Chapter 35 #2
Blaine wasn’t sure he qualified anymore, but he went. Slowly, carefully, a difficult task given his every instinct was screaming at him to charge this place, grab Ethan and get him out of there. When he was in the same spot Rafe had been, he lifted the binoculars.
Every muscle he had tightened the moment he spotted the boy sitting on a rock just outside the tent.
His head was in his hands and all Blaine could really see was that his hair was the right color, the same sandy blond as his mother’s.
He wore a stained hoodie sweatshirt, and jeans that had a hole in one knee and were a bit ragged around the bottom edges.
He felt a ripple of an emotion he couldn’t name when he saw the boots the boy had on.
The lace-up, military-style boots he’d bought the boy for his fourteenth birthday just a few months ago. They were the only thing he wanted, Ethan had told him. Boots like his.
He tried to swallow past the sudden, constricting tightness of his throat. It really was Ethan. It had to be. And then the boy looked up, to his left, and Blaine saw his face, which confirmed it.
But seeing his son’s face confirmed something else. And this was what Rafe had wanted, he knew. There was no mistaking the slumped posture, the hunched shoulders. But even if he hadn’t been certain, the way the boy took a sudden swipe at his eyes told him what he’d sensed in his gut was true.
Ethan was miserable.
Another person, a bigger kid Blaine immediately recognized as the boy with the temper from the robbery video, came around the back of the tent, followed by the other, younger boy who had helped stage the distracting fight.
Ethan watched both of them warily, and the bigger kid said something to him that made him lower his gaze, to his knees apparently, judging by the way he started picking at the hole in his jeans.
And Blaine did not like the way the apparent leader was looking at his son. He wondered if the guy was perceptive enough to have noticed Ethan’s unhappiness, his restlessness. If maybe he guessed the boy wanted to bail.
There were a couple of other kids back farther under the trees, apparently collecting firewood, who looked about Ethan’s age or even younger. And they were close enough to mess things up unless they played this right.
Ethan said something, and the leader cuffed him on the side of the head. Every muscle in Blaine’s body tensed, and it was all he could do not to go racing down the slope and put the guy on his ass. But he could see the butt of the handgun the older boy had stuck into his belt, and stopped himself.
The bigger guy—funny how he didn’t seem much like a kid now, after that—shoved Ethan into the tent and said something to him. Through the binoculars Blaine could almost read his lips, and thought he’d said “—and stay there!”
He’d seen enough. He made his way silently down the rise to where Erin, Rafe and the amazing Cutter were waiting. Rafe lifted a brow at him silently.
Keeping his voice as low as he could he said, “Five of them, total. The older one with the gun, two more about Ethan’s age, and one younger.” He looked at Erin. “He’s scared, just like the clerk said. And he’s miserable.”
“Yes,” Erin said instantly, confirming she, who would know better than he, had seen the same thing.
Rafe nodded. “Then he won’t fight you. That’s what we needed to know.”
“And,” Blaine added by way of warning, “I don’t like the way the leader’s treating him.”
“He’s watching him really carefully,” Erin agreed.
“Like he doesn’t trust him?” Rafe asked.
Blaine nodded. “And he just slapped him, and ordered him into the tent.”
Erin tensed even more, but didn’t speak.
“Time to move, then.” Rafe began to slide off his backpack.
They had discussed on the way here what would happen at this point, and while Erin hadn’t been happy, she’d understood.
Both of them, he knew, would risk anything to get their boy out of this.
It had been a tough call, but she had agreed she was out of it, because while she would appear less threatening to the kid with the handgun, even she admitted—painfully—that if Ethan saw her he was likely to be uncooperative.
And Rafe was many things, but easy to overlook or take casually wasn’t one of them.
So for now, they would stay back, out of sight. Rafe would stay with her, but ready to make whatever move was necessary, while they hoped that the surprise of seeing his father would put Ethan off-balance enough that, if nothing else, Blaine could grab him and run.
“Here,” Rafe said, digging into a side pocket of the pack and then holding out what looked like an earbud. “Keep this in so I can relay any larger view changes, and can hear how it’s going on your end. It’s on VOX, so just talk.”
“Vox?” asked Erin.
“Voice-activated,” Blaine answered as he seated the tiny device in his right ear.
Rafe did a test count that came through clearly, and he nodded.
Then he quietly called Cutter back to them.
The dog obeyed, although he immediately turned back to face that scent as Rafe handed Blaine the leash he’d had stuffed in a pocket.
Blaine clipped it onto the dog’s collar, amazed at how the animal looked at him as if in acknowledgement of who was now in control.
“He’s downright scary,” Blaine muttered.
“Yep,” Rafe agreed cheerfully. “But he knows what the leash means and he’ll look to you for orders. And,” he added, “he knows what it means if you let him off it.”
“That he’s in charge?” Erin asked. “You trust him that much?”
“Everyone at Foxworth has trusted this guy with their life, at one time or another. So have our clients. So far he’s batting a thousand.”
“Good enough for me,” Blaine said, reaching down to stroke the dog’s head. When he saw Erin watching, as if she completely understood the comfort just touching the dog gave, he asked her quietly, “A pat for luck?”
“Yes,” she said, reaching down to stroke the exact same spot Blaine had. Cutter gave them one of those steady, intense looks he was so good at. And Blaine had the strangest feeling it was something along the lines of “We’ll work on you when this is done.”
Lord, he was losing his mind, putting such thoughts into the mind—although an admittedly very clever mind—of a dog.
“Ready?” Rafe asked. He nodded, straightened and took the leash into his left hand. “You sure about no weapon?”
Blaine nodded. He could shoot, had been trained, but this was different. Nothing was clear-cut here, and his son was involved.
“One-on-one isn’t really my ballpark. I don’t want anything they could grab while I’m focused on Ethan.” His mouth quirked upward. “I’m counting on one of the best Marine snipers in history to handle that, if necessary. And to keep Erin safe.”
“We’ll get it done,” Rafe promised.
And that they would, Blaine vowed. One way or another.
Ethan was coming home.