Right now, my only concern was finding Daxx and wrapping him in my arms. Lenoxx and his anger were going to have to wait.
Racing through the house and practically throwing myself out of the back door, I called out for Daxx as loud as I could. Now that Lenoxx knew, it didn’t matter how much I yelled and shouted out my little boy’s name.
Mentally, I chewed myself out for working so far away from the house. Usually, at this time of the day, I was feeding the chooks and farm dogs, maybe doing some repairs in the machinery shed while Charlie took the tractor to feed the cattle and sheep. Today, I chose to go into the paddocks, keeping Daxx as far away from the house as possible. Then the bloody tractor went and shit itself again, meaning Daxx and I had to walk back to the shed to get some tools. I had carried him most of the way, but when we passed one of the hay sheds, and Daxx saw Charlie there, he begged to go and see the old man.
I let him go; I walked him to the gate where Charlie met us taking Daxx with him. That had been nearly an hour ago. The repairs took longer than I anticipated, the fuel line being the problem; by the time I got back, Charlie and Daxx were nowhere to be seen.
I should never have presumed Charlie still had Daxx; I should have known that Daxx would lose interest and go off exploring for more fun.
But where?
“Daxx, where are you?” I cried out, my voice close to hoarse now. In the distance, I could hear Mallory screaming out his name too, then Hendrixx let out the same shout. His voice sounded much like his brother’s, but I knew the difference between the triplets just by hearing them. Only one voice could melt my bones and liquefy me into a puddle of desire. Just one.
Then that very voice shouted out my name, the fury lacing it not unexpected.
“Makena!” A strong hand gripped me by the upper arm, whirling me around. Lenoxx’s furious face unrelenting as he glared at me, his blue eyes dark with fire and his sensual lips curled into an angry scowl. He was more than pissed at me; he was ropable.
“I have a son? You kept my own son from me? What kind of person have you become?” he roared at me, the veins in his strong neck corded with his fury with me. This was the first time ever that I had been on the receiving end of such rage from Noxx, our earlier heated argument nothing more than mere carelessly tossed angry words, but this … this was way more.
And thankfully, it was going to have to wait; dark clouds covered the sky, making it darker than normal this time of the afternoon not only that, the air had an icy chill to it. Daxx was only dressed in a light coat, track pants and gumboots. He was going to be so cold, and so frightened. My heart ached at the very thought that my baby boy might be crying, terrified wherever he was.
Desperate to find my child, I reached out and clutched Lenoxx’s upper arm.
“Please, I will explain everything later, first please help me find my son,” I begged, feeling the tears fall unchecked down my face.
“Our son. My son Makena. How old is he?” he demanded, his own hand now gripped my other arm in a tighter hold that I had on him.
“Lenoxx, please—”
“How old?” he gritted out, his teeth clenched and his tone cold and harsh.
“He not long ago turned three, I was pregnant when I left you, but I swear I didn’t know until a month later, I swear.”
Lenoxx visibly paled, his grip on me suddenly loosening, giving me the perfect getaway. Pulling away from him, I took off down the small hilly road that led to the hay sheds.
“Makena!”
That one shouted word pissed me off. Whirling around, I stomped back to Lenoxx, his face and the anger that radiated off him no longer worrying me. Lenoxx was going to have to wait for his explanation, to yell and rant at me. There was something much more important than him in my life now.
“Our son is missing, so excuse me if I don’t want to stand here and waste time in a shouting match with you. I never knew I was pregnant, and quite frankly, I don’t care if you believe that or not.” I poked my finger into his chest twice, punctuating how serious I was.
“Daxx is out there somewhere probably frightened; now you can either help me or not. I really don’t care which.”
Turning my back on my husband, I again ran down the hill, my sister’s shouts echoing in the background.
At least Mal is worried about Daxx, unlike his father.
As soon as the nasty thought entered my head, I pushed it out. I was being unfair; logically, I knew Lenoxx would care about his own child. Family meant everything to the Hott brothers; there wasn’t a time where I could remember them ever being really mad at each other. Even when Noxx and I left for Melbourne, the boys stayed in touch by phone every day, Hendrixx and Fenixx even made the long trip for the wedding. So, yeah, I was being infantile, but I was also a mother, and my baby was missing and that was all that mattered to me.
“Daxx!” I screamed as I ran through an open gate and into the closest paddock. I could see the lights of Charlie’s old ute over by the dam, sending a chilling shiver through me. If Daxx went this way, he would have gone straight for the water. He loved fishing and swimming, keeping a three year old safe around water was a job that required one hundred percent focus. Daxx was super quick on his feet; he started walking when he was only ten and a half months old. Every first sooner than the books predicted, his first tooth came in at five months, stopping me from breastfeeding him way too early. His first word not long after he reached six months, and he hasn’t stopped since. Just last week he got on the back of a horse by himself, before, he loved coming with me on Banjo, now, all he wanted to do was ride his own Shetland pony without Mummy holding onto him. Right now, I would give anything to have him tucked against me, anything.
My feet ate up the ground as I yelled his name out over and over, each shout my voice sounding raspy and desperate.
“Daxx, where are you?”
The night sky was rapidly coming, and with no stars yet visible to act as natural light, making judging the uneven, muddy terrain more difficult very soon. The faster I ran, the more I stumbled, my frantic yelling taking my focus so much I didn’t realise my foot caught a large clump of dried mud until I went tumbling to the ground, my knees and hands hitting the grass with a thud, knocking the breath out of me. Sobs tore from my throat, and tears misted my eyes as I rocked back and forth on my hands and knees, fear and panic stopping me from getting back up.
“Daxx.” My baby’s name wrenched from my lips, and I swore I could feel my heart tearing in two.
This was all my fault because if I hadn’t been so secretive hiding Daxx from his father worried that Lenoxx or Hendrixx would see my son, but most importantly, if only I hadn’t taken the threat from Will and run like a coward. I kept heaping guilt on myself while I rocked in place; I didn’t even notice that someone was behind me until two strong and familiar hands grabbed me under the armpits and hauled me up. The masculine scent of Lenoxx filled my nostrils, annoyingly even in my distressed state the musky smell of his favourite cologne overwhelmed me.
He still wore it, the aftershave I’d picked out for him so many years ago and insisted he always wear, he still used it.
As soon as I was on my feet, my face planted into Noxx’s warm chest, his hand on the back of my head holding me there.
“We are going to find him Makena; I promise you that,” Noxx murmured, his chin resting on the top of my head, “then you are going to try and explain why you robbed me of seeing my son.” His unyielding tone signalling the end of my time. Daxx was finally going to have both of his parents, but at what cost to me? Lenoxx had every right to be angry with me, furious even, but how would that anger be used? Would he take my son from me, use the financial pit I found myself in against me to gain custody? My mind went back to the threats Will made when he found me pregnant, my intentions to go back to Lenoxx, and tell him about the child we’d made.
If only Will hadn’t gone and died, I could confront him and make him admit to his part in my deception.
Pullin
g back enough, so Lenoxx’s face came into view, I reached out and fisted his shirt.
“Just find Daxx, please, Noxx, find our son.”
Anything else didn’t matter.
Only Daxx.
LENOXX
My lungs were screaming at me to slow down, the freezing night air felt like razor blades scratching down my throat with each intake of breath. I had been out here for more than two hours looking for my kid searching through machinery sheds and haystacks. I couldn’t stop though, my little boy was out in the dark somewhere, and the longer it took to find him, the more scared I became.
After Makena dropped her bombshell that she left with my child in her belly, Hendrixx and I jumped into action, calling Fenixx to bring the large spotlights from the calf shed, so we had more light to search and giving Daxx a signal and a way back to the house. While Makena insisted she didn’t know at the time she had been pregnant, she still made the conscious and deliberate decision not to tell me. The anger and rage at Makena for hiding my own kid from me and the fact that she lived here on the farm so close to my family home all this time had to wait.
The only thing on my mind, the only priority was to find Daxx. Then, Makena and I were going to sit down where she would be told in no uncertain terms my presence in my son’s life starts from that moment on.
The paddock was lit up like an airport runway; multiple voices were shouting out my boy’s name. Fenixx had the foresight to bring along some of the farmhands from the Triple H, enabling the search to increase in area.
Hendrixx came riding up to me on one of Makena’s stock horses. The beating of the animal’s hooves, bringing me back to what I should be doing instead of getting stuck in my head.
“Anything?” I asked, rushing up to the beast.
“Not a fucking thing,” my brother muttered, “that kid of yours is one hell of a hider mate.” Swinging his leg over, Hendrixx dismounted, taking the bridle over the horse’s head as he gracefully and expertly hit the ground. All three of us practically born in the saddle, all of us expert horsemen.
“We have to find him, Drixx; it’s getting so late.” I didn’t know the exact time, but we had been out looking for at hours on end.
“Might be time to call the police Noxx, it’s getting really late and it’s fucking freezing. If we are cold, I can only imagine what a three year old is feeling.”
My jaw clenched at the thought of my son being out there all alone, and I was yet to lay eyes on him, but that didn’t stop my heart from thumping out of control. We had to find him and soon.
“Where is Makena?”
Hendrixx sighed loudly, “She is a fucking mess. Mal finally dragged her off her horse, demanding Mack go inside and warm up before resuming the search.”
I could only nod my head at that—one emotional rollercoaster at a time, dealing with Makena not possible until after Daxx was located. Despite all the upheaval in my world in the past hours, I wanted nothing more than to see Makena with our son in her arms. Her unrelenting effort to find Daxx surpassed any of the searches out here. She saddled up her horse, mounted and rode for hours checking on all the dams on the property, insisting that Daxx loved the water, but he didn’t turn up nor anything to suggest he had been around any of the dams.
Makena was a mother in pain, something I was feeling too.
“Maybe you should go up and see her mate,” Hendrixx suggested, holding up his hands when I started to protest. “Just hear me out Noxx, I get that what she did is fucked up and only you can say if it is forgivable or not. But, there is no doubt that she is a good mother, and while the finances and the farm itself are in a mess, the animals are in good shape, the repairs I can see around here are done properly even with the dodgy materials used to do them.”
“She is doing the best she can with the meagre material at her disposal. Her old man dropped her in a pile of cow shit, but yet here she still is doing what she can, so her son has a legacy. She could have walked away, used her beautician’s diploma for a more comfortable life, but she came back here and stayed, only forty kilometres away from us. She has grit and determination Noxx; she always had.”
Everything Hendrixx was saying made sense, perfect sense, but I wasn’t looking for sense. I wanted to find my son, not feel sorry for his mother.
“What about the legacy he has with the Triple H and HBC? Like my son, they are as much his as ours. What about me—”
My tirade was cut off by the sound of someone lying on a car horn, a signal my brothers and I came up years ago when we went in different directions on triple H land. We used it to communicate when the mobile service was weak.
“Fenixx!” Hendrixx and I said at the same time. The horn blasts changed from one long one to a succession of short sharp ones, but it was the next musical explosion that had Drixx and me bolting for my Cayenne.
Slamming into the cab, pushing the button with more force than needed, I revved the engine and took off sliding the back end as I roared towards the direction of Fenixx’s signal.
He must have found Daxx.
Fuck, I hope he’s found Daxx.
“Slow down, Noxx, fuck a duck mate I want to live ya know,” Hendrixx grunted, leaning forward in his seat when I took a dip in the ground too fast and too quick. He then growled when I hit another trench, sending him off his seat and his head into the roof.
“Fuck, Lenoxx! Slow the fuck down!” His arm shot out and hit me with his ham hock of a hand, dead in the bicep.
“I’m meeting my son for the first time after searching for him for the last god knows how many hours Drixx, cut me some slack and back off,” I growled back, ignoring the area on my arm that was now throbbing. We were identical in every way except for the size of Hendrixx’s hands. He had freakishly large hands. Fenixx and I had normal, large hands; Hendrixx though, his belonged in the Guinness Book of records.
“I know brother, sorry, but I would like to arrive alive or at least without brain damage.”
I eased off the accelerator slightly just enough to make the drive more comfortable for my pussy brother, the whole time all I could think was—I was about to meet my son. No longer worried that Daxx was hurt because Fenixx wouldn’t give me the signal of all good with the more upbeat horn blasts if something was wrong. No, Daxx was safe, unhurt, and with his uncle.
Jesus, this whole situation was more than me finding out I have a son. It was so much more for all of us, Hendrixx and Fenixx now uncles, and … Mum. Shit, Mum! How the hell am I supposed to tell her she was a grandmother? Her dream to have a grandchild now very much a reality, a ready-made reality.
Three years old! Suddenly, the urge to throttle Makena popped into my head. She took three years of my son’s life not only from me but from my mum too. All the firsts gone, not having the surprising joy of being given am ultra-sound picture to stick on her fridge, knit booties, or fuss over Makena during the pregnancy.
And neither did I, not knit booties, but fuss over my wife. Watch her body grow and change, rub her feet when they got swollen, run to the shops in the middle of the night for ice-cream … all of it taken away from me because of Makena and her warped reasoning that I cheated on her.
I wasn’t sure if forgiveness was going to be possible, even to keep the peace for our son.
My head was in a battle with my libido. Makena was still the sexiest woman I had ever laid eyes on, even more now if that was even conceivable.
“Holy shit!” Hendrixx breathed reverently beside me, breaking me from the fight I was in with myself.
Focusing on the landscape in front of me, the headlights of my car picked up two lonesome figures standing beside an old orange tractor junker.
“Holy shit!” I echoed, slowing the car coming to a stop beside the tractor, which was nothing more than a metal shell, the engine cover the only panel left.
Sitting on that engine cover was a little boy, his legs swinging wildly back and forth. From my position in the car, I could see a bundle of white fur sitting in his lap
wrapped in Daxx’s tiny arms. Fenixx had his arm securely around my boy’s back and a huge smile on his face. Almost in a trance, I opened the door and slipped out of the car, nearly losing my feet in the mud, or it could’ve been because my legs all of a sudden turned into limp noodles.
“Look what I found,” Fenixx crowed happily, but my eyes weren’t on my brother. They were on my son, who looked exactly like Hendrixx, Fenixx and myself when we had been that age.
“I found a kitty!” Daxx shouted out in the cutest voice my ears had ever had the pleasure of hearing. “Me cold and hungwee. Me wanna go home now.”
And just like that, I fell in love.
***
“Mummy stop kissing me; you are making me all icky.”
I stood just inside the door of my son’s room, watching Makena rub Daxx’s hair dry with a towel, stopping every few seconds to rain kisses all over his little face. The smile on my face, no doubt, split it watching the interaction between mother and son, despite the turmoil boiling deep inside me. I had to admit, all begrudgingly, Makena was a wonderful mother, from what I had seen so far. When we returned to the house with Daxx, the relief and love I saw on her face were so tangible I felt it like an ache in my chest. Seeing her lavish love on our son, the tears of joy running down her beautiful face while she hugged our little boy close just about brought tears to my own eyes.
Then the anger set back in, she had the moment that belonged to both parents, leaving me just to stand there looking on like an outsider. And, for all intent purposes, that’s precisely what I was, at least as far as Daxx was concerned. During the short drive from the spot we found him to the house, Hendrixx had been the one to keep Daxx entertained, asking him questions about the kitten he found, what he was going to call him. All I could do was drive the car like a speechless robot, soaking in the sound of my son’s voice, putting every word to memory.
Hott and Taken (The Hott Brothers Book 1) Page 9