family, Joe’s parents were waiting with the whole story.
That asshole Cirone was dead. Joe had snapped his neck like a twig. God, I would have loved to have been there for that. Molly’d been beat up real bad, and they informed us she’d just come out of surgery. Repeated blows to the eye caused a detached retina, and the docs had repaired it immediately. My mother started sobbing when they said she was getting antibiotics for multiple human bites. I asked if I could see her, but the nurse explained that they were about to perform a rape kit, so I’d have to wait. When I heard those words, “rape kit,” it took a lot of self-control not to punch something.
We were all relieved to hear that Logan seemed to be all right and that all they were giving him were some IV fluids for mild dehydration. Calm was just starting to set in, and that’s when they dropped the bomb that Joe was the one whom they were most worried about.
Joe had taken a bullet to the chest, but he’d been wearing a vest. He’d also been shot in the head at close range. Joe’s dad called it a “graze” and the doctor’s called it a “glancing blow.” Since he’d temporarily lost consciousness, they were taking him down for an MRI.
What a tough son of a bitch. Takes a bullet to the head and walks away from it. That’s some straight-up Clint Eastwood shit.
Things were tense for the next few hours as we waited for an update. The doctor came out and said Molly was asking for Eva, and Mom got to take her baby back to see her. As I wandered outside to light a cigarette, I called Kelly, waking her up out of a dead sleep to update her on what was going on. Just hearing the relief in her gentle voice was ten times more soothing than any of the reassurances we’d gotten from the hospital staff.
“They’re all in good hands, Mac.” I don’t know how that girl did it, but the complete confidence in her delivery made me feel like everything was going to be okay.
By the time I got in to see Molly, I was dead on my feet. Her bandaged eye and battered mouth gave me a sorely needed surge of adrenaline. She looked like shit, but she seemed more embarrassed than hurt; and all she could talk about was Joe. She was already fighting with the doc about when she could see him. They explained that Joe was undergoing medical tests and told her they needed to take Logan off to assess him further. Molly became nearly hysterical when they wouldn’t let her go along with him. I stepped in and promised her I’d stay by his side, and that’s exactly what I did.
Watching the pediatrician do a head to toe assessment on little Logan was more difficult than I expected. He had a large rash on his behind and a large bruise on his back.
“Your sister reported that her ex-husband tossed him across the room.” The doctor glanced over at me and went back to examining my nephew. I could feel my temper spike. “He landed on a chair, but it may not have had much padding. But we took some x-rays earlier, and nothing’s broken.”
As I tried to process this horrifying information, Logan woke up and when he saw the doc, he started screaming in terror.
“Hey, Buddy,” I soothed, hurrying to his side. Recognition showed in his eyes when he turned to me, and he climbed me like a spider monkey. He settled against my chest, trying to catch his breath between hiccupping sobs. I kissed the top of his dark, curly hair. He was in desperate need of a bath, and the whole incident really shook me up. He reminded me so much of M.J. at that age that I suddenly ached to see my son in a way I’d never experienced.
It was mid-day before I finally left the hospital. Joe was awake and talking. The doc said he’d have a scar near his eyebrow, but that was it. He really was one lucky son of a bitch.
Even in the face of a police investigation, Joe seemed unshakeable. Frankly, he seemed cooler and more collected than he had seemed in years.
“I want to see my wife.” It wasn’t a request, and the doc looked perturbed.
“I’m afraid I have to advise against it. You’ve had a head injury, Mr. Jensen. It’s—”
“Mac can wheel me down in a chair.” I was at the nurses’ station asking for one before anyone else could object. The doctor tried to block my path to Joe’s bed, but I brushed past him with a wheelchair.
“You both need to rest,” the doc argued, pushing his glasses up.
“We need each other,” Joe replied dismissively. I thought the cops stationed on either side of his door might stop us, but they just nodded and followed us in the direction of Molly’s room.
Their reunion was far too emotional for me to stick around, and exhaustion had taken hold of me. I drove home on autopilot, and by the time I reached my house, I was too tired to care about the reporters hollering at me. It was a struggle just to get up the front walk.
Kelly met me at the door, letting me in before the news people could get out too many inflammatory questions. In a daze, I clung to her like a buoy in rough seas. She led me to the bathroom, and I watched like a zombie while she started the shower. Somehow, she got me cleaned up and put to bed, but I remember very little about it.
I slept for a solid day and woke up early in the morning feeling a lot more like myself. I went in search of Kelly and found her in the kitchen feeding M.J. breakfast.
“Hey, you two,” I said.
“Hey.” Kelly’s concern was etched on her fair features. M.J. jumped up and squeezed me so tight, it made it hard to breathe. I swept him up into my arms, but it wasn’t as easy as it used to be.
“Dad! Is Aunt Molly okay? What about Uncle Joe?” My eyes shot to Kelly over Junior’s shoulder.
“I told him they were in the hospital,” she explained in a whisper, fidgeting with her necklace. I nodded at her and set Junior back in his chair.
“Everyone’s alright, son. They need to stay in the hospital for a little while, but they should all be fine.” Heaving a giant sigh, M.J. dug his fork into his eggs and stuffed his mouth full, stopping from time to time to pepper me with more questions. Kelly stayed quiet, letting the boy take up all of my time. When he was done eating, M.J. headed in to brush his teeth and finish getting ready for school. Rising from the table, I walked around and knelt near Kelly’s chair.
“Thanks for taking such good care of him, Sugar.” I brushed her long hair out of her face so I could study her warm brown eyes. Her gaze never lifted from the floor.
“I’m just glad everyone’s okay…” Tears welled in her eyes and s
he collapsed on my shoulder with a sob. Stunned by her uncharacteristic reaction, I held onto her for dear life. It took a few minutes for her to cry herself out, and when she was done, she clung to me.
“Baby, shhh…” I said softly. “It’s okay, now. It’s all good.” Her grip on me didn’t lessen in the slightest, and I felt her shake her head against my shoulder.
“No, it’s not. But I hope it will be.”
The next few days were interesting. An ‘anonymous’ source at Kelly’s school had leaked details of our relationship, including that embarrassing picture, to the media. Those scavengers were still trying to squeeze every drop out of the Molly and Logan Jensen abduction and really went to town with it. Apparently I’d gained some notoriety during the search, and people were interested in me for some inexplicable reason. Reporters were hanging around outside the house, the shop, and Kelly’s school. Everyone in Austin felt like they had a right to comment about my family, and it took a lot of self-control not to kick a few asses and take a few names. To make matters worse, the damn Cirone family appeared on television calling for Joe’s blood.
I got permission from M.J.’s school for him to work from home for the week while things quieted down. Kelly brought home his assignments and helped him stay caught up. When he finally did go back, I was a lot more relaxed knowing Kelly would be there looking out for him.
I’m not sure how they did it, but Joe’s family managed to dismantle the Cirone agenda before it even got traction. Public opinion turned on Draven’s family once pictures of Molly’s battered face and the bite marks on her became public. The Cirone’s scuttled back into the dark like the vermin they were. Eventually, the media found some other bone to gnaw on, and things started to get back to normal for the lot of us.
When I returned to the store, I found out that the staff had gotten completely out of hand in my absence. Francis informed me that Nick was one outburst away from going after everyone with a chainsaw, so I sent the kid on vacation for a week. Nick left so quickly that I wondered if he’d ever be back. Locking the door, I put up the ‘closed’ sign and then grabbed the phone and dialed up the feature that let me talk through the speakers throughout the building.
“Now hear this. All staff are required to report to the main room in thirty minutes. As no one has approved sick or vacation time, I expect to see every last one of you. Anyone not present for this mandatory meeting will be terminated. That is all.”
I spent the next half hour reviewing time cards, checking the status of orders and pretty much doing the job I should have been doing in the first place. I figured that the few workers who were here would be texting the rest of the monkeys to get their collective asses back to the shop. Twenty-nine minutes after my announcement, I went out into the main workroom to see everyone present. Sonic the Hedgehog, Justin Beiber’s afterbirth, The Missing Weasley, CannonFodder Unibrow, Chubbs McFatty, Stinko McGee, and The Normal Kid. I had Francis by my side to point out who was actually who, and I made a mental note to try to memorize their names…eventually.
“Listen up, children. Nick’s on vacation. I’m going to be personally supervising each and every one of you. If you have a question, come find me. Can’t find me? Text me. If you’re bleeding out? Call 9-1-1, then call me. Otherwise, let’s try to handle things during business hours. I’ve just spent some time reviewing all of your files. At this point, I’d like to explain that your employment here is directly tied to your ability to perform the work assigned to you. That being said, due to recent unfortunate events, Joe and I haven’t been here to give you the guidance you deserve. Nick’s done a damn good job, but he’s put up with far too much crap from y’all. In the spirit of second chances, as of today, everyone’s going to start from scratch. Now listen up because I’m not going to repeat myself.”
For the next hour, I laid out the existing processes and policies. They weren’t new and this wasn’t their first time hearing them. Everyone had been required to read their employee handbook, and Joe made sure every new hire had received one. But I didn’t want to take the chance that any of them were illiterate or that they had just thrown the book away, so I spelled everything out.
1. Use your timecard as instructed, or you don’t get paid.
2. Finish the work assigned to you, and do it well, or you are out on your ass.
3. If you get stuck or need help, that is where I step in to teach you.
Yep, it’s true. I actually committed to each and every unwashed heathen in the building to help teach them how to be better carpenters. I blame Kelly. She is a horrible influence on me, making me want to be responsible and shit.
Now, I’m not going to say that first week went smoothly. Hell, I almost fired Sonic the Hedgehog before lunch that first day. But by the end of the week, the boys knew that I wasn’t screwing around. My way or the highway is a pretty harsh slogan to work under, but work you shall. I also managed to teach each of them at least one new thing every day. Watching them learn was pretty cool. Not that I would have admitted that to any of them, even under torture.
Nick came back at the end of the week, but I think he intended to quit. Before he could spout off, I explained the changes that had happened while he was gone, apologized for dumping so much on him, and gave him a two-thousand-dollar bonus check for his efforts. After that, he was more than happy to return to work at a much lower stress level.
Joe was doing some of our more complex carving work out of his garage, and he didn’t have any plans for coming back to the shop anytime soon. I reluctantly accepted my role as headmaster of Wood University, Good Wood’s carving school for the delinquent, the downtrodden, and the damned. It took a few wrong turns and more than a little assistance from Kelly, but I finally managed to get the crew working like some semblance of a team. I started a seniority system just like the trades use. Once an intern could show that they were capable, they also had to show they were responsible. Then they had to show that they could manage others. By the time Molly got into therapy and Joe came back into the shop, he claimed he barely recognized the place. I had our more experienced students mentoring a whole new batch of kids. We even had an outreach program where students went out to talk to shop classes at the local high schools. You never knew where you might discover a great woodworker.
No matter how rough my day was, I got to come home to Kelly, and her sweet face hit the reset button on my priorities. We’d moved beyond the ‘honeymoon’ phase of our relationship, but I don’t mean we weren’t still fucking like rabbits. We continued to have amazing sex at every single opportunity, but we just knew each other better, and it seemed like we didn’t sweat the small stuff nearly as much as we did before Draven came along and fucked up everyone’s concept of reality.
We spent Thanksgiving with my family, and it was awkward with Molly pushing her food around on her plate as quiet as a church mouse, and Joe watching her like she was wired with C-4. Everyone was so thankful to have them there and in one piece, we had our first argument-free holiday in recorded history.
Since Mason got married, it was a tradition to alternate Christmases with the in-laws. Accordingly, Molly’s gang was at the Jensen’s and Mason was with Robin’s crew in Houston. Kelly and I invited Granny and Mom over, along with Francis and Beverly. It was a pretty low key time, though Granny and Beverly got into a spirited political debate during a game of canasta. M.J., who’d been busy putting marshmallows into everyone’s hot chocolate, told them it wasn’t nice to argue at the table.
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Mom decreed, and everyone was all smiles by the time the Southwestern Quiche and mom’s jalapenos came out of the oven.
The meal itself went off without a hitch, but picky little M.J. didn’t eat a whole lot of his meal. I encouraged him to try a taste, sure he’d be asking for pie twenty minutes later.
Junior turned to Kelly five minutes after I told him to take a few more bites. “Sugar, can I be excused?”
“That’s Miss Kelly to you,” I said,
shaking my head
Kelly ignored me. “What’s the magic word?”
Junior’s face twisted, completely clueless. “Abracadabra?”
I snorted. “You manipulative little—”
“Malcolm...” Mom interjected, dishing one of her cream-cheese-stuffed jalapeños wrapped in bacon onto Kelly’s plate. Kelly eyed it as if it were a venomous cobra.
“May I be excused, please?” M.J. begged.
“You’ll sit politely while everyone else finishes, Junior.” I sounded gruff, but the kid needed to be reined in a little.
“Malcolm Thaddeus, it’s Christmas. Give the kid a break,” Granny admonished. M.J. turned his big sad eyes on me, but he held his tongue. Kelly nudged me, and her eyes twinkled as she fixed me with an abused puppy dog expression of her own.
“Fine. Go.” I exhaled, as if they continuously tried my patience.
“Yay! Present time!” Junior cried, jumping to his feet. “Can I be the elf?”
“I don’t know. You sure you can handle that kind of responsibility?” I drawled with a slow grin.
“Yes, Dad.” M.J. rolled his eyes in a condescending manner very much like his Aunt Molly’s. He was too young to pull that tween angst BS.
‘I’ll get the slushies,” Mom said, heading for the freezer.
“Slushies?” Francis asked.
“Family tradition,” I explained.
“Hildebrandts love tradition. Get used to it.” Granny patted Kelly’s arm with a smile. I felt a goofy smile on my lips, but she purposely refused to look at me after the pointed statement.
Junior threw himself into the role of elf, divvying up the presents into stacks. M.J. had a small mountain, as expected. Kelly and I were seated together on the loveseat, and Kelly’s stack just kept growing. Her eyes widened when she realized how many of the gifts under the tree were for her.
Wood U (Carved Hearts #4) Page 26