Johnny watched the taillights disappear into the thickening fog as Melanie and Wyatt drove away, then rolled his shoulders as if shedding a massive weight. Tonight he’d had everyone who mattered most to him gathered around the table, and even if it wasn’t perfect, it had been a damn sight closer than they’d been in a long, long time. Maybe ever. His kids had patched things up, and they were all paired up and happy.
Now it was his turn—he hoped. A noise caught his attention, and he turned to see Bing reaching for the coat she’d draped over the back of one of the barstools. He walked over and laid his hand on her arm, stopping her.
“Stay for a while. Keep me company.”
“I shouldn’t.” She pressed her lips together, as if that would stop him from wanting to kiss her…and her from wanting to kiss him back.
He tugged at her wrist, turning her to face him. “Everyone else gets to have someone tonight. Why not us? If I don’t tell, and you don’t tell, who’s it going to hurt?”
“Johnny…”
“Please. It’s cold out there, and without you, it’s cold in here too. Stay and keep us both warm.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Just for a while.”
“Thank you.” He turned on the old boom-box-style radio tucked into a corner of the counter, and it filled the dimly lit kitchen with the sounds of “White Christmas.” Just two days earlier, the doctor had released him from the sling, so he could put a hand on either side of her waist and pull her close. “Dance with me.”
She only resisted a moment before melting into his arms. They began to move, slow and easy, as she looped her arms around his neck and swayed closer. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, her night-flower scent going straight to his head as his hands shaped her waist, her hips, then up the curve of her back. It wasn’t enough.
He cupped the side of her face and tipped her chin up to capture her mouth and lose himself in her taste, her heat, the silken slide of her tongue against his and the hot press of body to body. God, he wanted her. In his arms. His bed. His future. The music changed to something up-tempo, but they kept up the same timeless rhythm. Man. Woman. Two hearts beating as one and all that romantic crap. He could do this—just this—for hours. Hold her. Kiss her.
Love her.
If she would just let him, he knew he could get it right this time. With this woman.
Her hand splayed across his chest, and her fingers hooked in the top button of his shirt. She popped it free, then the next, then slid her palm inside to press it over a heart that was thudding dangerously hard. There was a muffled roaring sound, and for a confused moment he thought he might have actually busted a vein from the intense pleasure of her touch.
Then the door banged open…and they froze.
Hank stood in the mudroom, his face drawn tight with pain and his eyes black pools in the shadows—a wounded animal in search of a place to go to ground. He stared at them for a long, awful eternity. “What the fuck?”
Bing jerked away, taking a step toward Hank with her hand outstretched. “Wait, Hank. Just let me—”
The box under his arm fell to the floor, spilling pictures and pieces of paper. He started to crouch, then with another curse, he spun on his heel and was gone, leaving the door hanging open and the dogs staring from one human to another in wide-eyed confusion. Bing ran out, Johnny on her heels, but the old Chevy roared to life, lurching in a backward arc before the tires spun, flinging gravel as it shot out of the driveway.
“Shit. Shit!” Bing pressed shaking hands to her face. “What happened? What the hell happened to make him come back here, looking like that? And he saw us…”
“You can’t chase him down. Not in this fog. Geezus. You can barely see across the yard.” He toed the sidewalk, coated with a thin layer of ice. Goddammit. This was no night to be driving, even in a decent state of mind. Johnny scraped a hand over his head. “We have to think. Where will he go? The shop? Maybe Korby’s place?”
Bing spun around and barreled in to snatch the phone off the bar and shove the receiver into his hand. “Call them.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. Anyone who might see him or know where he’d go. We can’t leave him alone, especially driving around in this weather.” Her face was pasty, her breath coming short, as if she was on the verge of an anxiety attack. She pressed her hands together in prayer. “Please, God, don’t let anything happen to him.”
* * *
The first number Johnny tried was Hank’s cell. Not surprisingly, there was no answer. He called Cole’s house next, and within minutes, the alarm had gone up across the Jacobs network, while Johnny hung on the line with Melanie. Meanwhile, Bing was trying to reach Gil on her cell. His phone rang but went to voicemail. She dialed again. And again. And again.
“Tori and Delon are watching the highway into Dumas, in case he went that way,” Melanie said into Johnny’s ear. “Shawnee called the Watering Hole and the Lone Steer so they’ll let us know if he shows up, and Violet got ahold of Korby. He was gonna check Sanchez Trucking, then head toward the ranch in case Hank slid off into the ditch along the way. The road was black ice damn near all the way down here.”
Not what Johnny needed to hear. His head filled with images of Hank’s old pickup upside down, or wrapped around a telephone pole, or—
“It’s about goddamn time!” Bing said into her phone.
“We’ve got Gil,” Johnny said to Melanie.
Bing gave a rapid-fire account of what had happened, made a Yeah, it was stupid face as she listened, then said, “You can do that?”
“Hang on,” Johnny said into the phone. “It sounds like he’s got an idea.”
Bing jerked a nod. “Hank’s cell is one of the Sanchez Trucking phones, and to quote Gil, those sons-a-bitches lose ’em faster than he can buy ’em, so he puts tracking software on all of them.”
Johnny relayed the information, then ground his teeth through a long, tense silence as Gil logged into his system and entered the phone number. Then Bing’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Okay. Great. Thank you.”
“What?” Johnny demanded.
“He just pulled into Miz Iris’s driveway.”
Thank God. Johnny collapsed onto a barstool, barely able to string words together to tell Melanie the good news.
Gil said something else, and Bing’s mouth twisted into a semblance of a smile. “You’re probably right, but I’m betting you’ve already got your car keys in your hand.”
“What did he say?” Johnny asked when they’d both hung up.
“That Hank seems to be the only one who didn’t overreact.”
“He’s going to talk to him, though?”
She nodded. “Gil’s his sponsor. That’s what you do when someone might be in a crisis.”
He and Bing stared at the floor for several minutes, letting the fear and adrenaline drain away. Then she got up and walked heavily into the mudroom to gather up Hank’s box and the scattered contents.
“What is it?” Johnny asked.
“Pictures of Maddie.” She swore softly, then lifted her head. “Will you go with me to Dumas?”
“Now? Why?”
She waved a hand over the box. “Whatever happened, it obviously has something to do with this, and judging by that look on Hank’s face before he saw us, I doubt Grace is doing so great, either.”
Johnny frowned. “You hardly know her. And Tori could be there in five minutes.”
“But she doesn’t know about the baby.” Bing stood and put some of the steel back into her spine. “And if this is what I think, Grace needs a mother.”
* * *
If all else fails, go back to the beginning.
Bing had told him that. Bing. And his dad. Geezus. But what did he expect? She was a beautiful woman, Johnny was a good-looking guy, and Hank had practically shoved the two of them together, once again oblivious to anything but his own feelings.
Were there feelings? Or was it just—
He cut that thought dead along with his headlights. Whatever it was, he would have to figure out how he felt about it later. Right now, he had exceeded his coping capacity, leaving him no choice but to hit the reset button. Go back to the beginning.
Hank felt as if he’d been doing nothing else for so long, he’d lost count of all the beginnings and endings. He was literally wandering in the fog…but his old pickup had remembered the way, even if he’d forgotten.
He started to get out of the pickup, then paused to type in a two-word text and hit Send. Still breathing.
He didn’t wait for a response, just tossed the phone on the seat and picked his way across crunchy, ice-crusted grass to the kitchen door. It flew open as he put his foot on the first step, and Miz Iris stood silhouetted in the light, clutching a robe over flannel pajamas. “Hank?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her face registered profound relief. “Cole called. They were worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“I don’t think so.” Miz Iris peered at him under the porch light. “If you were fine, you wouldn’t be out driving around on a night like this.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come so late. It’s just…” His voice choked off, and once more, he had to start over. “Can I come in? Please? You don’t even have to give me a cookie.”
“Oh, Hank.” Tears welled in her eyes as she held out a hand. “You’ve always been welcome here, no matter what. I’m so sorry that we let you think otherwise.”
He took one step, then another, reaching out and letting her draw him into the light and the warmth. “I didn’t make it easy for you.”
“Pfft! What’s easy got to do with family?”
His laugh was embarrassingly soggy. “Not a damn thing as far as I can tell.”
Then he stepped inside and into the arms of the woman who’d patched up more scrapes and bruises and cuts than he could count. As he hugged her tight, he prayed she could work her magic one more time because the worst stomping he’d ever taken in the arena hadn’t hurt half this bad.
* * *
Hank had just wrapped his hands around a mug of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows when another, unmistakable set of headlights ghosted out of the fog as Gil’s Charger rolled to a stop beside his pickup. Gil rapped once on the door and let himself in.
“Geezus,” Hank said. “Is there anyone they didn’t call?”
“Within a fifty-mile radius? Probably not.” Gil gave Miz Iris a one-armed hug and accepted the mug she had begun to fill when she saw his car. “Thank you. It’s a nasty bitch out there.”
And yet, here was Gil, willing to come out in the ice and the fog to be sure Hank was okay. “So…anything we need to have a private man talk about?” he asked Hank.
Code for: Anything about the baby?
Yes. And no. If Grace had absolutely ruled him out because of Maddie, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do. But if this somehow did come around to a matter of trust, and redemption, then he still had a sliver of hope. Between them, these two people had helped him through some of the hardest and best times of his life. Maybe they could guide him now.
So he said, “I need to figure out how to make Grace love me again.”
Gil slouched back in his chair and hiked a foot onto his opposite knee. “And here I thought it was gonna be something difficult.”