Chapter 15
Shane
Get ready, my ass. There was no prepping for something like this.
I’d faced death more times than I could count, but I had never been so fucking scared as I was at this moment. I also hated myself for feeling afraid, not happy. And I was ashamed of being such a fucking coward. This was my baby girl, for God’s sake.
I was a tangled knot of pure, unfiltered suck right now.
But it was all happening, here and now, so I followed everyone out into the chilly mountain air.
I caught a quick, furtive look from Red, but her curious gaze whipped away as soon as my own crossed with it.
I pushed that mess to another part of my mind.
Locked the door on it. One snake’s nest of overwhelming feelings at a time.
Holly was the first one down the steps. She moved slowly, as if she were afraid it was a trap. She looked different. Taller, thinner, her hair had grown longer. Darker than I remembered. Her eyes sought out my face as I walked toward her.
Instinctively, everyone else held back. I caught Frey’s eyes as she did the same. She stopped short, holding Jed’s hand, and letting Holly come on alone.
Just me, and my little girl, everyone watching, pacing toward each other like two gunslingers at high noon. Staring at each other’s faces. Trying to recognize each other.
She stopped a few feet from me, her lip starting to shake. “Daddy?” she asked.
The word, the tone, took me down like a landslide. I lunged forward and dropped to my knees. “Baby,” I rasped.
Suddenly she was in my arms, sobbing. She smelled just like I remembered. Her hair was warm and silky against my nose.
“It’s really you?” she asked.
I let out a short laugh, the one that sounded like a rusty cough. “More or less. Such as I am. You’re as beautiful as ever, sweetheart. You got so big. Look at you.”
“Yeah. I’m growing like a weed, Auntie Frey says.” She hid her face against my shoulder, then lifted her gaze to the bandages around my neck. She brushed her fingertips over them. “Was this from that awful collar?”
I was startled. “What do you know about the collar?”
“I know a lot,” she said, but her voice wobbled. Now clearly wasn’t the time to talk about the bad stuff.
I grabbed her again, holding her small, shaking body as tightly as I dared.
We swayed there together for some time, and after a while, the others started to converge around us, talking softly. I looked up, my eyes blurred and hot. Frey stood there waiting her turn, eyes wet, clutching Jed’s hand.
I rose to my feet, never relinquishing my hold on Holly, and held out an arm to her. Frey wrapped herself around us both, and then I was holding two sobbing females.
It took a while to get the nerve to lift my head, but I finally looked up at Jed, who also looked glassy-eyed and tight-lipped.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What the hell is this I hear about you hooking up with my little sister?” I said. “The hell, dude? Who told you that was okay?”
He grinned. “Nobody. I saw my chance, and I took it. Can you blame me?”
“Maybe later,” I said, and held my arm out to him, too. Now Holly was trapped between all three of us. She started to squawk and wiggle in protest.
Somehow, it went on from there. Holly began to talk a mile a minute, and all my energy and attention was spent on trying to follow what she said. I’d gotten through the wall. I hadn’t crushed anybody’s heart by not being enough. Not feeling enough.
Damn. I’d felt plenty. I was still feeling it.
I walked along awkwardly, Holly clutching my waist, Frey’s arm above hers, hugging them both and trying to match steps to both of them, which was impossible.
We shuffled and lurched down the breezeway, through the crowd.
Holly stopped when she saw Red, who stood there holding Reggie’s hand, wiping tears from her own eyes and trying not to show it.
Holly and Reggie exchanged swift, curious glances and smiles, and then Holly looked up at Red.
“Are you the one who helped my daddy get away?” she asked.
Red gave Holly a misty smile. “It was a mutual thing. We helped each other. I wouldn’t have made it here without him.”
Holly let go of me and lunged for her, hugging her fiercely. “Thank you.”
“Oh, honey.” Red’s arms circled her shoulders. “My pleasure.”
“I second that,” Freya said. Then she descended upon Red as well, and Holly was once again squeezed into a sandwich until she started giggling.
Eventually we made it inside. The period that followed was a blur, Holly on my lap, Freya next to me, telling me incoherent, outrageous stories about hers and Jed’s and Holly and Kat and Ethan’s wild, dangerous adventures in their attempts to find me.
God. It was a miracle that any of them were alive to tell the tale.
At some point, Angela came in and told Holly and Reggie that she needed them both to help her make dessert. Holly looked at me and gave me another fierce hug.
“Don’t disappear,” she said sternly. “Don’t you dare. Ever again.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
And all at once, her eyes were swimming again. I pulled her into another hug, feeling my own eyes tingle and burn. Murmuring senseless promises about how I wasn’t ever leaving her again. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.
Finally, she let out a soggy giggle at my nonsense, sniffed loudly and accepted a tissue from Angela to blow her nose before heading to the kitchen with Angela and Reggie.
When the girls were gone, Ethan closed the door. “So how much downtime do you need before we start working on taking that sonofabitch down?” he asked.
“None,” I said. “I can save the downtime for later.”
“Keep in mind that we can proceed with the full support of the law, guys,” Freya reminded us sternly.
“We don’t have to do anything illegal or dangerous.
We have Shane’s testimony, and Cass’s. Halliwell tortured him and tried to murder him.
Shane can accuse him, and Cass can bear witness, so what’s stopping us?
We can certainly afford an army of lawyers as big as any he could bring. ”
“Yes, I saw it,” Cass said, her voice vibrating with tension.
“And yes, I will testify. I’ll do anything you want.
But please. First let me figure out what he’s holding over my little sister, and if there’s a way to undo it before you come down on him.
I need data, options, leverage. The minute you guys move against him, I lose them all. ”
We pondered that stark truth for a moment. Sneaky bastard that he was, Halliwell had managed to jerk us around even here. Inside my family stronghold.
Kat drummed her fingers on the table by the couch. “The fake doctor said that the medicines were compounded in the Coatesworth Facility weekly and delivered to the clinic every Monday. We need to know who compounds it. What’s in it.”
“But we shut the clinic down already and scattered his shills,” Ethan said.
Cass lifted her hand. “The woman who helped me mentioned the Coatesworth,” she said. “She used to work there. That’s where his pharmaceutical research is done.”
“Yeah. The Coatesworth is a big deal. Halliwell Enterprises makes billions from pharmaceuticals.”
Angela walked in. “People, I’m serving an early dinner, since brunch was so late. The gingerbread pudding is in the oven, what small part of it isn’t smeared all over the kitchen. Dinner will be served in ten.”
“Thanks, Angela. It smells great,” Freya said.
“The girls seem to have bonded,” Angela said, her voice tender. “They went to Holly’s room, and they’re in there on the bed, talking books and science. It’s adorable.”
A smile flashed across Red’s face. “That’s great,” she said.
“Need help setting the table?” Kat asked.
“I had the girls do it. I just need someone to pick out some wine. We’re having steak and a potato, artichoke and cheese bake, so choose accordingly.”
“I’m on it,” I said, rashly. As if I remembered anything like what wines tasted like, if I ever knew.
Everyone else scattered to go and do whatever could be done in the ten minutes allotted before dinner.
Red stalked past me without acknowledging my existence.
Freya hugged and kissed me before she left.
Jed slapped me on the back. Everyone passed with the usual worried looks, like they were poised to catch me at any time if I started falling to pieces.
I took my chance to retreat to the dim privacy of Ethan’s wine cellar, where I proceeded to just put my head down between my legs and try to fucking breathe.