by Lisa Worrall
Attempting to pull himself together, Aiden dropped the stick of cotton candy, which frankly was responsible for the entire incident, into the nearest trashcan and unfolded the park map. “Where the fuck are the meeting points?” he mumbled out loud. They’d been to the park a dozen times or more and he’d drummed into her, if they were ever separated, to go right to the nearest meeting point. According to the map the nearest one should be next to the restrooms across the concourse. He was already moving before he’d finished reading the map, calling his daughter’s name as he ran.
Half an hour later with a burly security guard helping him search, Aiden had zipped past frantic, bypassed crazy and bought a hotel on terrified. What the hell was he going to tell Patti? He couldn’t breathe; there was no air. What the fuck was that? There was open air all around and he couldn’t get any of it into his lungs. His vision began to cloud as his anxiety built—then he saw her.
“Kaylee!” he yelled, blessed air filling his mouth. He began to run, chasing down the monster stealing his little girl. Even from four hundred yards away the guy was well over six feet and as broad as he was tall. What kind of freak was this guy? No slouch at six feet, Aiden was what you would call more of a lover than a fighter, but this was his baby and he was taking this asshole down. The security guard shouted Aiden’s name. He frantically flapped his hands toward the freak and Kaylee, shouting, “She’s there! Stop him!”
Aiden reached them first, panic driving him on. “Get away from my kid!” he screamed, and with a Tarzan-like yell, he landed square on the man mountain’s back. Aiden grunted in satisfaction as the freak went down like a felled tree. Luckily enough, Aiden had the element of surprise on his side. El Freako was too stunned for a moment to retaliate—but only for a moment.
The guy managed to somehow get an elbow up to pop Aiden a good one across the cheekbone. Pain exploded in his face, his eye immediately filling with water. But he wasn’t letting go for anything. He straddled the guy and kneeled on his bicep before scrabbling for his other hand and yanking it halfway up his man’s back. “You freak! You filthy pervert! Is this how you get your kicks? Stealing little kids? I’m gonna see you go away for a long time for this, man. If you’ve touched my baby I’ll kill you, do you hear me?”
“What… fuck?” the freak mumbled, trying to turn his head, but Aiden had him firmly face-planted on the ground. “Not steal… work…”
“We’ll take it from here, sir.” The security guard finally reached them, obviously more out of shape than he was. But then, Aiden thought, they probably weren’t used to chasing down degenerates in the family-friendly park.
“Daddy!” Kaylee screamed, tears escaping from under her thick lashes.
“It’s okay, baby,” Aiden soothed, clambering to his feet as the security guards grabbed the freak. He scooped her up into his arms. “Daddy’s here. You’re safe now, baby.” The relief at having her tiny arms wrapped around his neck was so overwhelming it brought him to his knees as he cradled her to his chest.
“Daddy, he’s hurting Finn!”
“Don’t worry, he can’t hurt you,” Aiden reassured, rubbing tiny circles on her back. Her ear-splitting scream was not exactly the response he expected and he winced at the vibrating of his eardrums. “Kaylee, calm down, honey. Daddy’s here. Everything’s alright now.”
“I work here,” the freak ground out, struggling against the security guard’s grip.
“Likely story,” Aiden spat, his gaze taking in the T-shirt emblazoned with the park emblem, rage burning the back of his throat with its acidity. “You bastard! How many kids have you lured away with that sickeningly sweet smile? How do you sleep at night?”
“I work here, you asshole! Kaylee, honey, it’s okay, I’m fine.”
“Don’t you talk to her, you sick son of a bitch!” Aiden yelled, turning Kaylee’s head so she couldn’t see the display. “Where are the cops?”
“Cops?” The freak’s eyes widened in disbelief and Aiden felt a surge of satisfaction in his gut. He probably thought he’d been clever, but Aiden had him dead to rights and the deviant was going down.
“For God’s sake. I work here, you moron! Check with management. I found Kaylee on the path behind the stage. She was crying because she was lost and she’d hurt herself. I was taking her to Katie at Meeting Point 5.”
“A likely story, son,” said the security guard.
Aiden watched in stunned amazement as the giant asshole protested his innocence, and was still insisting he worked at the park when the cops led him away. He couldn’t believe how long the man was prepared to carry on the charade. It beggared belief how low the degenerate was prepared to sink.
After giving a brief statement to one of the officers, Aiden carried Kaylee back to the car. His heart ached for the sobs she cried into his neck, although part of him was ecstatic at the wetness of her tears against his skin. He was only too aware that, if he hadn’t spotted her with that freak, he might have never held her in his arms again. Now they were driving home and he kept glancing in the mirror to look at her securely strapped into the back seat. He wasn’t sure when the shock would actually set in. Adrenaline was still pumping through him and when the crash came he wanted to be in his own home, with his daughter safely tucked up in her bed.
By the time he pulled onto the drive of their Santa Monica home, Kaylee was asleep and Aiden was completely drained. Turning off the engine, he climbed out, lifted his arms over his head and stretched out the tension in his shoulders. He trotted around the hood, opened the back door and unstrapped Kaylee. Then he slipped one arm around her shoulders, the other under her legs and lifted her out. He closed the door with his hip and her onto his shoulder so he could depress the button on the remote control to lock the car. He murmured soothing nonsense into her hair as she complained about the change of position and walked up the porch steps to the heavy oak front door.
After a balancing act of trying not to drop Kaylee and fitting the key into the lock, Aiden kicked the door closed behind them and tossed his keys into the dish on the hall table. Heading straight up the stairs, he padded into Kaylee’s bedroom and laid her down, gently taking off her shoes and covering her with the quilt. Aiden dropped a kiss onto her forehead and inhaled the traces of the strawberry-scented shampoo she liked, his heart in his mouth. He loved her so much. She was the reason for… God… everything.
Sinking down onto the end of the bed, he watched the gentle flutter of her eyelashes against her cheeks, and the rise and fall of her chest with every breath she took. If he lost her he didn’t know what he would do. It was his job to keep her safe. The sound of his mother’s voice echoed in his head. “You’ve failed at everything else in your life! What makes you think fatherhood will be any different?” Of course, he’d just told her there was no way he was giving up his daughter to save her the embarrassment at the country club.
Kaylee shifted position in her sleep and her thumb crept toward her mouth, the movement sending a sharp stab of nostalgia through him. Sucking her thumb was a childhood habit she only reverted to when she was stressed and the trauma of today must have affected her deeply. With her dark hair fanning across the pillow, Aiden was struck by how like her mother she was in repose.
Holly had been what Aiden’s mother considered to be from the wrong side of the tracks. The fact that her family was as well-to-do as theirs had made no difference to his overpoweringly snobbish mother. She was still adamant that Holly was not from the right sort of people. Maybe that’s why Aiden found Holly so appealing, because it was worth the sour lemon look his mother sported at the mere mention of her name.
They were inseparable, best friends fighting against their parents’ ideas of what was the done thing, happy to have friends whose ancestry couldn’t be traced back to the Mayflower. Getting drunk, staying out all night, missing classes to lie on the grass at the edge of the swimming hole and watch the world go by. He knew Holly’s innermost secrets and she knew his. She knew he was gay and he knew
she wanted to be a dancer so badly she could hardly breathe. They had plans to leave Dallas and live together in LA. Aiden and Holly’s Big Adventure. Then everything changed.
It had been on the grass at the swimming hole after a horrendous fight with his parents that Aiden had cried in Holly’s arms. Where they had shared a drunken kiss that turned into another, and another, until they were too caught up in the moment to form a rational thought. Where they sat staring at each other, dumbfounded with the pregnancy test between them, two blue lines deciding their future.
Their parents had been horrified. There had been shouting and recriminations, both sets of parents tossing the blame between them. And in the middle of it all had been two scared nineteen year olds who had no idea what to do. Until Holly had climbed through his bedroom window and told him she couldn’t have an abortion, but her parents wanted her to put the baby up for adoption—and she agreed with them. She couldn’t give up her dreams for a baby she didn’t want to end up resenting. It wasn’t fair to the baby, or her.
Aiden had agreed it was the best course of action. They were too young, they had plans, anything he could think of to convince himself that giving up the only child he may ever have, was the best thing. Until he was holding Holly’s hand and chanting words of encouragement as she pushed their daughter into the world… until he saw that sweet face, felt her tiny hand curl around his finger for the first time, and knew he could never let her go.
Telling Holly he wanted to keep the baby was the easy part. She’d nodded sagely at him and then looked down at the little girl in her arms. “I won’t contest it. She deserves to be with someone who loves her and can give her the life she deserves… and that’s you.” His parents, however, were a different story.
Screaming, yelling, fainting on his mother’s part, and then his father had handed him a check for twenty thousand dollars. To set himself up, his father had said. Aiden had looked down at the paper in his hand with his father’s signature, then frowned in confusion at the man who was supposed to love him, no matter what.
“That should be enough to get you by for a while until you find a job,” Michael Parker had said, squaring his shoulders as he’d stood. “You’ve brought this on yourself, son. We’ve given you everything you ever needed, and this is how you repay us? Bringing shame and your bastard into this house? Pack your bags and get out.”
Aiden stroked Kaylee’s bangs back from her smooth forehead and smiled as she frowned in her sleep at his touch. If he’d lost her… A wave of nausea hit him so fast he barely had time to stumble down the hall to the bathroom before he lost the contents of his stomach. He kneeled on the floor, his hands curled around the porcelain toilet bowl, retching until there was nothing left. After flushing the toilet, Aiden pulled himself to his feet and ran cold water in the sink. He splashed his face and then picked up his toothbrush.
Once he’d cleaned the acrid taste from his mouth, Aiden lurched down the hall to his bedroom. The last vestige of energy drained from him and he collapsed onto the bed, not even bothering to undress. Grabbing one of the other pillows on the bed, he wrapped his arms around it and closed his eyes, finally giving way to hot tears of relief.
III
Glancing around the cell, Finn sighed heavily. This wasn’t quite the notoriety he’d been thinking of when he left home. His mother would be so proud—not. How the hell did you get locked up for doing a good deed? The adults who’d heartlessly walked by a little girl in distress should be in here, not him. It was absolutely typical that the only security guard in the park he didn’t know was the one to take him down. The guy had only worked there for two weeks and had no idea who Finn was. Of course, the police had been unable to find anyone else to corroborate his story. Chris’s cell phone kept going straight to voicemail and his supervisor was snowboarding down a mountain somewhere until Monday.
A crowd of people had gathered around them as the security guard kept his arm bent up his back, their curious gazes boring holes into his skin. He’d never been more grateful to spend his working life inside a giant animal suit. If they’d known who they were staring at, his career would have been over.
“Hey, wake up Sleeping Beauty, you’re outta here.”
Finn sat up on the uncomfortable mattress as the officer who had locked him in nine hours ago, opened the cell. “I am?”
“Yeah,” the man replied, indicating that Finn should follow him. “Your roommate confirmed your story. You’re free to go.”
Standing, Finn stretched his arms above his head, wincing at the complaint of his muscles with the movement. Nine hours he’d been lying on the mattress from hell with a snoring crack addict twitching on the bunk above him and a drunken biker. A drunken biker whose intense gaze and lecherous smirk had left Finn with the distinct desire to duck and cover—his ass. Not exactly high up on his list of things to do on a Saturday night. All he’d been able to do was wait and hope Chris had been struck down with a terrible illness, because if he hadn’t, he was going to kill him.
Finn followed the officer down the hall and up the stairs to the duty sergeant’s desk, where a very concerned-looking Chris waited for him, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“Where the hell were you?” Finn hissed in annoyance. “I’ve been here for nine hours, you asshole!”
Chris looked suitably contrite, “I went to Davey’s and played Guitar Hero. I’m so sorry, dude. If I’d known you were gonna get arrested, I’d have gone straight home. What the fuck did you do? What happened to your face?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Finn bit back. “Unless taking a lost child to a meeting point is a criminal offence these days. The kid’s father thought I was trying to kidnap her and he tackled me.” He gently prodded at the heavy graze on his right cheek where the irate father had pushed his head down onto the ground. His bicep was sore where the guy had kneeled on it and there was another knee-shaped bruise in his lower back. They’d sent in someone to clean up his face and check him out, but he ached like a son of a bitch.
“You wanna press charges against Mr. Reid for assault?”
Finn’s eyes widened as he looked at the duty sergeant. “I can do that?”
“Well, he assaulted you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, but he thought his kid was in danger,” Finn began, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
“I can’t believe you’re defending this asshat,” Chris said incredulously. “What the hell is wrong with you? You should press charges.”
“I just wanna get home and wash this place off me,” Finn glanced up at the officer and smiled ruefully. “No offense.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair and then picked up the envelope containing his personal belongings. “I’ll sleep on it and let you know,” he mumbled, shoving Chris ahead of him toward the exit.
In Chris’s clapped out Chevy Nova, Finn wound down the window and leaned his elbow on the door, drawing in a deep lungful of the cool night air. Everything ached and he felt dirty, his skin crawling from God alone knew what was on that disgusting mattress. He really didn’t want to give too much thought to that, or he might never feel clean again. Shaking his head in disbelief, he turned to Chris, who was grinning from ear to ear behind the wheel.
“So, dude, what was it like? Were you anybody’s bitch?”
“You watch way too much crap TV.” Finn gazed back out of the window and rubbed his hand across his eyes. In truth, though he would never admit it to Chris, or anyone else, he’d been absolutely terrified. When they hadn’t accepted his explanation, bundled him into the cruiser and then Mirandized him, a brief glimpse of his mother’s horrified face had skittered across his brain as she watched him being carted off to the Big House. Of course, the one day he’d needed someone to confirm he worked at the park he’d got the only security guard who had no idea who he was, and no one else of any standing around to back him up. Fucking typical. The headlines would have been fabulous. Key thrown away on Monty the Meerkat for kidnap
of a minor. Meerkat Park shunned because of Monty shame.”
Chris pulled into the parking lot serving their apartment block and eased into their allocated space. Finn felt the weight of his friend’s gaze but was grateful to him for not actually saying anything as they climbed out of the car. He stomped toward the entrance of their building, aware of Chris’s footsteps behind him, but not slowing to wait. A hot shower and his bed were all he cared about right now. It was nearly three in the morning and he had to be at the park for eleven. Tomorrow was his day off but, annoyingly, he had agreed to some overtime and was scheduled to help Steve with the dolphins’ training session. He hoped a hot shower and metaphorically washing the experience down the drain would help him relax enough to sleep and put the whole damn thing behind him. Trotting up the stairs to their third floor apartment, with Chris bringing up the rear, Finn had a feeling that the memory of tearful green eyes and the sheer horror on Kaylee’s face as they led him away, were going to take a lot longer to fade.
IV
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Aiden complained almost falling over his own feet as he stumbled down the stairs toward the front door. Whoever it was, he was going to kill them. Seven-thirty on a Sunday was not exactly the time to catch Aiden at his best, as the person knocking on the bright red, wooden door was about to find out. “Do you know what—?” The rest of the sentence faltered on Aiden’s lips as he found himself staring into the blue eyes of one of the cops who had arrested the freak yesterday. “Officer…” he mentally kicked himself for not remembering the man’s name.