Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 18476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
“Someone online paid me to take him!”
My head tilts to the side to indicate he has my full attention.
“Someone texted me his photo and where him and his mom would be. All I was supposed to do was snatch him, drive around with him for a couple hours, and then drop him off at the fire station or some shit,” he rushes to explain almost in a single breath. “This shit was just meant to scare his mom. I wasn’t actually gonna hurt him!”
“You don’t think bein’ taken away by a total stranger isn’t gonna do lastin’ damage, dickhead?”
Jeremy Howard suddenly cringes as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him.
Honestly?
It probably hadn’t.
Most people have a habit of only considering the consequences of their actions in the short run.
Especially when it comes to kids.
The irony of the thought isn’t completely lost upon me; however, now is not the time to worry about the two little girls waiting for me to twirl them around to “El burrito de Belén”.
I have one shook up little boy to return home.
And one long stretch of local law enforcement paperwork to fill out.
Chapter 4
Arley
I’m taking back all of Kolby’s gifts.
Particularly the very pricey, custom designed “Just Add Ice” hockey themed bar set that was my idea.
He can just drink all his favorite schnapps out of red plastic beer pong cups like he’s always done.
That’ll teach him to hang up on me.
Who the fuck hangs up on their panicking sister-in-law like that?!
Who the fuck drops a bomb and then just gets the hell out of the way?!
Okay.
Fine.
There are probably a large number of cases I could bring up where that exact thing occurs – in war as much as relationships I’m sure – and where the pattern of behavior appropriately fits a certain group of individuals thrust into a situation with very particular parameters, but now is not the time for logic.
No.
It’s the time for instinct.
For instance, how instinctively creative can I be when shoveling coal into Kolby like he’s a goddamn piñata?
Or my husband when he comes clean about using shopping as a cover for work.
Work that he’s doing before he leaves the fucking country to do more work, might I add!
And to think that he’s worried about me working too much!
“Still no word from my little mijo?” Ma’s wavy green words flow in my direction while sliding one arm into the dark red coat Tom is holding out for her.
It takes every muscle in my face to politely smile. “No, ma’am.”
“That’s unlike him,” she announces, the next wave of words winding around my neck like a noose. “That’s…very unlike him.”
Outside of a mission?
Yes.
During one?
This is exactly what it’s like.
Radio silence.
The problem is he wasn’t supposed to be off on that sort of assignment.
He was just supposed be buying gifts and probably eating four mall pretzels after promising himself he’d only have two.
“I’m sure our little puck head has something to do with it,” Linda playfully insists, pink words doing their best to cut through the cords tangling up my voice. “Wherever that boy goes, he has to body check trouble, I swear.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Ace lightly laughs and drapes an arm around his wife’s shoulder. “What he pays in fines nowadays ain’t nowhere close to what we shelled out when he was growin’ up.”
Both sets of Slater’s parents snicker over the good-natured comment encouraging me to join them.
Yet I don’t.
Can’t.
What if the two of them got into real trouble?
What if Kolby meant it when he said they were shopping and then something terrible happened?
Something so horrific that the love of my life couldn’t just stand by and do nothing about it?
Because that’s who he is.
Because that’s the only possibility for why he’d break a promise to me.
The girls.
“Ángel,” Ma lovingly calls to me, pulling my attention away from the black boots I paired with my snowman sweater dress, “it’s alright if you wanna wait here for mijo with mis nietas.” She flips out the hair that got slightly tucked into her coat. “Dios understands.” She offers me a comforting smile to match her words. “Dios always understands.”
“No, I wanna come.” Finally pulling on my own long jacket, I declare, “It matters to me that I come. That we have this special moment every year.” One arm glides itself through a sleeve. “And one day, when the girls are older, I believe it’ll matter to them too.” The other appendage completes the same task. “To see and to have and to know that they are welcomed somewhere despite whatever religion they may or may not find or who they may or may not worship. Going to service with you, every year, is that little dose of love my spirit needs to not only remember there is something greater than myself out there, but to be thankful that same thing is protecting those I love even when I can’t.”