Rose
Yawning, I stretch on a hard, lumpy motel bed, my muscles aching.
It was not a good night, and not only because I think this mattress killed my back.
It took forever to settle Ben down for the night after I made a quick, easy dinner in our snug kitchenette—pasta and jarred sauce for Ben, nothing for me. These walls are paper-thin, and we kept being woken by a too-loud TV from the room next door.
But before that, the meal at the diner and exploring downtown Rios when my morning sickness had eased was nice. The waitress at the diner was weird. Nice, but definitely a bit weird. As I slowly wake up, I reflect on Lina’s less-than-subtle offer yesterday afternoon.
“If you were thinking of staying for my son’s birthday, you couldn’t find a better place than with Joel.
He’s a firefighter, in case he didn’t say so, and a nice guy.
He lives with Win, who I’ve known forever.
” She points toward the kitchen hatch, where a tall, dark-haired man in his late thirties is singing.
He’s yodeling like the feral cat I sometimes heard late at night when I was trying to sleep.
It’s bad, but he seems into it, and people sitting at the counter are smiling, so they must not mind his bad, loud singing.
His enthusiasm and unselfconsciousness are making me want to smile too, and Ben keeps looking at him and giggling.
I turn back to Lina, wondering at the sharp turn in our conversation. “I just asked for the check.”
“Right.” She hands it to me. “Here it is. But it felt like the right time to mention Joel, his spare rooms, and the large backyard for Ben to run around in. Well, have a great day now.”
And she takes off before I can say a word.
“She was very strange,” I mutter, staring up at the beige ceiling.
“Ready for breakfast, Ben?” I get up and turn to Ben’s bed in our twin room.
Except the bed beside mine is empty, the sheets are messy, and there is absolutely no sign of my son. My gaze darts around the room.
Our door is open.
I go from tired and slightly nauseous to wide awake and panicking in under two seconds.
“Ben!” I scramble out of bed, tripping on the dangling end of my sheet as I rush toward the bathroom, desperately hoping he’s in there and not outside.
Empty.
Shit.
I bolt out of our room and onto the landing, looking one way, then the other. It’s a bright, crisp morning with blue skies and white clouds, the start of another beautiful day, but there’s no sign of Ben anywhere.
The motel is two stories tall. We’re on the second floor, with a railing and stairs that lead down to the parking lot. I thought being up here, not in a room that opened onto the parking lot, would be safer for Ben and me. Instead, I’ve opened him up to more danger: steep stairs.
What if he fell?
I rush toward them, yelling, “BEN!” at the top of my voice.
Someone shouts at me to be quiet from one of the rooms I pass. It’s not even 7 a.m., yet, but I don’t care who I wake. My son is missing. Ignoring them, I sprint down the stairs, still yelling.
He’s not lying dead or with a broken arm or leg at the bottom of the stairs, so he has to be okay, right?
Maybe he tried to wake me up, and when he couldn’t, he wandered off to find some way to entertain himself. Never mind that I brought more toys than clothes, and I’m forever stepping on Lego. That wasn’t good enough. He has to give me a heart attack by running off.
Calm down. He is okay. Just focus on finding him.
“BEN!” My eyes rake over the nearly full parking lot, breathing so fast I’m nearly hyperventilating.
I sprint toward the front desk, a separate small building, scaring the shit out of the clerk, who jumps to his feet when I burst in through the front door, speaking a million miles an hour.
The clerk, a black-haired man in his late thirties, stares at me, a large coffee spill down the front of his white shirt. “What!”
“My son. Have you seen my son? His name is Ben, and he’s about this tall, with brown hair and green eyes. He was wearing red fire truck PJs and is probably barefoot.”
Ben could have gotten dressed before he left our room, but he struggles with buttons. If he woke up bored, I can’t see him bothering to change before he wandered off. When he’s excited to explore, nothing matters more than finding his next adventure. Not even putting on shoes first.
The clerk’s gaze drops to where I’m holding my hand to show Ben’s height. His fingers tighten around his white mug, and he swallows so hard, I track the bobbing of his Adam’s apple.
Which is when I realize he’s not listening to a word I’m saying because I’m in an old college t-shirt that hits me mid-thigh. I didn’t even stop to put on shoes before I ran out the door.
“Forget it,” I mutter and rush out. I’m just wasting my time.
Looking right and left, I head toward the road.
Ben wouldn’t go to the back of the motel.
He would go looking for people to make new friends.
It’s too early for any guests to be awake, so there would be no one back there.
But he’s not on the street. He’s not anywhere, and I don’t know where to start looking for him.
Should I keep looking or run back to my room to grab my cell phone and call the cops?
I rake a hand through my hair, hyperventilating.
This is bad. This is so, so bad.
What if someone kidnapped him?
What if someone ran him over and he’s in the hospital dying?
What if—
“Hey!”
The man’s concerned voice penetrates my terror, and I whip around.
He’s standing feet away, wearing blue jeans, a t-shirt, and his shoulder-length dark-brown hair hangs loose around his face. “Are you okay?”
I stare at him, panic making it hard to think as I try to remember where I last saw him. “You were singing at the diner.” He had a white apron, and his hair was tied back. He’s shaved his stubble since.
His lips twitch. “Winston. I’m the cook at Nico’s, but everyone calls me Win. I heard you yelling on my way to work and pulled over. What’s wrong?”
A blue truck sits parked feet away on the side of the road, the engine off. There were only a handful of cars that drove past as I was shouting for Ben. He’s the only one who stopped. Everyone probably saw the woman in just a t-shirt and thought I was crazy.
“My son… We’re staying at the motel. I was asleep, and when I woke up, he was gone.”
His back stiffens, and he looks around. “What room were you in?”
“Upstairs.” I point to our motel room door. It wasn’t wise to leave it open, but right now, I couldn't care less if someone wants to rob me blind. I need to find Ben.
“Come on.” Taking my hand, he leads the way back toward the motel at a jog that I struggle to keep up with, his legs much longer than mine.
“He doesn’t know anyone in town, and Joel was saying he was interested in fire trucks.
The firehouse is too far for him to find on his own, so he has to be around here.
If not, I’ll call around and get more people looking for him. We will find him.”
My eyes widen. “You know Joel?”
There are no yummy alpha pheromones drifting from him.
Just the shower-fresh lemon scent of a man who showered not that long ago.
Beta. With my brain no longer running on pure adrenaline now that I’m no longer on this desperate search for Ben on my own, I can focus.
Lina said they lived together yesterday, but it must have slipped my mind.
“We’re roommates,” he confirms. His eyes have never stopped scanning our surroundings as we jog around the motel. He frowns. “I think the motel has a pool.”
“Oh, God.”
Simon was starting to teach Ben how to swim at our small town’s local pool before he died, but Ben was still mostly doggy paddling. If he got in…
Sensing my panic, Win gives my hand a reassuring squeeze. “He’s okay.” He leads the way around the back of the motel, where, sitting on the ground, feet from a pool, is Ben, so distracted playing with one of his small red fire trucks that he doesn’t see us.
I have no memory of crossing over to him and dropping to my knees beside him. But his irritated yelp when I grab him and haul him against my chest is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. My gaze meets Win’s over Ben’s head, and I squeeze my son probably harder than I should.
“Thank you,” I whisper, my eyes full of tears.
Win smiles. “Anytime.”
“Mommy,” Ben wheezes, “I can’t breathe.”
I release my tight grip on him. “Sorry, baby. Are you okay? What were you thinking, running off without me? You could have gotten hurt.”
He chews on his lip and looks away, a habit he has when he knows he’s in big trouble. “I was bored, and you were sleeping. I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn’t, so I came here.”
I want to shout at him. To shake him and warn him about all the things in the world that could hurt him. But I love him so much that I don’t want to scare him. Releasing a sigh instead, I hug him until he wiggles, then I let him go and stand up to face Win.
The urge to hug Win comes from knowing how badly this could have gone.
I don’t know Win, but he steadied me, reassured me, and helped me find someone who means more to me than life.
“Thank you.” I breathe in the fresh cotton linen of his shirt, and I hope he feels how much I appreciate what he did for me.
“Glad I could help,” he says, his voice husky as he hugs me back.
His mouth brushes the top of my hair, and I realize how damn good it feels to be wrapped up in this beta’s arms. When I’m not the least bit interested in letting him go, it hits me just how bad an idea hugging him was.
Face hot, I back away, avoiding his gaze as I yank on the hem of my t-shirt, suddenly all too aware of the fact I’ve been running around the streets barely dressed and with a bird's nest for hair. I rake a hand through the dark brown strands and hope it’s good enough.
“Um, sorry about that. I don’t usually go around hugging people.” I snag Ben’s hand for something to do. “I’m Rose, and this is my son, Ben. Ben, this nice man is Win. He helped me find you.”