Every Dog Has His Day

by Jenn McKinlay

  A door slam was Gracie’s only response.

  Jessie leaned back in her seat. Maddie was eating her ziti, seemingly unaffected by her sister’s revolt.

  “Why aren’t you mad at me?” she asked.

  Maddie swallowed her bite of food and shrugged. “Because Zach will come back.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he’s one of the good guys,” she said. She forked more pasta into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

  The simple truth of the statement made Jessie’s heart hurt. Zach was one of the good guys and she had done him wrong. She had treated him badly because she was so worried about her father-in-law. Okay, that was a lie to herself.

  Jessie wasn’t worried because Zach and the judge had a tiff. She wasn’t thrilled about it but she wasn’t that freaked out. She didn’t like that he hadn’t told her, but it wasn’t an unforgivable offense.

  No, the truth was she was terrified because she cared about Zach a lot more than she wanted to. Last night when she had jumped on him, it was because she just couldn’t bear to be apart from him for one more second.

  She missed him all day long and thought about him constantly. He made her laugh so hard she cramped, and when she was with him, she truly felt as if everything was going to be okay, not because he was going to rescue her, but because he was by her side. Just like he had stepped up during the blizzard. He didn’t save her but he sure did help her from dealing with it all on her own.

  He was the first man in her life who had proven to be dependable, and how had she treated him? By telling him he was like the one man in her life who had consistently let her down. Zach hadn’t deserved that. She owed him an apology, a big one.

  “I hope you’re right,” Jessie said. “I hope he comes back.”

  “I am, Momma, don’t worry.”

  Jessie debated bringing Gracie’s food up to her but then she didn’t want to start a habit of letting her eat in her room when she was upset. That would not go well during the teen years. No, if Gracie was hungry, she could come back downstairs and get her food.

  Jessie couldn’t eat. She’d been looking forward to seeing Zach all day. Visions of their rendezvous on her porch last night had kept her distracted at work. Gavin had even laughed at her when she went to make coffee and had forgotten how to work the machine.

  Zach, damn him, had come to mean so much to her. He was great with the girls, he paid attention to them and laughed with them, helped them but also taught them to help themselves. It was more than she had ever hoped for when entertaining thoughts about meeting a man.

  And then there was how he made her feel about herself. After years of being made to feel fat, ugly, and sexually repugnant, Zach made her feel beautiful and attractive and sexy as hell. He had helped her find her self-esteem again and she was so desperately grateful to him. Of course, there were also the orgasms multiple. She wasn’t sure how she’d lived so long without them and she was pretty sure only Zach could make that happen for her; well, he was the only one she wanted to make that happen. She couldn’t imagine letting anyone but him that close to her. Ever.

  The hard press of his body against hers, the feel of his fingertips running a path across her skin, the way he watched her with so much affection and awe, and, yes, the way he called her “my girl.” A small hiccup that was really a sob slipped out of Jessie’s throat. Had she just thrown it all away?

  Anger surged inside of her, not at Zach but at herself. The Connelly men had done enough damage to her and the girls. How could she let the judge damage the first good thing that had happened to her in years? She was so thick. She didn’t deserve Zach, and she needed to tell him the first chance she got. If she got the chance.

  When Maddie was finished eating, she left the table to go to her room and play with her sister. Jessie cleaned the kitchen and the dining room table before settling down on the couch and debating what to do.

  She held her phone in her hand and considered texting the Maine crew but she didn’t want to have to explain what a jerk she had been. The crew belonged more to Zach than to her and she didn’t want to lose the tenuous group of friends that she had by showing what a butthead she was. She supposed that was selfish but she couldn’t help it.

  She wrote a message to Zach, apologizing, and then deleted it. She wrote another message trying to explain and then deleted that one, too. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do. She felt as if she’d had happiness in hand and let it slip through her fingers.

  She tipped her head back on the couch and felt one hot tear slip out of her eye and down her cheek. Just like Gracie, she scrubbed it away with her fist. She tried to give herself a pep talk. She tried to convince herself that everything would be okay but she was so very tired.

  She tried to fight it but the sweet oblivion of sleep was too tempting a lure to ignore. She gave in and let it crash over her like a big wave pulling her out to sea.

  • • •

  Jessie awoke with a start and found herself staring at the ceiling of her living room. Her mouth was dry and her brain was fuzzy. When she’d fallen asleep, she’d fallen hard. She pushed up to a seated position on the couch and stretched. She wondered how much time had passed and realized she hadn’t heard any noise coming from the girls during her unscheduled nap.

  She paused in the kitchen to get a quick glass of water and glanced at the clock on the oven. It was almost seven. Good grief, she had been zonked out for about a half hour. She blamed the emotional toll of the past few days and the exercise she’d gotten with Zach last night out in the cold.

  Just thinking about it made her warm all over and she was consumed by a sudden longing for Zach that had her reaching for her phone. She stared at the display screen for a few seconds and then put her phone away. She still didn’t know what to say to him. Darn it.

  It was just as well; she really needed to be wearing her mom hat at the moment. She tipped her head to the side and listened for any noise from upstairs but heard nothing. She didn’t think the girls had the wherewithal to put themselves to bed but was pleased that they were playing quietly.

  She walked up the stairs, knowing that she had to make things right with Gracie. She knew her girl would likely have calmed down by now and together they could make a plan about how Jessie could handle her apology to Zach. Maybe this was exactly what the girls needed to see. She could show by example how to apologize to Zach for being hurtful and wrong.

  Jessie’s own parents had never apologized for hurting each other or anyone else. Invariably, if something went wrong, they found a way to make it Jessie’s fault. When her mother caught a cold right before a conference where she was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, Jessie was blamed for bringing home germs from school even though Jessie hadn’t been sick at all that winter. That was where her life of apologizing for her existence had begun. It was a habit she hadn’t broken until Zach.

  Zach never seemed to expect her to apologize for the weather, the bad roads, other people’s rudeness, the temperature of the hot water in the shower, or just for walking across the room too loudly. It was like having a blindfold ripped off, seeing what a good man he was. Why hadn’t she seen this before she chased him away? But then, she probably had and it had probably scared her to death because Zach was exactly the sort of man she could love forever and if he didn’t feel the same way about her then forever was going to be a very long time.

  When she reached the girls’ room, she was surprised to find the door was closed. She rapped on the wood three times before grabbing the doorknob and turning it to push the door open.

  “Gracie, Maddie, it’s time to get ready for bed,” she said. “I’m sorry I—”

  Jessie stopped talking. The room was empty.

  “Girls!” Jessie cried. There was no answer.

  Unease began to beat in her chest in a steady cadence. Jessie scann
ed the room, moving around the small space and checking under the beds and in the closet in case the girls were playing hide-and-seek with her.

  They weren’t here. She darted down the hall, looking in the bathroom, the other bedroom, and her room. There was no sign of them. Now the cadence of unease was beating harder and a bit more randomly in a stutter stop that was making it hard to breathe. She hurried down the stairs, calling their names. They didn’t answer.

  “Gracie and Maddie, you come out here right now!” she cried. “This is not funny! I mean it.”

  There was no answer and panic began to close up her throat. She hurried to the front door. She went right to the coatrack and looked where the girls usually hung their coats. The hooks were empty. The girls were gone!

  Chapter 32

  Jessie grabbed her jacket and dashed outside, flicking on the outside light as she went. It was dark with only a streetlight three houses down, illuminating the road. The temperature had dropped and the wind was bitterly cold. She scanned the darkness, looking for the familiar blue and purple coats of her girls.

  She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Maddie!” She listened. Nothing. She did it again, shouting, “Gracie!”

  She glanced at Zach’s house. They’d been upset that they wouldn’t be seeing him as much. Probably they had just gone over there. She ignored the fact that no lights were on in his house. There was nowhere else they could be.

  She stomped through the snow. The remnants from the blizzard hadn’t melted but the top had gotten crunchy so she dropped into the soft snow beneath with each step, having to haul her foot out of each hole. The going was slow and exhausting.

  She kept calling for the girls. There was no answer. She soldiered on, refusing to flip out. Her girls were good. They wouldn’t run away, they wouldn’t take off, clearly they had just gone outside, maybe to see Zach, and had lost track of the time.

  It was going to be okay. It was going to be fine.

  Her throat clenched on a sob she refused to let loose, knowing that if she started to cry, she wouldn’t be able to stop. It burned like a lump of fiery coal in her throat and she sucked in a frigid gulp of air, trying to ease the pain. It didn’t work.

  Where were her girls? Where could they have gone? If anything had happened to them . . . she couldn’t think it.

  She reached Zach’s porch, finally, and dashed up the steps to his front door. His porch light wasn’t on and she couldn’t find the doorbell so she banged on the wooden door with her fist.

  She waited. There was no answer. She banged again. Nothing. She moved to the side to peer into his living room window. It, too, was dark.

  “Zach!” she cried. “Gracie! Maddie! Anyone! I’m not mad. I won’t yell at you. I promise, just answer me . . .” Her throat closed up again, but she cried, “Please!”

  There was no answer. Jessie felt herself begin to wilt as the crushing weight of terror pressed down on her. She couldn’t live if anything happened to her girls. Her heart would cease to beat, there wouldn’t be a reason to breathe, nothing would matter to her. Nothing.

  Now the sobs were beginning to punch their way up out of her chest. She refused to give up. She refused to surrender. She ran down Zach’s walkway to the road. She would ask all of the neighbors. She would search every yard, every house, every garage on the street if she had to, but she would find her girls.

  What if they’re lost out there in the cold night? a taunting voice whispered in her ear and she fired back. And what if they aren’t?

  What if they’ve been kidnapped? What if they hate you for sending Zach away? Jessie shook her head. She didn’t want to hear it. She refused to be bullied by her fears. What if they haven’t been? And what if they don’t?

  She hurried down the street, calling the girls’ names and looking in each yard. The sidewalks had been cleared so she couldn’t tell if the girls had walked that way recently. The Lewises, who lived across from Zach’s house, heard her calling and came out to ask her if she was okay. She told them she couldn’t find the girls and they both went to grab their jackets to help look. Jessie could have hugged them but she was too busy, hurrying to the next house.

  A bark brought her attention back toward her house. She knew that bark. Rufus! She turned and started to run. Ahead on the sidewalk were Rufus and Zach. Rufus had his yellow Frisbee in his mouth and Zach was walking beside him.

  “Zach! Are they with you?” she cried. Zach glanced up from his phone, looking surprised to see her.

  “Jessie, what are you doing out here, without a hat and you’re unzipped. Are you trying to freeze to death?” he asked.

  Jessie didn’t answer but grabbed his arms in a desperate hold. “The girls! I can’t find them. Are they with you?”

  “What? I haven’t seen them since I left,” he said. “What do you mean you can’t find them?”

  “After you left, Gracie got mad and stormed up to her room,” she said. The sobs she’d been denying broke through her defenses and Jessie started to cry. “I fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up I went upstairs to talk to them, but they weren’t in their room. I checked the whole house and couldn’t find them and then I noticed that their coats were missing. Zach, they’re gone. If they left right after I fell asleep at six thirty, then they’ve been out here for forty-five minutes.”

  Through her tears, Jessie saw Zach’s face go a pasty shade of white. He pulled her close and hugged her hard. Then he grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her in the eye, and said, “We’ll find them. We’ll call everyone we know and we’ll find them.”

  He took out his phone and made a call, “Coop, I need you. Jessie’s girls are missing.”

  Jessie could hear Coop’s voice on the other end. Zach told him everything Jessie had told him and then Zach ended the call. He dialed another number.

  “Sam, we have a situation, I need you to get everyone to Jessie’s house right now,” he said. Jessie heard Sam on the other end. Zach’s face was grim when he added, “The girls are missing.”

  Tears and snot were streaming down Jessie’s face. Never had she been this afraid. Not when her parents died and she was left suddenly alone, not when her ex wiped out her entire inheritance and she had no idea how she would provide, not when she’d had her daughters, alone for both births because Seth was too drunk to be there. Never had she felt this powerless terror.

  “Come on.” Zach grabbed her hand and together they raced back to her house.

  Jessie hadn’t locked the door and Zach walked right in, leading her and Rufus. He shouted the girls’ names. They didn’t answer.

  Jessie was shivering and crying and Zach tenderly cleaned up her face with a tissue and hugged her. “We’re going to find them, don’t you worry.”

  “I thought they might have gone to your house,” she said.

  “I wasn’t at my house,” he said. “Rufus and I were playing Frisbee at the park. I was trying to clear my head. God, if I’d just gone home maybe they would have come to me and everything would be okay.”

  “No, don’t go there,” Jessie said. She squeezed his shoulder. “This is my fault. I overreacted about your talk with the judge—” She stopped talking and stared at him. “The judge!”

  Jessie grabbed her phone out of her pocket. She opened the display screen and thumbed through her contacts until she found her in-laws. She hit the dial button and held the phone to her ear.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “Maybe the judge took them,” she said.

  “And you’re calling him?” Zach asked. “Do you think he’ll admit it? Shouldn’t we go over there?”

  “No, I’m calling his wife,” she said. “She’s a good woman and she would never do anything like this to me.”

  “Hello?” Audrey Connelly answered.

  “Hi, Audrey, it’s Jessie.”

  “Jess
ie, what is it? You sound upset. Is everything all right?”

  “No, it’s not,” she said. “Audrey, the girls are missing.”

  Audrey Connelly’s shriek about split Jessie’s eardrum. So there went her theory that her former father-in-law had taken them. After a hurried conversation, Audrey said that she and the judge were on their way.

  Cooper arrived first. He called in backup and the police started to work the neighborhood. Officers Polson and Morgan went in two different directions, using the searchlights on top of their squad cars to search the area. According to Coop, they would fan out in slow-moving circles trying to see into every nook and cranny.

  The Maine crew arrived next and the group spilt up into pairs, Carly and James, Gavin and Mac, Emma and Brad, and one threesome, Jillian and Sam and Gina. It was evident how scared they all were by the fact that no one joked about a ménage.

  Much to Jessie’s humbled surprise, Zach’s field marketers showed up to help with the search as well. Savannah, Marla, and Desiree, along with two other girls that Jessie had never met. They were all dressed in heavy winter gear and just like the Maine crew, they trotted out into the cold to search for the girls.

  Jessie was ready to go back out and join the search. Surely, with this many people searching, they would be able to find the girls. She grabbed her hat and gloves and was headed for the door when Audrey and Judge Connelly arrived.

  “Jessie, what happened?” Audrey cried as she rushed into the house and hugged Jessie close. “How can we help?”

  Jessie returned the hug, reserving her fury for the man who deserved it. If the judge hadn’t threatened Jessie, none of this would have happened. She was sure of it.

  “The girls are out in the cold somewhere, and do you want to know why?” Jessie asked the judge.

  He met her stare but didn’t say a word. Smart man.

  “Because they heard me arguing with Zach about your altercation at the ice rink. I told Zach not to antagonize you because you threatened to take my girls away,” Jessie said. “The girls were upset that they wouldn’t be seeing him anymore so when I fell asleep, they left. I don’t know where they are, I don’t know if they’re safe, and I don’t know how to find them. This is your fault!”