Chapter 32
Kade
Ialways knew it would come to this. That I would be back where I belong, around the people I understand best because I’m one of them. Drinking away my sorrows like they are, looking for comfort at the bottom of a bottle.
So far, I haven’t found it, but the night is still young.
I let her use me. No amount of whiskey can burn away that fact.
Shit, I made it easy. I let myself get caught up in a fucking fairy tale where I was her guardian and she was my prized princess.
I somehow convinced myself I could earn my way into her life.
That was never going to happen. No matter what I did, no matter how many times I put her first, she would never have respected me. I would never be anything more than one of her hired hands. Good enough to fuck, but not good enough for much else.
Stupid son of a bitch.
“You plan on drinking me dry tonight?” Rick asks as he pours a couple of pints. He sounds tired. I guess doing the same thing day in and day out does that to a guy.
“Could be.” Though I am nowhere near that point yet. “How about we make a deal, you and me? As I’m sitting upright, I want another drink. Got it?”
“You trying to pickle your liver?”
“Something like that.” Maybe my brain. If I drink enough, I won’t remember I was almost happy.
I thought I knew what I was put on earth to do.
To be with her, to care for her. And she let me keep on believing it as long as she got what she wanted.
Comfort, protection, a good fuck. I provided all of it. I made it so fucking easy.
It’s like I’ve been replaying the same sad fucking song my whole life. If I try hard enough, if I work hard enough, I’ll get the things I want. The things I deserve. This time, I’ll prove myself. This time, they’ll see. It hasn’t worked out that way. I doubt it ever will.
I ignore the double buzz from my phone, signaling a text. The world can wait for a night. I don’t have it in me to give a fuck what’s happening beyond the walls of this bar.
That selfish little bitch. I lift a fresh glass, staring into it before tipping it back and pouring the contents down my throat.
So much for turning over a new leaf or whatever the hell I thought I was doing.
Tonight, all I want is to hurt someone. Violence is clean, uncomplicated.
It will be good to get back to what I know.
Another double buzz makes me almost rip the phone out of my pocket. I see myself dropping it into my glass to silence it once and for all.
Instead, I check out the texts first.
Emma. This night keeps getting better.
Emma: Emergency. Call me ASAP.
I hate to break it to her, but the days of keeping me around as her daughter’s guard dog are over. So what if it was my fucking idea in the first place? I let her get too comfortable with the idea, and now she thinks she can text me whenever the hell she feels like it.
Another message. Emma: Allie is missing.
Something hot and sharp twists in my chest when I read those words. It’s a habit, that’s all. She is an old habit I need to break. Like smoking, only the damage has spread throughout my body.
The phone rings and sets my teeth on edge. Fuck this. I’m not going to sit here and deal with this all night. “Can you take a hint?” I snarl upon answering her call. “I’m not interested in—”
“She’s missing!” There’s something wild and feral in Emma’s voice, like an ice pick to my ear. “Where the hell are you? How long ago did you leave? Please, tell me she’s with you!”
My ear is ringing by the time she’s finished. “She’s not with me, but I doubt she’s actually missing,” I mutter before gulping down the rest of my drink.
“Why aren’t you here?” I’m about to tell her it’s not my job when she adds, “Her car is here. Her phone is here. She wouldn’t have left without it. She never leaves it.”
She’s right. The back of my neck prickles. “Maybe Saint picked her up.”
“I called Saint! She has no idea, either. And…”
Sitting up straighter, I ask, “And what?”
“I could explain, but it will be easier to show you when you get here. Please come! Get here! I need your help. Allie could need your help!”
She isn’t worth my help.
It’s obvious when the words freeze on my tongue that I don’t believe it. I might want to, but I don’t.
I toss back the rest of the whiskey before reaching for my wallet. “I’m on my way.” Dammit, Allie. Tell me you didn’t do anything stupid.
And if you did, tell me it isn’t my fault.
“Oh, thank God!” Emma meets me outside the house, standing under the light mounted over the front door. She looks like she’s about to fall apart, shaking and rocking back and forth. “I don’t know what I’m going to do!”
I can only be glad she caught me when she did, before I obliterated myself like I planned to. She’s shaking hard enough that her teeth chatter when I reach her.
“There’s probably an explanation.” I don’t believe myself. That’s the problem. It’s the sort of thing people say in a situation like this, trying to calm someone down.
“I want to show you what I found.” She leads me around the house to the old root cellar I know so well, and how the doors are thrown open.
The last time I used this entrance, I closed the door and replaced the broken lock, adjusting it to look secure. Shit.
“Did anyone else know about this entrance?” I ask. “Anyone here on the ranch?”
“Why would someone on the ranch—”
She stops. Her mouth hangs open. Her face goes slack. “No.”
“No, what?” I demand, taking her by the shoulders when all she does is stare blankly into the dark passage. “Answer me!”
Her head snaps back, eyes flying open wide. Reddened, touched by panic. “He couldn’t, though. Why would he?”
“Who, dammit?”
My harshness seems to snap her out of it. “Buck Davis. I fired him months ago, before Allie came home from school. I caught him…”
She shudders, grimacing. “He was in her room. Going through her drawers. I never thought to check down here. He tried to explain, but I wouldn’t listen. What explanation could there be besides the obvious?”
Nausea washes over me, twisting my guts. “Describe him to me.”
“Late forties. Graying hair. Always wears a Stetson hat.”
I’ve seen him. The day after the gala. And at The Rusty Nail. He’s the man who approached Allie and Joseph on the street. “Where does he live?”
“He lived here while working on the ranch but had a place. One of the old logging cabins.” She takes off for the front door, and I follow close, my heart pounding a steady, heavy beat.
Allie. I left her. She was alone with no one to stop him.
We assumed it was Lowry’s men outside the bedroom window that night.
What if it was him? What if it was Buck all along?
I’m at her side as she tears open the bottom drawer of her desk, then flips through files at lightning speed. “Let me see, let me see… Where is it? Here!”
She pulls out a folder and slams it on her desk, flipping it open. “Here. His address.” She points with a shaking finger. I type the address into my phone while she mumbles almost hysterically. “I’ll never forgive myself for letting him get away with what he did. What was I thinking!”
“That doesn’t matter now.” All that matters is getting her back, which means first taking a trip out to Buck’s home to see if she’s there.
“Are you going?” Emma follows me from her office like a lost puppy, trailing close behind. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find her.”
“I’ll call the sheriff—”
I give my head a shake once I reach the door. “No. I’m going to handle this, but it will be my way. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
She looks at me, obviously terrified and filled with dread. Tears spill down her cheeks. “Don’t let him hurt her. Please, if he has her, don’t let him.”
“I’m not going to.”
I’m also not going alone.
I’m on the phone before I reach the truck. Best-case scenario, he doesn’t have the first fucking clue about any of this, but that would mean no leads.
Worst-case scenario, he has her, and he’s already had hours to do whatever he’s fantasized about in his fucked-up mind. “There’s trouble!” I bark when Calder answers.
“When isn’t there?”
“Listen to me!” I’m behind the wheel, tearing out of the front courtyard before I give Calder the quick rundown. “His name is Buck Davis. He owns one of those logging cabins in the old settlement off Crystal Lake. At least, that’s the address Emma has for him. I’ll send it to you.”
“Shit.” I hear someone in the background, asking what’s wrong while I text the address and careen down the driveway at the same time.
It has to be Saint, but my brothers are there, too, their deep voices mixing with hers.
He mutters something to them before coming back on.
“I’m closer than you are. I can be out there in less than ten minutes. ”
“Don’t go alone,” I urge, turning onto the main road, almost fishtailing before regaining control and flooring the gas. “I’ll be there in twenty, if not sooner.”
Turns out I make it in seventeen minutes.
The longest seventeen minutes of my life.
It’s incredible how much blame a man can heap on himself in that amount of time.
Even if it’s not this Buck person who took her, she’s gone, with no way to reach her, and anything could’ve happened while I was nursing my shattered ego like a fucking pussy.
I still can’t rule out Lowry, either. What if he decided a payoff wouldn’t be enough this time?
She’s probably terrified. Thinking I abandoned her. Thinking nobody will come to her rescue now. Allie. I’m fucking stupid and sorry. Hang on. Hang on for me.
According to the GPS, there’s a narrow, unmarked road leading back to the cabin. I find it, but it’s almost too late—my sharp turn means taking out an old mailbox that was already bent and sagging. Like a drunk who gave up hope. The way I almost did.
Calder stops me before I reach the darkened cabin, waving a flashlight in front of him so I won’t run him over. “It’s empty!” he shouts.
I put the truck in park and jump out, buzzing with rage and disappointment. And fear. Fear has taken root, too. “Motherfucker. Now what?” I shout into the darkness, not like he would know.
“Sawyer’s already been making calls since we left the ranch. We’ll find her,” Calder tells me.
He tries to grab my shoulder, but I shake him off, fists clenched, snarling. “I want to look inside.”
“There’s nothing in there. It looks like it’s been abandoned for a long time, except for a family of raccoons. Windows busted in, dust an inch thick, freezing cold inside.”
I have to do something, dammit. “You’re sure they weren’t here?” I’ve never felt this useless, with nothing to grab onto.
“No, nobody’s been here in a long time. He must have another property somewhere. One nobody knew about.” Before I can ask, he shakes his head. “No signs of life anywhere around here. Not even smoke coming from a chimney.”
Sawyer approaches in the darkness, followed by Levi. I hear his voice before he comes into view. “One thing is for sure: this guy is not playing with a full deck.”
“Not exactly what I need to hear,” I snap.
He holds his hands up in defense. “I’m just saying, it’s better we know who we’re dealing with.”
“Why do you say that?” Calder asks.
“I just talked with Mitch Wilkins,” he explains. “Buck took a job there but got his ass canned before the first week was over. Starting fights, even pulling a gun on one of the boys over a little disagreement. He’s got a vicious temper.”
“He must’ve lost it when Emma fired him,” Levi muses, grim. “He couldn’t be near Allie anymore.” Like I need to hear that. Like it doesn’t set a match to the powder keg in my head.
He wanted her. And now he probably has her. “What if it’s not him?” I ask. All I find are identical looks of dismay on my brothers’ faces, ghoulish and sickening in the glow from Calder’s flashlight. “Then we’re wasting our time focusing on him.”
“I called the sheriff. I had to,” Sawyer insists when I give him a sharp look. “They have cars out right now, looking for any vehicle with out-of-state plates and any sign of Allie. We’re going to find her. But we do need help.”
“The more people we have out there, the better,” Calder agrees.
“Real estate records.” I look around wildly. It’s like I’m falling through thin air, trying to grab onto whatever I can. “There has to be something we haven’t found yet. He must live somewhere.”
“I’m going to make a few calls.” Then Sawyer checks the time and winces. “We’re coming up on midnight.”
“Wake people up!” Like I fucking care.
“Just saying,” he murmurs. I hate how he’s obviously trying to placate me. “We might not get answers right away.”
But I need answers. I need them now. My breath fogs in front of me with every ragged breath as Sawyer makes another call.
I will never fucking forgive myself. Never. She needed me, and I wasn’t there. No matter who took her, I wasn’t there to stop them. She could already be dead, snuffed out like a candle. All the light would be gone from my world forever.
Until I find her, all I can do is imagine carrying her loss with me for the rest of my empty, useless life.