Except, there was only one baby to pick up.
The other, I’d explained to him, had never been brought in.
After having a pretty good freak-out on me, so much so that I’d been forced to call the cops—which was when Wade showed up on the scene—it was discovered that the mother didn’t bring the baby after viewing the tapes from the state-of-the-art camera system that Wade had recommended I get.
And thank God I did, or that baby would’ve been in her mother’s car even longer.
Because it came out later that the mother had been flustered. Her older daughter had thrown a fit, and when the little sister—who was eighteen months—would’ve normally followed them inside, she’d instead taken a detour to the back of the car. Then, when she realized her mother’s car door was still open, she’d climbed back inside the car and curled up on the floor and fallen back to sleep.
All the while, I thought the little girl was with mom, and the mom thought the little girl was with me.
Meanwhile, the little girl was in a covered parking garage, but still in quite a bit of heat.
The girl had lived, but she’d suffered minor brain damage from the incident.
“What do you mean was anything said?” I asked.
He gave me a look that I knew meant he was getting irritated. “Was anything said by the mother?”
Oh.
“Well, yes,” I replied. “She was quite justifiably upset, and she did say some pretty mean things to me. She started to harass the daycare. Leaving bad reviews on the daycare’s Facebook page and stuff like that. Bad Yelp reviews. But, since this town is on the smaller side, everyone knew what happened. And, since you told me to release the video camera footage, it wasn’t like she could refute me.”
He grunted. “I’m still pissed about that.”
I was, too.
I was even more pissed that that little girl had suffered so needlessly.
It was so fucking easy for a young child to get lost in the confusion. They were so curious by nature, and their natural instinct was to push the limits—and by doing what she did best, being curious, it had almost cost her her life.
“That day, when that dad pushed you accusing you of losing his kid? I nearly lost my shit,” Wade rumbled. “Then the mother came, screeching in on her little mini-van tires trying to sling accusations at you while their daughter sat in her rear floorboards unconscious? I wanted nothing more than to beat the shit out of both of them.” He paused. “Never wanted to punch a woman before, but then and there? Yeah, I sure the fuck would have if I knew that I would get away with it.”
I snorted.
“But anyway, other than just small stuff—petty little things here and there—I haven’t actually heard from her in well over two months. Which is a record. When the kids need picked up or dropped off, grandma does it,” I explained.
His eyes went wide. “The kids still come here?”
I nodded. “I’m the only daycare in town. Plus, after that happened, both parents decided to get a divorce. I think right now dad is living at grandma’s house, and mom doesn’t have much to do with them except for on her scheduled days.”
“You mean to tell me that dad got custody because mom’s a nutjob.” He snorted. “Seems like the kids would be better off with grandma with both of those people as their parents.”
I smiled.
Just as I was about to reply, my first kiddo arrived.
“Hello there, Darrow!” I sang, holding my hands out.
Darrow’s mother stopped long enough to hand me Darrow’s diaper bag, a half-finished bottle, and a check for this week’s tuition which she was three days late with. “Sorry. Gotta go. Bye.”
With that, she left, and I sighed.
“She’s like twelve minutes early,” Wade pointed out as he watched Darrow’s mother speed away.
“I normally leave the lights off and keep the door locked until six o’clock exactly. With you here, I didn’t remember to do that,” I explained.
He grunted. “Tomorrow we’ll keep the door locked then. What time does Darrow’s mother get here in the afternoon?”
I sighed. “Six, if we’re lucky. Sometimes six-thirty.”
“Fuck,” he rumbled. “What a life to have. I’ll bet he has more of an attachment to you and his teachers than he does his own mother. How old is he?”
“Six months,” I murmured. “And there was this one time that I was holding Darrow and the mom came to pick him up early for some reason. When I went to hand him over, Darrow threw an unholy fit. The mom stormed out, leaving him here, and didn’t come back to pick him up until after closing time.”
He snorted. “What exactly did she expect would happen when she leaves him here for twelve hours a day?”
I shrugged. “Unfortunately, some parents don’t have that luxury. They have to work. I’m here to love them while they’re busy.”
I dropped a kiss on Darrow’s forehead, and then walked him into the main room and placed him on the floor next to some toys.
All the while, I felt Wade’s eyes on me like a hot brand.
When I stood up once more, I turned to find him still staring, totally transfixed.
“What?” I whispered.
His eyes slipped from my ass to my face, and he smiled sadly. “I was just thinking that our babies would’ve been beautiful.”
My heart lurched into my throat. “Yeah.” I looked down at my hands. “They would have.”
***
Twelve hours later I was climbing into Wade’s truck this time after he had switched vehicles after letting Capo out. My heart lurched into my throat when I saw Capo in the back seat, unrestrained, staring at me like I was an interloper that he wanted to deal with.
Capo had come a long way from the first day that I’d met him. He was now able to come out of the cage for extended periods of time as long as Wade was around. Capo was also able to go outside for short walks with a muzzle.
I wasn’t aware that we were quite that far along, though.
I swallowed hard. “Uhhhh, Wade?”
Wade’s smile was quick and only half-hearted.
I sighed and settled into my seat, buckling my seatbelt while I kept my mouth shut.
He’d gotten call after call, text after text, and generally got into a progressively worse mood as the day had gone by.
Needless to say, I wasn’t very happy with the way this day had gone, and Wade wasn’t even apologizing for keeping something from me.
I was so frustrated, in fact, that I didn’t even realize that we weren’t headed home until we pulled up outside Bayou’s house.
And we weren’t the only ones there. All the boys from the club were standing outside, on Bayou’s front lawn, in a loose circle. All of them wore their cuts—their MC leather vests that declared them Bear Bottom Guardians—and looked intimidating as hell.
My eyes searched the small cul-de-sac that Bayou lived on, and I saw that I wasn’t the only one watching.
Nope, there was a young woman out on her front porch, sitting on her porch swing, drinking what appeared to be sweet tea. She was staring unrepentantly at the group, though her eyes followed Hoax as he split off from the loose circle of men and came out our way.
He winked at me as he opened my door, and it was then I realized that at some point while I’d been staring, Wade had exited the vehicle and gotten Capo out.
“Miss Landry.” He winked.
I smiled at Hoax.
“Do you know why Wade’s mad?” I blurted.
He was literally the only one out of the bunch who was wearing something besides a black t-shirt and blue jeans. He’d changed it up with a red shirt and blue jeans.
His arm flexed as he extended his open palm out to me.
“Can’t say that I do,” he answered. “He called us all here to explain, though, so maybe you’ll only have a little bit longer to wait.”
Lord, I hoped so.
A brooding Wade was an unhappy Wade, and anything other than a happy Wade was hard to be around.
I took Hoax’s hand and dropped down from my husband’s lifted truck.
The moment my feet were on the ground, I pulled away, which gave me a perfect view of the woman on the front porch across the street and her narrowed eyes aimed directly at me.
“You have a fan club,” I told Hoax as I reached back inside the truck for my half-empty water bottle. “Do you know her?”
Hoax hummed in agreement. “She’s the nurse that I saw last week when I went to the ER for something. I didn’t know she lived there, otherwise I might’ve visited Bayou a whole hell of a lot sooner.”
I snorted with barely contained laughter. “Something for your arm?”
His eyes went wonky for a second. “No.”
It was so final that I realized he most certainly did not want to talk about his problem.
“Landry, baby. Come here.”
Wade’s lovely voice slid down my spine, and it took everything I had not to shiver.
Skirting around Hoax, I headed for Wade where he was standing in the loose circle, the one that had pushed out a little bit when Wade and I had arrived to allow us room to stand as well.
I swallowed as I met each man’s curious eyes.
There were five men there in total.
Hoax—who was the most recent one that I’d met. Linc and Rome, who I’d never said anything more than hi to over the course of Wade’s and my separation. Bayou, who gave me a warm welcoming smile. Ezekiel—better known as Zee—with his colorful tattoos. And finally, Castiel, a man who worked with my husband and who hadn’t said a civil word to me since I’d left him.
I quickly looked away from that particular pair of eyes and smiled back at Bayou.
“You have a new injury since I saw you last,” I commented.
There was a new laceration that was right underneath his left eye that looked like it hadn’t felt really good to get considering the cut also had a large bruise surrounding it.
“Had a young man think it was okay to start a prison riot yesterday," he calmly replied. “I convinced him differently.”
I snickered and leaned into Wade, who wrapped his arm around me and resituated his weight so that he could better accommodate me.
“Your hand looks good,” Castiel said.
I felt my stomach sink.
I really, really didn’t want to talk to Cass. He was the most welcoming in the beginning, but definitely the worst in the end.
“Yeah,” I flexed it. “Still can’t feel the back of my hand, though.”
I didn’t look him in the eye, and I felt Wade shift.
I looked up at him to see him frowning down at me.
“What?” I whispered.
He opened his mouth to reply, but Bayou interrupted him.
“So why are we here, Wade?” Bayou rumbled. “My fuckin’ face hurts.”
I snorted and turned back to see Bayou gently prodding the skin to the side of his hurt eye.
Meaning Bayou didn’t want to be standing out talking when he could be ignoring everyone and everything.
Wade’s gaze shifted down to me once more, then he sighed.
“Yesterday I was made aware that Landry was being harassed by a woman who was upset that Landry got Capo and she didn’t,” Wade started.
At the mention of Capo’s name, the dog shifted his weight and leaned into Wade’s other side. All attention turned to him for a few seconds and Capo started to growl.
Wade sighed, and I turned my face away, just as the others did.
“Anyway, I had Cass do some research into it, and he found out that that the original name she used was also the maiden name of a woman who takes her children to Landry’s daycare,” Wade continued.
I stiffened.
“Really?” Bayou asked, large arms crossing menacingly over his chest. “Who is it?”
“Her name is Deborah Shultz. The name she used originally to try to get Capo was Debbie Petty,” Castiel said, making my eyes reluctantly turn to him.
“Deborah Shultz. Why does that sound so familiar?” Hoax asked.
“Deborah Shultz is the crazy chick who tried to blame Landry for losing her kid while the kid had been in her car—in the heat, in a parking garage—for six-plus hours,” Bayou rumbled. “She’s just fortunate that it wasn’t one of our hundred degree days or the kid would be dead.”
That surprised me that he remembered those details.
Though, I guess it shouldn’t.
The Bear Bottom Guardians had a significant understanding of what happened in their community. Their fingers lay on the pulse of Bear Bottom, and if anything happened, they were the first to know. It didn’t matter if ol’ Mrs. Gable, the ninety-year-old Army nurse veteran had tried to shoot the delivery driver again, or if the young teenager who had always been sweet as pie had suddenly turned into a goth girl over the weekend.
They knew it, and nothing ever came as a surprise to them—at least not when I was around.
They were superhuman it seemed.
“Yep,” Wade confirmed. “She wasn’t smart using her maiden name. It was easy enough to track her.”
“All the other names are phony as fuck,” Castiel said.
“So, what do we do now?” I finally asked, still not meeting Castiel’s eyes.
“We file a restraining order against her.” Castiel’s words startled me into making eye contact, and I felt my belly clench at the lack of warmness in his eyes. “You come up to the department tomorrow, and we’ll get you squared away. I ran the info by the judge today, and he’s already agreed to approve the order.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay.”
Wade’s arm went around my waist, and I felt comforted by the solid warmth. “I’ll get her up there in the morning around eleven. That’s when she takes her lunch. Okay?”
Castiel nodded.
“What else aren’t you telling me?” I finally asked. “You could’ve told me all of that earlier.”
Wade sighed. “She’s using your name and business to get dogs.”
I blinked. “Okay…”
“And she’s taking them somewhere,” Castiel said. “But they never actually get to her house. She’s not rehoming them. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me that once she gets the dogs, she drops them off on an abandoned highway on the way home, because literally, nobody has seen her with any dogs.”
I got a sick feeling in my stomach.
“She’s using my name to get dogs, and then is doing something—likely something not so good—to them. And nobody can find them at all?” I repeated, making sure I understood him.
“And, on top of that, she’s been taking in funds that were meant to be donated to you and your cause,” Castiel continued. “There’s like eight different fundraisers she’s doing right now, promising that she’s sending out t-shirts and stuff like that for donating…and hasn’t done it yet. She raised over three grand with her last one, and some of the donors are starting to ask questions.”
I let my head fall back on my neck, and I looked at the sky that was slowly starting to sink in the sky, dropping below the line of trees in the distance.
“Of course,” I groaned. “I should’ve known when she stopped hounding me at work that she’d found some other way to vent her frustration with me.”
“Just sayin’,” Hoax drawled. “But I didn’t think you did anything wrong.”
“She didn’t,” Wade replied. “It was the mother’s fault for not paying attention to whether her child actually followed her into the daycare, not Landry’s fault. Sure, Landry could’ve asked, but it was a little chaotic that day with the three new triplets showing up. Furthermore, the mom sometimes let the grandmother watch the baby, so it wasn’t all that unusual for only one kid to show up. How was she supposed to know that the baby’s absence that day wasn’t just a normal thing?”
I felt
my heart start to warm at Wade’s faith in me.
And, once again, I was reminded of how stupid and selfish I’d been when I filed for divorce.
“Bitch is crazy,” someone said from behind us.
I whirled, my heart in my throat at having someone standing directly behind me, and smiled at Liner.
Liner was one of the only people, besides Bayou, to talk to me. He also didn’t drop me like a hot potato when I’d done the unthinkable and filed for divorce.
“Hi, Liner,” I murmured. “You’re not talking about me, are you?”
He rolled his eyes and raised one hand to mess with my hair.
I slapped his hand away, causing him to laugh.
“I’m talking about ol’ Debbie Doozy,” he replied.
“Aren’t you her neighbor?” Rome asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. “It seems like I attract all the crazy neighbors.”
He directed a look toward Rome, and I had a feeling that I was missing something.
Rome grunted. “It’s not my fault that Tara moved in next to you. It’s your fault for telling me that you had an opening.”
“When I said that my renters moved out, I thought that you were going to move in, not your crazy ex,” he explained.
Ah.
Rome’s ex was a woman named Tara, and she had lived next to Liner for a time while her son was going through chemo treatments.
Rome’s son, Matias, hadn’t made it.
And some time in between Matias being diagnosed and Matias passing away, Tara had run away and never looked back.
That was all that I knew, and I knew better than to even touch on this subject by trying to find out more right now. I’d have to ask Wade later when there was no possibility that we’d be heard by Rome.
“I can tell you now that Debbie Doozy doesn’t have any dogs. Hell, she only has her kids every other weekend, and I fuckin’ cringe when that day comes around,” Liner mumbled, squeezing his way into the circle between me and Bayou.
I leaned a little more heavily into Wade, who took my weight with ease despite the fact that his leg was still bothering him.
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