The Hookup

by Kristen Ashley

  The kid had a look on his face like he was frozen in laughter, experiencing bliss.

  Addie was ass to the grass close by, Frisbee in hand, winging it, after which Swirl, Dempsey and Ranger took off after it.

  But she didn’t watch to see which dog got the Frisbee.

  She looked right at Toby and her son.

  Shit.

  “I don’t know who’s falling faster. Her for him or him for that baby boy,” Margot said from his side.

  Johnny turned to her.

  “Or him for her,” she finished. “It’s a tossup.”

  “She’s in the middle of divorcing her husband, who it’s my understanding she loved,” Johnny informed her.

  “Time moves on, my sweet Johnathon,” she replied. “And love never really dies, but it does fade, as you well know.”

  He looked back at Izzy.

  “And when it fades, the part that remains teaches us how to love better the next time,” she said softly, putting her hand on his forearm.

  He pulled it away but only to catch her fingers and lift them up to press to his chest.

  But he didn’t reply.

  He set his eyes back to the yard.

  “Tobe doesn’t do relationships,” he said.

  “People change.”

  Johnny looked back to her. “He’s not going to take his first test drive with Adeline.”

  Her gaze drifted to the window. “He’s going to do what Tobias has always done. Whatever he wishes.”

  “Margot—”

  She cut her gaze back to him. “My love, he would tear out his own heart before he did anything that might harm yours.” Her fingers squeezed his. “You have nothing to fear.”

  “I don’t like it,” he shared.

  “Well, first, it’s your job as his big brother not to like pretty much everything he does until he proves to you that he can do it well. It’s both your lots, I’m afraid, and there’s no escaping it. And second, you’re so blind in love with Eliza it’s taking everything you have not to hammer a wall made of iron around her to protect her from anything that might hurt her. And something that might hurt her sister will hurt her. So you’ve got twice as much to get over when that,” she tilted her head to the window in the door, “takes root.”

  “He doesn’t even know if he’s staying in Matlock,” Johnny said.

  She raised a brow. “And he can’t take her and Brooks with him should he decide to go?”

  “That would devastate Izzy. She loves having her sister close.”

  She smiled. “Ah, there’s that iron wall.”

  Johnny felt his lips hitch, but he shook his head and looked back to the yard even as he pressed her hand closer to his heart.

  After a turn around the yard, probably just to get some alone time since they hadn’t seen each other most of the day and Johnny had noticed the two were not just a married couple, but a couple, Deanna and Charlie were strolling up to Toby. Deanna had again worn heels that day, but she was walking barefoot in the grass now, though the straps of her sandals dangled from her husband’s fingers.

  Johnny took note of that.

  Dave was latching the gate on the stables. He’d just brought in Izzy’s horses while Margot and Johnny did the dishes and the rest Margot had ordered, “Had done enough . . . so get.”

  This, even though she didn’t let anyone do anything. She’d pushed out the women so she could cook, and then she’d pushed out everyone except Johnny so they could clean up.

  No one said dick. Even if most of them knew her a short time, they’d all learned this was Margot’s way.

  Toby now had Brooks around his neck, walking toward Dave with Deanna and Charlie closing in.

  Addie was watching Johnny’s brother and her son go.

  Izzy was pushing through the back door.

  He felt it as Margot moved closer to him and he felt it as she curled the fingers of her other hand over both of theirs.

  “It will be just fine.”

  “When we were camping, she told me a lot about her mother and father. I already knew he beat her mother and her mom’s parents refused to let her come home so they were on the run and had nothing. They never got anything either, no matter how hard Iz’s mom worked. They only had each other. Daphne, Izzie and Addie. That was all they had.”

  “That’s terrible,” Margot murmured her understatement, the timbre of it sharing just how terrible she thought it was.

  “Thank God for you,” he whispered.

  “Pardon?”

  He turned his head and looked her direct in the eyes.

  “Thank God for you. Dave and you. Thank God Dad had you so he could give you to us. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have a lot of things, Margot. Too many to name. It’d take a week just to get through table manners. But there’s a new one now. And that would be, if I didn’t have you, I wouldn’t know how to love her like she needs me to do it.”

  Tears brightened her eyes and she tried to slip her hand away, because Margot was the kind of woman who left the room to have her emotion in private, probably because she’d spent most of her life around men and she thought they had no clue how to deal with it.

  Except those men had her too so she was wrong about that.

  In other words, Johnny’s hold only got tighter so she wouldn’t slip away.

  “She lost her mom and mourns her like that happened yesterday. She blossoms when she’s anywhere near you. You try to act the diva, sweetheart, but you can’t help but just give and give. Thank you for giving that back to Izzy.”

  “Stop,” she whispered.

  He didn’t stop.

  “Mother-son dance,” he said softly.

  Her eyes got brighter.

  “You’ve already done it three times, you up for a fourth?” he asked.

  She swallowed.

  She sniffed.

  She squared her shoulders.

  Then she declared on a tight squeeze of his hand, “Most certainly.”

  She gave him that and it was not the first time she gave him something for which he’d be forever grateful.

  But she was Margot.

  So she wasn’t done.

  “However, as I also intend to stand in for another important role, you best prepare Eliza. Because everyone knows, a girl’s wedding is not her own. It’s the dream wedding her mother always wanted, and if not that, it’s the wedding her mother determines she should have. And I birthed three boys and helped raise two more. The first three’s women had mothers. Now, it’s my turn.”

  To that, Johnny busted out laughing.

  The sun was down.

  The Christmas lights in the tree were on.

  The infused vodka had again been unearthed.

  Blankets had been brought out and spread in the grass.

  So they sat under moonlight, Christmas lights and crystals, one couple each to their own blanket, sucking back vodka, talking and laughing, both quietly because Addie was giving her son his nighttime bottle.

  Johnny was frowning at his brother who was stretched out on Addie’s blanket with her, watching her feed her son like he’d never seen anything more beautiful.

  “Johnny, honey, can you pass me the ginger and peach bottle?” Izzy asked softly.

  He reached to the bottle of vodka he guessed was ginger and peach because it had peaches in it as well as something that looked like cut up garlic cloves (a bottle he had, until she just said that, avoided because he wasn’t thinking he’d be a big fan of peach and garlic).

  He turned and handed it to her.

  She took it with a, “Thanks, häschen.”

  He said nothing.

  He just stared at Izzy’s face in the moonlight and Christmas lights, seeing right then, next to him on a blanket, with their people around them, she was not happy.

  She was what she thought her mother wanted to be.

  She was in her place.

  She was where she’d always wanted to be.

  She was serene.

  He’
d thought he’d never seen a more beautiful woman than the woman he’d seen with her daughters in those pictures in Izzy’s stables.

  But that changed right then.

  Eliza set the bottle in the grass by their blanket and lifted her eyes to his.

  She tipped her head to the side. “You okay?”

  “Best ever, baby.”

  She smiled.

  And there was the happy.

  So Johnny forgot his brother on Addie’s blanket.

  Izzy was happy.

  Therefore so was Johnny.

  And they’d ride that the next day, Sunday, when he loaded up Izzy and his dog in the morning and he spent the entire day with her in bed at the mill.

  And they’d keep riding it, falling asleep together and waking up together the next morning.

  It wouldn’t be until Monday afternoon when Izzy’s serenity was shattered, when her world of moonlight and crystals and fruit-infused vodka and good people all around that Johnny knew she’d worked her entire life to find her way to fell apart.

  And when it did, everyone on those blankets plummeted straight into hell.

  Can You Go Faster?

  Johnny

  MONDAY AFTERNOON, JOHNNY was washing grease off his hands when his phone in his coveralls rang.

  Normally he would ignore it.

  Izzy in his life, he did not.

  He grabbed some paper towel, did a quick swipe, and with still mostly wet hands, he pulled out his phone.

  It was Iz.

  He took the call, put the phone to his ear and answered, “Hey, spätzchen.”

  “Johnny.”

  A red-hot iron spike rammed down his back and his head jerked around until his eyes found Toby, who was bent over a car.

  As if he felt it, felt what Johnny heard in Izzy’s voice, his brother’s head came up and they locked eyes.

  “Iz, what’s going on?” he growled.

  “Johnny,” she repeated in that awful voice.

  “Talk to me,” he demanded as Toby pulled out from under the hood.

  “I . . . I—” She was losing it.

  “Give it to me, baby girl,” he heard Deanna say.

  Deanna.

  Deanna was with her.

  They worked together.

  But he did and did not like knowing Deanna was with her when she sounded like that.

  The good part was that Deanna was with her.

  The bad part was she sounded like that.

  Johnny thought his head would explode as he waited and listened to the phone jostle while watching Toby move quickly toward him.

  “Johnny?” Deanna asked.

  “Deanna, what’s happening?” he bit out.

  “Okay, now, okay, damn,” she replied, sounding freaked and tortured at the same time.

  “Deanna,” he said warningly.

  “Okay, no way to say this easy so I’ll say it fast. Someone took Brooks from the daycare center.”

  Johnny tore the shoulder on his coveralls down his arm, ripping the buttons at the front clean off.

  “It was naptime,” she continued. “The lady minding them got called out of the baby room. When she got back, she didn’t notice at first. Then she did. They looked around for him, but the lady that runs the place right away called the cops because all the babies are in cribs so they shouldn’t be able to get out. They called Addie at the grocery store. She came straight away. He’s . . . he’s . . . Johnny.” Her voice dropped. “No one knows where he is.”

  He heard Izzy’s sob in the background as he stepped out of his coveralls, kicking them away. “Where’s Addie now?”

  “Fuck,” Toby hissed.

  “That’s why we’re calling ’cause we’re trying to get there fast but you can get there faster and she’s lost it, Johnny. She’s a mess. You gotta get to the daycare.”

  “On my way,” he said, sprinting toward the door of the bay, feeling Toby on his heels. “Tell Izzy I’m on my way. I’ll be there in five minutes. Yeah?”

  “I’ll tell her, Johnny.”

  “See you soon,” he said.

  “Soon,” she said back, her voice cracking.

  Fuck.

  Deanna wasn’t hard but she was strong and she was one of the most together women he’d ever met. She wouldn’t break down in any situation.

  Except this one.

  He shoved the phone in his back pocket and dug his keys out of the front.

  “Johnny!” Toby shouted from close at his back.

  He stopped at his truck door and turned back to his brother. “Tell Ray we’re closing down the bay. The Meyers aren’t getting their car today. Then close down the bay, get in your truck and meet me at the daycare center.”

  Toby’s face, already alert, blanked as he prepared to get shitty news.

  “Brooks okay?” he asked.

  “Brooks is missing.”

  That was when he watched Toby’s face get hard.

  Johnny didn’t hesitate longer.

  He hauled open his door, knifed into his truck, started it up and took off.

  Addie raced to him the minute she saw him enter the front doors of the daycare center, crying an agonized, “Johnny!”

  When she made it to him, she hit him so hard he nearly went down and to stop it had to step back on a foot.

  He put his arms around her, hers were around him, but she yanked them free and latched onto his neck so tight, her nails dug into the flesh. She snapped her head back and the first close look at her face cut through him like a blade.

  “Someone took my baby,” she whispered.

  “Okay, mäuschen,” he murmured. “I got ya. Hang tight.”

  “I should have . . . I should have let Margot watch him,” she said.

  “This is not your fault,” he returned firmly.

  “I didn’t want to take advantage.”

  “Addie, this is not your fault.”

  “I didn’t . . . things were going so great with you and Iz, I didn’t want your family to think I was a freeloader.”’

  Christ, the Forrester Girls.

  “Adeline, listen to me,” he demanded. “It is not your fault.”

  “They said, the staff said . . . they think he came in and hid. Waited for his chance.”

  Shit.

  “See, sweetheart, not your fault,” he told her. He lifted his eyes to the cops who came his way. “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “This your girl, Johnny?” Cary, one of the cops and someone Johnny had known and liked since high school, asked with surprise in his voice, but also something deeper.

  “Her sister,” he clipped. “Now what’s happening?”

  Cary nodded. “Okay, just to assure you, we have men out looking.”

  “Looking for what?” Johnny demanded.

  “A man was seen entering the daycare. The way he did, the woman who saw him thought he was a dad. Though interviewing the staff, no one recognized his description. Also interviewing the staff, no one saw him. Not anywhere. But this woman, a lady that lives across the street, she hangs out on her porch. She saw him come in, and about twenty minutes later, she says he exited with a little boy. A baby. She thought it was peculiar because he didn’t have, well . . .” his gaze flicked to Addie, “a baby seat in his car.”

  Addie’s nails dug in deeper and ice filled Johnny’s veins at the thought of Brooks unrestrained in a car.

  “And this man? What’s he look like?” Johnny asked but didn’t wait for the answer. He looked down at Addie. “Did you tell them about Perry?”

  She nodded.

  “Kent?” he asked.

  She blinked. “Kent?”

  “Izzy’s ex.”

  “Oh my God,” she breathed, brightened, took her hands from him and turned to the cops, babbling, “Kent. Kent’s crazy. Kent’s got a restraining order. Kent’s my sister’s ex. He’s tall. Not as tall as Johnny. Blond. Dark blond, not light. Like, almost red but not red. Blond. Mostly. And . . . and . . .”

  “Text you
r sister, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Get her to send a picture of Kent.”

  She nodded and dug her phone out of her pocket.

  “The guy was redheaded,” Zach, the other cop, muttered. He was a man Johnny knew from having the occasional beer with him at Home but he was younger, younger than Toby, so he didn’t know him well.

  Jesus, Izzy’s creepy ex kidnapped her fucking nephew.

  Jesus, now he had to stop himself from murdering Izzy’s crazy fucking ex who had kidnapped Brooks.

  “Johnny, can I have a sec?” Cary asked.

  Johnny looked at him and did it closely.

  What he saw made him turn back to Addie. “Gonna have a chat, sweetheart. You get that text, you show this man, yeah? I’ll be right back.”

  She nodded again.

  He curled his fingers around the back of her neck, gave it a squeeze, and hoped to Christ Toby was quick with closing that bay so someone would be with her that wasn’t a cop.

  Then he followed Cary down a hall under the gaze of hovering staff members of the daycare center, most of their eyes red, all of them terrified.

  When they were out of earshot, Cary stopped and turned to Johnny in a way that Johnny didn’t like because he had his back to Addie.

  Cary didn’t fuck around.

  “Because of her concern about the car seat, the lady took note of the make and model of the car and she got a partial plate. We ran what she got and the car that popped up was reported stolen in Missouri two weeks ago.”

  Shit.

  Was Izzy’s creepy ex that crazy?

  “Also, Johnny,” Cary continued, “the description of the man given describes Stu.”

  Johnny felt his gut drop, his heart constrict, his throat close and his hands form into fists.

  Even though he couldn’t see most of it, Cary didn’t miss any of this.

  “Keep it tight, Johnny,” he warned.

  Stu.

  Stuart.

  Stuart Bray.

  Shandra’s brother.

  “You hear from him?” Cary asked.

  “No,” Johnny forced out.

  “Seen him?” Cary went on.

  “No,” Johnny repeated tightly.