Chapter 35
[Cadence]
Whatever it was that Ford and I were doing, I’d assumed he’d want to keep us a secret from his family. We’d agreed the girls didn’t need to know anything, which kept our nights interesting as we stifled screams and cut off groans by kissing one another.
But at the impromptu baseball game, Ford didn’t keep his hands to himself.
When I scored, he was there to wrap me in a hug and lift me in the air, even though he was on the other team.
When I played my guitar that night, Ford sat close enough our legs touched and he set his arm behind me on my chair.
And in between those times were subtle touches and stolen kisses when we thought no one would see us. Vale was the only one who caught us, giving us a surprised stare before softening her features into a warm smile.
“Knew I liked you, girl,” she’d said to me.
Vale’s approval also came when she saw how attentive I was to Ford’s girls.
Zelle, Winnie, and June circled me like the little ducklings I call them, and I loved every minute of it more than I should.
They weren’t fans of Cadence the superstar.
They liked me, the silly woman who waddled like a duck, played hide-n-seek, colored pictures, and could French braid even the shortest hair.
They were imprinted on me as much as their father was becoming.
And that scared the bejeezus out of me.
+ + +
Small towns like to celebrate for any reason, but the Fourth of July was a big excuse, especially when you had someone considered a hometown hero, like Knox Sylver, and a hometown star, like Ford.
The annual parade happened along the main street through the business district, and afterward townsfolk filtered into the common green space at the end of the district.
Packed with picnickers, the area was almost worse than the parade, and I held my breath at every encounter when someone approached Ford, afraid they’d also recognize me.
I hadn’t received a new text in a few days and the silence unnerved me almost as much as the previously incessant messages.
I had a weird feeling in my stomach all day which was high in humidity and sunshine.
Keeping my hair tucked into Ford’s ball cap, and my roundest sunglasses in place, I did the best I could to hide myself despite being out in the open.
Still, at one point, I was walking toward a small pop-up tent where local high schoolers were selling lemonade to raise funds for the school band when a woman bumped into me.
“Sorry, Cadence.” Her apology was so quick and her disappearance into the crowd just as fast that I didn’t get a good look at who she was. The strangest part was how hard she hit me in the shoulder when there was plenty of space to walk around me despite the crowd.
“Are you okay?” Zelle asks me as I’d recruited her to help me carry cups of lemonade back to my sister. Sebastian and Ford are surprisingly civil with one another as the four of us gravitated together with all the younger girls.
“I’m good.” I squeeze my upper arm, roll my shoulder, and offer Zelle a smile before taking her hand again. A little bump is nothing compared to the injury her dad had incurred.
Purchasing the lemonade seemed like it took forever as each kid filled plastic cups with ice, sugar, water, and lemons, shaking the mixture for the best combination of tart freshness.
With cups in hand, Zelle and I return to our little sliver of a blanket on the square where Ford is standing upright, hands on his hips and a tight expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” The fine hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
“Was June with you?” Sharp and strong, his voice is like the crack of a bat.
“No.” I glance at Zelle as if a now nine-year-old can help me out. “Was June supposed to be with us?”
Zelle shakes her head and glances at Winnie who stands by Ford looking equally concerned.
“What happened?”
Ford tugs off his ball cap and curses before slapping the hat back on his head. “I can’t find June.” The anguish in his voice says it all as he scans over the crowd, as if hoping a little girl with wild blond curls and her thumb in her mouth will magically appear in the sea of people.
“Where’s Enya?” My sister and Sebastian are both absent from our spot along with Adara’s stroller.
“They went to search for June. They told me to stay here and wait for you in case June was with you.”
“Ford, I’m so—”
Ignoring my apology and dismissing my next question—what does he want me to do—he brushes away my extended hand while reaching for his phone with the other to call someone.
“Stone. I lost June.” His voice cracks again as he runs a hand over his face.
I step closer to him, intending to place my hand on his chest. His heart must be racing. But Ford takes a step back from me and I stare at him, telling myself his sudden distance is only because he’s lost his daughter.
“I’ll go look for her, too.” Reaching out for Zelle’s hand, thinking it would help to remove her and let Ford concentrate solely on finding June, he grips Zelle’s thin shoulders and draws her closer to him.
“Leave Zelle with me.”
I scowl, not liking his tone. But again, I dismiss his behavior as concern for June and waste no more time arguing. Gingerly, I step through the seated crowd of people, crying out her name as I move beyond them.
With my hands cupped around my mouth, I call again and again, drawing attention to myself, more than I’m comfortable with.
While I never mind the whispers, stares, and pointed fingers, I’m also well-aware I’m in a sea of people who could suddenly full-on recognize me.
The potential of a mob isn’t something I can tackle on my own, and I fight off the panic rising in my chest as I continue to call for June.
A few people start to mimic me, crying out June’s name as if in response to my call. Knox and Halle are also walking among the crowd asking if anyone has seen my little duckling. After what feels like hours, but might only be minutes, something in the distance catches my eye.
A person wearing a dress and a large floppy sunhat with her back to the gathering is walking away from the square. The same woman who bumped into me. In her arms is a curly-headed blond child, sucking her thumb over the woman’s shoulder.
“June!” I scream, then take off running, dodging people like a fish swimming upstream.
Every few feet I jump up as best I can, attempting not to lose sight of that hat and June.
With my phone in my hand, I try to call Ford, but someone knocks my raised elbow, and my phone clatters to the ground.
I don’t bother to look for it. Instead, I power through the swarm of celebratory town’s people until I’m in the clear.
Then I’m racing down Main Street.
+ + +
FORD
Violet intercepted me at some point and took over with Zelle and Winnie who was crying hysterically that we’d lost June. Despite the frenzy of my search, while attempting not to lose my other girls, and the pounding of my heart in my ears, I’d heard Cadence’s scream for June.
When Cadence’s head pops up above the rest of the crowd, I try to make my way toward her until she breaks free of the gathering near the entrance to Main Street.
Shifting my race toward the intersection of Main and Corner, I lose sight of her.
Thankfully, the road is still blocked off from the parade and cars aren’t driving toward me as I sprint down the middle of the road.
I nearly passed Corner, focused on the emptiness of Main ahead of me, when something causes me to turn my head. Two women stand near a minivan; June is in Cadence’s arms.
Changing direction so quickly, I stumble, trip over my own feet at the change in trajectory, and almost fall to the cement, making an awkward windmill with my arms before righting myself seconds from face planting to the ground.
With renewed momentum, I rush down Corner and almost collide with Cadence before ripping June out of her arms and tucking my baby girl into my chest, pacing a few steps away from the two women.
With June’s head cradled in my hand, holding her face to my neck, my other arm supports her against me.
“June. June. June.” I whimper. My heart is in my throat. My legs tremble from the sprint. My shoulder screams. I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast in my life. I’m also certain I’ve never been so frightened.
Spinning back toward Cadence, I glance from one woman to the other who has Cadence’s full attention.
“You shouldn’t be here, Angela,” Cadence grits. Her hands are fists at her side.
Taking a step closer to them, I consider calling Stone. I should notify everyone that I found my June Bug, but I’m afraid to release her and reach for my phone. I don’t want to ever let her go.
“I couldn’t seem to get your attention otherwise,” the woman states, crossing her arms. Her tone is off or maybe it’s the pitch.
Wearing a dress too large for her small frame and a floppy oversized sunhat, she could be anyone.
I’ve been absent from Sterling Falls long enough I no longer know half the people who reside here.
But something about her says she isn’t a local.
And what she just said to Cadence makes no sense.
“You don’t need my attention,” Cadence counters. “You need to leave me alone.”
“Like you left my husband alone?” The tenor of her voice becomes clearer. She sounds like she belongs in the English countryside.
“What the fuck?” I don’t care that the four-year-old in my arms hears me. June is crying into my neck, and whether that’s her own fear or the fear vibrating off me, I can’t be certain. But one thing is for sure, this woman is a nutcase. And she’s the wife of someone Cadence once slept with?
“I—” Cadence’s knuckles are nearly white with how hard she’s squeezing her fists. “I don’t think you should be talking to me.” Her eyes narrow. “How did you even find me?”
The woman—Angela—glances at me a second before turning back to Cadence. “Not hard to find you when you leave a social media trail.”
Cadence’s mouth pops open before she spares me a glance. “I have not.”
She once told me she doesn’t post half of what’s on her profiles. As I’m not on social media myself, I haven’t checked out Cadence’s accounts after my initial investigation.
Did she put my girls on her social media? Am I on there as well? “What the fuck, Cadence?”
She knows I’m protective of my daughters and while Felicity used to dress them up like dolls and parade them over her socials like she was the perfect mother, I didn’t feel comfortable posting my girls’ images with mine.
I was afraid of this very moment. When someone with a loose screw would put two and two together and take one or all of them.
“Oh, so this is my fault,” Cadence counters, guilt written in her eyes while her face is stern.
Ignoring her question, I bark at this Angela woman. “Who the fuck are you?”
“No one of consequence to you.” Her voice isn’t half as strong as she’d like it to sound. I’d never touch a woman, but I could snap her small frame in half.
“You are if you touch my daughter,” I roar.
“She’s Angela Lauer, Evan’s wife.”
“Evan, as in Evan Lauer,” I state incredulously.
Had Cadence told me his full name before?
Maybe she did, but I hadn’t connected the dots when learning she’d been the other woman in an adulterous relationship.
And now Angela’s accent makes even more sense.
She’s British, like her world famous, action-adventure film star husband.
Addressing Angela, my incredulity grows to full-on anger.
“You’re pissed at her, so you decide to take my kid?
” But I’m equally angry with Cadence and turn on her.
“I’d asked you once if my girls were in danger, and you told me no.
” Yet this happens. My daughter is almost kidnapped by a scorned woman because of Cadence and her drama.
Cadence stares at me. Her hands still balled into fists at her side. Her head high, eyes flaming with indignation and shame. I can’t deal with her right now.
I want to take June as far away from here as I can but there are consequences to be paid for Angela’s actions.
I snap. “Call Stone.”
“I can’t.” Cadence drops her gaze. “I lost my phone somewhere.”
This is the final straw. “Maybe you should have disconnected that number like I thought you had. And next time, run a background check on potential lovers.”
Cadence gasps, her mouth dropping open and freezing in a shocked expression.
My limbs are vibrating with the rational terror that had another few minutes passed, June might have been gone forever. I don’t care what this stranger tells me. What her intentions had been. How she only wanted Cadence’s attention.
Using my daughter for such a thing was unacceptable.
I twist and hitch my ass toward Cadence, refusing to move my hands from June’s trembling body. “Take my phone. Stone is the first number in my favorites.” Actually, Cadence’s number is the first, but I don’t know where she ranks after this situation.
While Cadence taps my phone, Angela runs around the minivan but there’s no chance of escape.
I set June on the cement against the building and reach Angela before she can open the driver’s door.
Pressing her up against the vehicle, I’ll worry later about potential battery charges against me.
For now, the woman is pinned with her hands behind her back.
Within seconds, Stone arrives on foot and a squad car turns onto Corner Street.
“This was a bad move, Angela,” I growl.
“So was her fucking my husband.”
I agree, but there’s someone more at fault here. “Your husband made his choices, lady. Bad ones. And I’m sorry that hurt you but taking my child only made your problems worse.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt her.” She twists in a way to show me her pleading eyes. “I just wanted Cadence’s attention.”
I don’t spare Cadence a glance because I’m too afraid to remove my eyesight from this sad woman but out the corner of my eye, I sense Cadence clutching June to her.
Stone takes over my position and a squad car pulls up behind us. My brother doesn’t bother to ask Angela what her intention was. He’s reading the bitch her Miranda rights and cuffing her while I return to the sidewalk where Cadence is holding June in her arms, pressing a lingering kiss to her head.
Adrenaline still rushes through my body, so I reach for my daughter and tug her to me, briefly noting the hurt in Cadence’s eyes. She releases a whimper when I drag June from her grasp and grip my child to my chest once again.
Cadence’s vulnerability makes her raw. However, anger and fear still rage within me.
Beside me, she clears her throat and speaks to Stone. “I think I better come to the station as well.”
Stone’s gaze doesn’t flicker from Angela. He nods once to agree with Cadence. After he places Angela in the back of the sheriff’s car, he leads Cadence to a second vehicle that arrived.
And with only an apologetic glance back at me, Cadence is gone.