CHAPTER EIGHT
E LIJAH
Ash worked me hard for the hours he knew I’d be most awake for, also knowing I didn’t get a huge amount of sleep the night before.
I helped clear a remote road about the back of the property that had taken a bit of debris during the last heavy rainfall.
No one had been out there for a while, but when one of the local girls went for a ride and came across a few fallen trees, it was time for clean up duty.
I placed the chainsaw on the ground after my third tree and shook my head at Ash. “Chain’s knackered. Needs sharpening,” I called over to him. “You want me to haul this lot onto the truck and head back with it? I can load it into the log pile for splitting later if you want.”
Ash stretched his back and took the water I passed him. It had turned into a warm day, even though the nights were still cool. “Yeah, not a bad idea. I thought I lost you there for a while,” he said soberly.
I shook my head. “You’re stuck with me for a while yet, boss.”
Ash winced. “Ah, I'm still not used to that. Not sure I ever will be.”
“Probably a good thing. You're right to get back on your own?” I nodded to the ATV he’d brought out earlier in the day.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” He waved me away as my phone rang on the truck dash.
I reached in and picked up the device that had gotten hot where I’d left it in the sun. Damn, I needed to be more careful than that. Declan’s name came up on the screen. “Sorry about the messy ship,” I said cheerfully. “I did clean up, but I know we left a few things out of place?—”
“Your girl’s disappeared,” Declan broke in.
“What?” I frowned at the phone. “I left her in the bedroom upstairs.
Declan groaned. “Did you do the dirty in my bed?”
I grimaced. “Technically, that’s a shared bed,” I hedged.
“You did . Damnit. I’m gonna leave jelly tarts in your boots, cowboy,” he grunted. “Alright. Looking for…no female in my bed. And it’s made.” His tone lightened. “Alright, you’re clear. But she’s still not where she’s supposed to be.”
I frowned, raking my knuckles through my hair and tugging the ends. “Wait, Whaddaya mean she’s not where she’s supposed to be?”
“Well, the mechanic you sent her car to?—”
The glitter van,” I corrected.
“Yeah, that. He called earlier. said it was all done and good to go. So I went to go get her. She wasn't in the apartment, and she’d left a note on the door to the shop saying she’d gone to get the van.” His voice held a heavy note, as though he was trying to tell me something.
A message that my sun-addled brain refused to process.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So maybe she’s hitched a ride to go get her van?” I damn well hoped not, because we’d find out if either of us had a spanking fetish if she had.
“She left the note and was gone over an hour before the call came through on your phone that the van was ready.”
“And..?” Damn, I was moving at a snail's pace today. Maybe sex was bad for my brain after all.
“Damnit, Elijah. Did you give the mechanic her number or not?”
What he was saying dawned on me. “No, I didn’t.
” And while the Bare Bear was beautifully branded by my glitter bomb, her booking system appeared to be an online process, not an on-call one.
To save her time and not interrupt when she was with clients, I assumed.
But that really did beg the question… who the hell had called her and where had she gone if she thought the van was ready before it had been?
“I’m gonna call you back,” I said tersely, ending the call before he could get out another word. I dialed the mechanic.
Ash sent me a hard look across the mess we’d started cleaning up. He hefted a round and tossed it onto the back of the truck. “Anything I can do to help?”
I held up a hand as the call picked up. “Hey, have you still got the pink glitter van in there?” I listened to the man talk about how well the repairs had gone, and paid with my credit card over the phone, promising I’d come and get it later.
I hung up, disquiet roiling in my stomach.
Ash still watched me. I looked up at him, my throat tight. “Something’s wrong.”
“So go get her.”
I stared at him. “I thought we just had a talk about not leaving the ranch til last.”
He sent me a frown that might have bordered on an upside down grin. “If my woman is in trouble, and she causes plenty of that,” he said wryly, “then I’d be out to get her as soon as I could. Go, Elijah. The ranch will wait.”
I stared at him a moment longer, then my feet were moving. My truck rumbled beneath me as I backed up and headed out toward the main road, away from the ranch, leaving for the first time without wondering if I would come back or not.
Because if I didn’t have Cadance, then none of it was worth anything.
“Cadance?” I called, taking the stairs to the bedroom where I’d left her asleep the night before three at a time, knowing full well that Declan had already checked and that she wasn’t there.
“Glitter bomb. Tell me you’re hiding back here somewhere?
” She wasn't, so I checked the shower, then the street.
Declan watched me with his arms folded over his apron as I paced both sides, annoying other people's customers until I reached him again. “What did she do while her van was in the shop and I wasn't here?” I didn’t think Cadance was the sort of girl who would sit about doing nothing.
He grinned. “She set up shop out of a kit on the sidewalk with a folding table and called customers to her like a magnet. Damn, it was magic.” Declan was one of Forest Grove’s best sources of information.
He listened to every rumor that came in and was excellent at telling what was utter rubbish and what consisted of true intelligence.
I scrubbed my face with my hands. “You said you were worried. Where is she?” I didn’t bother keeping the begging note out of my voice.
The smile fell off his face. “You said she was a flight risk, right?”
I raised both eyebrows. “You think she’s run off, left her van, her main source of income here, and somehow disappeared into the aether without anyone seeing anything today?”
That was too far a stretch for me to believe, or maybe I didn't want to believe it. I’d talked to everyone I came across and no one saw a damn thing.
No mechanic came down the street, no one saw her get into a car, truck or onto a bike and drive away.
No buses came through town today, so it wasn’t that either. No one had seen her at all.
Declan’s eyes darkened. “You think it’s the ex?”
I’d told him about the knife incident when I explained what I was using my half of my savings for, rather than investing it into the business for the quarter. Declan thought I was crazy, but seemed to understand, at least since she kept coming round even though I didn't think they’d met yet.
“Yeah, I think he might have tracked her.” I matched his expression. “Not that the soft man she described seemed like a tracker. But still, obsession drives a man.”
Declan nodded. “Where would he take her?”
I closed my eyes. “Home? Out of state? Fuck, anywhere.” Desperation brewed in my gut as I paced the sidewalk again.
“Have you called the police?”
I shot him a look. “She’s been missing for a few hours at most. You know they’ll say to wait.”
He acknowledged that with a nod. “Alright, so when’s the last time you saw her?”
I ran through the exercise with him, grateful he drew my panic back from the edge of pure self destruction.
I leaned my head back against the wall of her building.
“I know nothing about her. I’ve had days to learn something about her past and I never.
Fucking. Asked.” I punctuated every word with a rap of the side of my fist against the brickwork.
My last hit her door. That creaked open.
I glanced at it, then at Declan. He held my gaze. “Have you checked?—”
I shook my head. “No. Did you?”
“Get up there, sunshine.”
Her staircase was a whole lot narrower and dimmer than mine, with a light out near the top in a high stairwell.
This part of the building was older than ours, while the one that Declan and I shared had been renovated when we decided to do up the bakery.
But the side that Cadance rented hadn’t been upgraded for a long time and was well overdue.
I reached the door at the top of the stairs, her name on my lips, when a voice reached me. A thin, nasally voice that didn’t match my girl.
A man’s voice.
“—strutting around town in a dress anyone can see through, Look, you’re not even wearing a bra, like a common whore. No wonder he was all over you so fast with your teats tumbling out like a used up cow’s.”
My blood went from regular temperature to boiling in less than half a second. This had to be the ex husband. Not only had she suffered physical abuse at his hand, but this bullshit too. I gritted my teeth, my hands already on the door, prepared to bust it open, but the asshole wasn’t close to done.
“Look at you, his jizz all over you, staining you up. Is that what you’ve become, Charity?
A slut who will open her legs to anyone?
I watched you last night. Both of you.” My stomach plummeted as he jeered at her.
This is my fault. Dammit, I should have turned off the lights, taken her somewhere else.
“Watched him like anyone else could have, front row to a live porn show starring my own fucking wife. ”
“I’m not your wife,” Candance spat out. Scuffling noises happened behind the door as I slammed my shoulder into it. Her name jammed in my throat. “I haven't been that for a long time, Bradley.” A hand cracked across skin on the other side of the door. Cadance whimpered and fell quiet.
Her name ripped from my lips as I slammed my body weight against the wood.
Something splintered and I stumbled through a gap that hadn’t been there before, mostly the right size for me.
I kicked shards out of the way and advanced on a man who I swore shouldn't have been half the size he was.
But part of me was okay with the fact he stood at my height.
Because now I had no problem with unleashing every inch of the pent up fury I had in me for everything this man had done to hurt the woman who cowered on the floor at his feet.
My stunning glitter bomb. The woman with defiance in her eyes and a flirtatious smile on her lips. Who lived loud and proud and free.
Who should never kneel for a man when she didn't choose that course of action, and sure as hell not outside playtime together.
My fist cracked into the son of a bitch’s face. He stumbled back, something akin to shock or bemusement written there before the pain set in. I wondered if he’d ever discovered true pain before. If not, jail was gonna be one hell of a trip for him. I hoped he enjoyed it for a real long time.
Voices shouted beyond me, and I knelt to crouch over Cadance as police, tailed by Declan who I knew wouldn’t want to miss the action at all, swarmed the small apartment who barely fit us, let alone six other men.
My girl trembled in my arms as I cradled her close to my chest, tucked into my body. “Glitter bomb. Are you able to tell me if he hurt you? Do I need to get you a paramedic?” I kissed her temple as feet rushed around us and the asshole was dragged away.
She shivered in my arms. “He just slapped me a few times.”
Declan crouched beside me. “Hey, beauty girl. I have a space beside a hot oven if you want. There’s also wine in the fridge, and treats. Not that I’m feeding addictions.” He held up his hands in defence at my look. “Just trying to help.”
She hiccuped as the first tears I’d ever seen her shed tumbled down her cheeks. “Thanks, Declan.” My gaze slid across to her. “What?” She shrugged. “I told you I researched my neighbors. He’s the nosy one. You were the pretty gourd boy.”
“Is that right?” I planted my ass on her carpet and pulled her into the circle of my legs. “I think the police are gonna wanna talk to you. Wanna do that in the shop or up here?”
“Here,” she said immediately as I raised an eyebrow. “Then shop with treats?" she asked hopefully. Her mood dropped. “Then I have to go pay for my van.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Gotcha covered, glitter bomb.” Her head snapped up, and she winced. “What did you do, Elijah?"
Declan edged out of the room as I laughed and dipped my head to cover her mouth with mine before she could protest again. We were still kissing indecently on her floor when the first police officer arrived to take her statement.