Chapter Ten
TINY PUT OUT the word to the Dark Knights that one of their own was missing, and while Cowboy and Dare loaded ATVs onto trucks and horses into trailers, Doc climbed on his motorcycle and sped over to Juliette’s, as concerned about her as he was about Lucas.
She ran outside as he climbed off his bike and landed in his arms. “He’s never run away before. He hates me for lying.”
“He doesn’t hate you. He’s hurt and confused.”
“I shouldn’t have let him go to the barn alone, but he was so angry. This is all my fault. I was stupid for lying to him for all these years. He’ll never forgive me.”
Doc took her by the shoulders, his chest constricting at her red-rimmed eyes and pink nose. “You did what you could to protect him, given the information you believed to be true. We’ll get that straightened out, but right now we need to focus on finding Lucas. Does he have his phone?”
“Yes, but my calls are going straight to voicemail.”
“Okay. I need you to text me any recent pictures you have of him, a picture of his horse, and a list of the places you think he might’ve gone. I need to know where he practices riding, his friends’ names and where they live, any places he likes to hang out.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said frantically. “It was stupid to say he’d try to get to your ranch. He doesn’t know the area well enough to risk it. I don’t think he’d go off the trails.”
“It wasn’t stupid. He’s fifteen . At that age every boy thinks he’s invincible, and he’s running from what he sees as his world crumbling down around him. No place is off-limits. Does he have a best friend? Someone he’d confide in.”
“Not really. He was texting with Jade’s niece Layla earlier, but I called Jade, and she called Layla’s parents. They said she hasn’t heard from him, but they’ll let me know if she does.” She pulled out her phone. “Should we call the police?”
“Not yet. He hasn’t been missing long enough for them to do anything. But we’ve got that covered. The guys are on their way, and my buddy Hazard—Hector Martinez—is a cop. Let’s get going on that list. They’ll be here soon.”
She began thumbing out a list.
As she did that, Doc studied the local trail maps on his phone. “Does he ever go to Devil’s Bend?” Devil’s Bend was a dangerous ravine.
“No. When we first moved here, Jade and Rex warned us about it, and I forbade Lucas from going there.”
Doc knew damn well most pissed-off teenagers would take great pleasure in defying the parent who angered them. But he wasn’t about to tell her that, because he didn’t know Lucas, and hopefully he was wrong.
Juliette thumbed out the list, and as the roar of engines neared, she sent it, and the photos, to Doc. “I wrote down every place I could think of.”
“Great.” He scanned the list. “Buck’s his coach?” Buck Waller had been Doc’s bull-riding coach when he was a kid.
She nodded. “Yeah. He did such a good job coaching you, it made sense to sign Lucas up with him.”
“I’m glad you did. If Buck sees him, he’ll drag Lucas’s ass back home for sure. I’m forwarding this to Tiny so he can disseminate it to the guys.”
When the Dark Knights converged on Juliette’s property with trucks, motorcycles, trailers carrying ATVs, and horse trailers, her jaw dropped. “How many people did you call?”
“The whole club. We’re not leaving anything to chance.” As the guys started unloading the equipment and horses, his parents climbed out of his father’s truck. “Come on.” Doc took Juliette’s hand, heading over to them.
Her gaze flicked nervously to their joined hands, then up at him.
Fuck . They were in this together. Taking her hand felt so natural, he didn’t even think before doing it. “Sorry.” He released her hand, silently cursing himself.
“I just…Everything is complicated right now. I don’t want to make it worse.”
“It’s fine. I get it.” That didn’t mean it wasn’t killing him not to be able to give her that extra support as they quickly made their way to his parents.
“Juliette, honey.” His mother opened her arms and embraced her. “You must be worried sick.”
“I am,” Juliette said. “Sorry to bother you all with this. I didn’t know Seeley was going to call in the cavalry. Although I appreciate it more than you can know. Especially after everything that’s happened.”
“Darlin’, you became family the minute you came to stay on our ranch,” Tiny said. “That doesn’t go away because of hard times.”
“Damn right it doesn’t,” Dare said as he and Cowboy came up behind them. “Otherwise they’d’ve disowned me years ago. Get in here, girl.” He embraced Juliette. “We’ll find your boy.”
“Good to see you again, Juliette,” Cowboy said, drawing her into his arms. “Wish it were under better circumstances.”
“Me too,” she said nervously.
“Let’s get a move on before nightfall,” Tiny said.
“Tiny, I’m taking the trail to the west,” Doc said. His father nodded, and as Tiny and his brothers headed for the other men, Doc turned to Juliette. “My mom is going to stay with you in case you need anything. Text me if Lucas shows up.”
“I will. Do you need flashlights?”
“No. We’ve got plenty.”
“Lucas doesn’t have one,” she said shakily.
“He has his phone, and it has a flashlight on it.” He pressed his hand to her cheek. “Don’t worry. We’ll find our boy and bring him home.” He kissed her forehead, his chest constricting.
Doc grabbed a headlamp and headed for his horse as Tiny doled out orders. “Take a good look at the pictures I texted you. You see any teens while you’re out, ask if they’ve seen him. Anyone gets a lead, text it in. If you find him, text it in. Hyde and Taz, get five or six guys and check the school grounds, the ranch where he practices, and the surrounding area. I need a handful of volunteers to check any trails around those locations. Otto and Pep, take as many guys as you need to check out neighboring ranches. Manny, grab a few men and head into town. See what you can find there. Rebel and Ezra, check the hangouts on that list. Dare and Cowboy, you take the trails to the east. Check every stream, behind every bush and tree. Teenagers are good at hiding…”
Doc mounted Romeo, and with a press of heels and a “ Heeya! ” the horse raced across the pasture. The trail was fairly well worn between brush and trees, allowing him to ride at a fast clip. He scanned the area, but he knew Lucas wouldn’t be that close. At fifteen, the first thing Doc would have done was get as far away as possible from whoever or whatever had pissed him off. His gut told him to head for Devil’s Bend, so that’s exactly what he did.
He followed the trail up a steep incline, calling out Lucas’s name as he weaved between thick pines and around scrub and rocky outcrops. He slowed to look in places where he thought Lucas might hide. He squinted into the setting sun as he rode along the crest of the mountain, his thoughts volleying between Come on, boy. Where are you hiding? and begging the universe to keep him safe. Now he understood why his father got so pissed off every time they’d run off to do something stupid when they were kids.
When he came to the ravine, at the bottom of which was the creek that led to Devil’s Bend, he gave Romeo a minute to study the hillside. Doc kept himself centered in the saddle as best he could, allowing Romeo to find his way down the dangerously steep, rocky incline.
“Attaboy, take your time.” He prayed Lucas had gone in the other direction. If not, he sure as hell hoped he was as good of a rider as Juliette claimed, because an inexperienced rider could hurt themself and their horse.
When they finally reached the base, they followed the creek. Doc spotted hoofprints in the dirt, and the muscles in his neck and shoulders tightened. The ravine curved at a sharp angle up ahead where the water pooled and deepened right before the creek dropped like a cliff into a bed of rocks. He hoped to hell Lucas hadn’t tried to take his horse down that cliff.
He quickly weighed his options. As a skilled rider, he could get around that bend and down the hill faster on Romeo, but if Lucas was around the bend, it might spur him into doing something stupid. On the other hand, if his gut was wrong and Lucas wasn’t there, he was wasting the last precious minutes of dusk.
Erring on the side of caution, he dismounted Romeo, tied him to a tree, and made his way around the bend. Lucas’s horse was tied to a tree, but Lucas was nowhere in sight. Fuck . Doc’s gaze hit the ground, and he saw boot prints leading to the edge of the fucking cliff. His gut seized, his every muscle tensing, and he prayed Lucas didn’t fucking jump.
With his heart in his throat, he went to the edge and peered over it. Lucas was pacing by the creek. Thank Fucking God . Doc did a quick visual scan for injuries, taking in his gait and unbroken limbs.
He quickly thumbed out a text to Juliette. Found him. He’s safe. I’m going to try to talk to him. Then he texted Tiny. He’s at Devil’s Bend. Don’t tell Juliette that. I don’t want her to worry. He looks unharmed. I’ll report back.
Doc looked up at the sky. Don’t let me fuck this up .
As Doc started to make his way down the hill, Lucas spun around, his eyes narrowing. “What the hell do you want?”
Doc held his hands up. “I just want to talk.” When he came off the hillside, he said, “Your mom is worried sick about you.”
“I don’t care,” Lucas snapped, his hands fisting as he faced off with Doc. “She doesn’t give a shit about me. She’s a fucking liar.”
“I get that you’re pissed, and you have a right to be. Hell, we all have a right to be. But that’s your mother you’re talking about, so watch your mouth. She gave up her life to save yours when she wasn’t much older than you.”
“She didn’t give up shit.” Lucas’s eyes were shooting daggers. “And don’t act like you’re my father . I don’t even know you.”
“You’re right. You don’t know me, but I’m hoping one day that’ll change.”
“Keep dreaming.” Lucas walked away. “You’re just some asshole who knocked up my mother.”
“Oh yeah? Is that what you think?” Doc strode in front of him, blocking his path. He knew he was walking a fine line, but he wasn’t about to let Lucas get away with assumptions and bad-mouthing him or Juliette. “You seem like you’re pretty grown up, so I’m not going to dumb this down for you. Think you can handle talking man-to-man? Or do you want to act like a child and run away again?”
Lucas crossed his arms, lifting his chin.
It was like looking in a fucking mirror twenty years earlier.
Doc pushed that thought down deep and focused on clearing the air. “I don’t know how much your mother told you, but I’m going to give it to you straight. I wasn’t just the asshole who knocked her up. I was the asshole who fell so damn in love with her, I couldn’t see straight when she was torn from my life. Your mother has owned my heart since she was sixteen years old, and if you think she didn’t give up anything to raise you, you’re sorely mistaken. She gave up a whole fucking ranch full of people who loved her.”
“Yeah, right. That’s why you were never in our lives, because you cared so much.”
“I was never in your life because I didn’t know you existed.” He took a deep breath, trying to temper his frustration and figure out how to get his point across. “Imagine you had a girlfriend, and suddenly her father shows up with bodyguards and drags her into an SUV, kicking and screaming, and he locks her up like a fucking prisoner in her own home. That’s what your grandfather did to your mother, all because I wasn’t from a rich enough family for him. He threatened to ruin my family if I ever came near her again. I went behind my family’s back, risking everything we were and everything we had, and I fought to see her. Your grandfather told me she was back together with her ex-boyfriend and she didn’t care about me. Then he ordered his bodyguards to kick my ass. They left me barely conscious on the side of the road. Don’t think for a second that I didn’t fight for her.”
Lucas swallowed hard, and Doc thought he saw a moment of understanding. But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “If you two were so in love, why didn’t she fight for you ?”
“She did , only I never knew it. Your grandfather monitored the phones, so your mother wrote me letters and gave them to a housekeeper to get them to me, but I never received them. That housekeeper gave your mother a letter that was supposedly written by me, telling her I didn’t want her or our baby. But I never wrote it.”
Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “If you didn’t write it, who did ?”
“I believe your grandfather either wrote that letter or had someone else write it for him. But it doesn’t matter who wrote it. What matters is that your mother and I were both deceived. Your grandfather gave her an ultimatum to abort the pregnancy or marry Josh. She married Josh so she wouldn’t lose you.”
“You’re saying my father married her just because of me?” Lucas’s eyes glassed over, new fury igniting in them. “That’s a lie,” he hissed. “My father loved us.”
“Yes, he did. Very much, from what your mother says. And your mother loved him, too, but she wasn’t in love with him, like she was with me. There’s a difference.”
“And you just gave up on her? That’s not love .”
“Don’t you dare question my love for your mother. Her engagement announcement was in the newspaper and all over social media. When I saw that, I thought it was true. You have to remember, your mother never got a single message to me in all the weeks after she was taken away from the ranch. I thought she was done with me. What did you expect me to do? Fight for a woman who I thought didn’t want me? Let your grandfather ruin my family because I was a lovesick fool?”
“Shut up.” Lucas turned away. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
“I get it. This whole situation sucks. But you need to know that your mom was trying to protect you. She thought I’d written that letter, and she couldn’t bear the thought of you growing up thinking you were unwanted by me . Don’t hate her because she made a decision at sixteen years old based on the lies she was told. If you want to hate anyone, hate your grandfather for doing this to all of us. If I’d known your mother was pregnant, I’d have been there every day of your life, loving you as much as I loved her.”
“You don’t even know me.” His voice was low and shaky.
“I don’t have to know you to care about you. You’re my blood, but even if you weren’t, I care about your mom, and by extension, that falls to you.” Doc gave that a minute to sink in. “If you think I don’t care, you’re wrong. I have forty men out there searching for you tonight. But I’m not the one who matters right now. Your mother is, and she’s beside herself with worry. How about you text her and let her know you’re alive?”
Lucas didn’t move.
“Come on, dude. She’s spent the last fifteen years raising you, providing for you, and protecting your heart. Surely you can take seven seconds to send a text that’ll protect hers.”
Lucas’s shoulders slumped.
Send the text. Come on, buddy. You can do it.
Lucas shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone, reluctantly thumbing out a text.
“Attaboy. Now let’s get you and that horse of yours home.”
“Don’t think just because you said all that shit, we’re buddies now.”
“Understood. Think you can get your ornery ass up that hill?”
Lucas glowered at him. “There’s nothing I can’t do.”
You are a chip off the old block.
As they climbed up the hill, Lucas said, “How’d you find me, anyway?”
“Your mom said she forbade you from coming here. If I was your age and in your shoes, it’s the first place I’d go.” When they got to the top of the hill, he said, “But the next time you want to disobey your mother, you’d better think long and hard about it.”
“Or what ?” Lucas challenged.
Doc shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.”