by Silver James
* * *
Cord stared at Jolie, his eyes narrowing as he recognized J. Rand. The other man standing outside his door looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place him. “What the he—?”
His question was choked off as Jolie slapped him. “Where’s CJ?”
Cord really regretted the beers he’d drunk with the pizza he’d ordered for dinner. Nothing was making sense—not the rude awakening, being slapped by Jolie or her question. Jolie looked frantic. And pissed. Very, very pissed. He wondered just how many beers he’d had to drink because he sure couldn’t figure out what was happening. Before he could ask what she meant, she hit his chest with a balled-up fist. “Where is he? What have you done with him?”
Cord stared at her, wondering how a crazy woman could make his shorts tent. He backed up a step so she couldn’t slug him again. He looked at the clock in the foyer. It was after midnight. He’d fallen asleep during the ten o’clock news. “What’s going on, Jolie? Why are you asking about CJ?”
“You filed those papers you threatened me with. You’re trying to take CJ away from me.”
“I did what? Whoa, baby. Slow down, back up and rewind. What papers?”
“You sent men to my house to get CJ. They had a...a...”
“A temporary custody order,” the man who’d come in with Jolie and J. Rand finished. He stepped forward and gave Cord the evil eye. “Michael Weller. I’m representing Ms. Davis in this matter.”
“What matter?” Cord figured he looked as confused as he felt. “Jolie, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I haven’t filed any papers. I don’t know anything about a custody order, and I damn sure didn’t send anyone to your house to get CJ. Are you saying some men took him? Where is he?”
“He’s supposed to be here.”
“Supposed to be here? Why? I’m telling you, he’s not!” Panic threatened to close his trachea so he couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t have time for that. He had to find out what had happened to his son. “I didn’t take him, Jolie.” He half turned to Rand, but stopped as tears welled in Jolie’s eyes. She looked so lost all he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms and make it all better. He reached for her, but she jerked up her shoulder in self-defense. “Baby, talk to me. What’s going on? Where’s CJ?” He reached for her again, and this time she fell into his arms, tears staining her cheeks.
“He’s gone.”
Eighteen
Heat drained from Cord’s body, leaving only ice behind. “Who took him?”
“Your brother.”
“Dammit, I have four brothers. Which one?” Cord attempted to focus, but his brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders yet. Jolie’s announcement had his heart racing like a hamster on a wheel. Who would take CJ? Chance? No way, not after what he and Cassie had gone through to be together. Chase wouldn’t be bothered to leave Vegas. Or Nashville. Or wherever he currently happened to be. Clay was in Washington. He answered his own question when he ran out of brothers. “Cash.”
She nodded mutely, trying to control her tears.
“I didn’t have anything to do with this, Jolie. I promise we’ll get him back.” He breathed a little easier when her arms tightened around his waist. He brushed a kiss across the top of her head and reluctantly loosened his hold. “I need to get dressed and go get my—our son.”
Jolie pushed away from him and flicked tangled hair back from her face. “I’m coming with you.”
He didn’t want Jolie there when he confronted Cash. Didn’t want her to see how badly he’d been betrayed by his family, but he couldn’t stop her, either. “I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
Four minutes later, he was locking the door and headed to his truck. Rand and Weller stood next to a Lexus, arguing with Jolie. She wheeled and marched toward him. “Where are we going?”
“The ranch.”
She turned back to her father. “Do what you do best, Dad. I’ll keep you posted.” She climbed into his truck without help. Once they hit the interstate headed north, Cord barely spared her a glance as he focused on the lines on the highway, knuckles white where they gripped the steering wheel.
“Cord? Can we talk?”
“Not now, Jolie.”
He’d never been so damn angry in his entire life. His old man had done some spectacularly stupid crap in his time. But this? Cord had no words—and any he might have wouldn’t be coherent. The icy rage swirling in his gut left little room to think. Cord punched the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel and barked, “Call Chance.”
Chance answered, sounding neither awake nor alert, which pissed Cord off for some reason. He yelled into the Bluetooth microphone, “Did you have anything to do with this?”
The sound of a jaw-snapping yawn echoed in the truck. “Do you know what time it is? What are you talking about, Cord?”
“Cash and some men showed up at Jolie’s. They took CJ.”
“Oh, hell, bud. What’s our old man done now?”
“He filed some goddamned legal paper. Did you have anything to do with it, Chance?”
Stunned silence hummed in the truck, followed by bitter cussing streaming through the speaker. Cord had been thinking the same curse words. He swallowed and added, “I’m going to kill them, Chance. Both of them.” He hit the end button and refused to answer when the screen lit up with an incoming call from Chance.
“You don’t really mean that, Cord.” Jolie sat twisted in her seat so she could face him. She looked pale in the dim glow of dashboard lights.
“The hell I don’t. That’s my son, Jolie. Our son. You’re his mother. They took him from you.” He had to breathe around the burning knot in his chest before he could continue speaking, but then realized there was nothing else to say. He clamped his jaw shut and pressed the accelerator a little harder. The truck sped up and the white lines on the highway blurred beneath the big vehicle’s tires.
At the ranch, Cord skidded to a stop in front of the main house, barreled out of the truck and sprinted for the front door. He didn’t wait to see if Jolie was behind him. He hit the door with his booted foot and it crashed open. Miz Beth and Big John stood in the foyer. She was wringing her hands and John looked as if he was going to be sick.
“Where is he?”
“He’s fine, Cord. He’s asleep in his room.” John’s soft rumble attempted to convey a sense of calm, but he was as agitated as his wife.
Jolie’s sobbing gasp kept Cord from storming up the stairs. He turned and pulled her to his chest, circling his arms around her shoulders. “Shh, baby. It’s okay. We’ll get him and go home.”
“No. You won’t.” Cyrus stood in the arched doorway separating the entry from the great room. He glared at Jolie before flicking his gaze to Cord. “She’s not welcome here.”
“Fine. We’ll get CJ and go.”
The sound of screeching brakes outside sounded like nails on a blackboard. Cord didn’t care. He just wanted to get CJ and go home with Jolie.
Cash stepped up to join his father and Cord saw red—literally. Before anyone could react, he strode to his brother and coldcocked him with a right hook to the jaw. Cash went down as if he’d been poleaxed. Cord turned to his father. “You’re nothing but a dried-up piece of cow turd, old man. I’m going upstairs to get my son, and then his mother and I are taking him home. I’m done with you.”
“Cord—”
Chance was suddenly at his side. “Think, Cord. Just shut up and think.”
Cyrus puffed up and opened his mouth but didn’t get the chance to speak as both Cord and Chance rounded on him and said in tandem, “Shut up.”
Cash began to stir. Chance offered him a hand up, which Cash ignored. He remained sitting, butt on the floor, knees bent, his forearms resting across them. He stared at Cord, surprise showing in his expression.
“When the
hell did you learn to punch like that?”
“Shut up, Cash. I’m about two seconds from kicking the crap out of you.” Cord looked around to apologize to Miz Beth, but realized she and Big John had disappeared. Jolie stood just inside the front door looking shell-shocked.
He faced his father. “What the hell were you thinkin’, old man? Oh, wait. You weren’t.”
Cyrus bristled and jutted his chin, his expression as aggressive as the clenched fist he shook at Cord. “I’ll tell you what I was thinkin’, Cordell. And I’ll tell you what I did. What you should have done months ago when that trash blew back into town with your bastard. I’m making sure my grandson grows up to be a Barron. A legitimate Barron. You should have given him your name—our name as soon as you found out. You should have made that boy yours.”
The color red edged his vision again. If he didn’t stroke out, he was going to beat his father to a bloody pulp. “You’re wrong, Cyrus. He’s not just my son. He’s Jolie’s, too. CJ will be a Barron. But he’s also a Davis. CJ is our son. Jolie’s and mine. I’m not taking him away from his mother. I want to share him with her.”
Jolie stepped to his side and slipped her hand into his as Cyrus glared, his face a study in disappointment.
“I’m done with the lot of you. The boy stays here. He’s a Barron and he’ll be raised as one. I’ll make sure neither of you see him again. Take your whor—” Cyrus didn’t get to finish the word as Cord’s fist slammed into his jaw. He staggered back a half step before he straightened.
“You’ll pay for this, Cordell. I will take away everything I ever gave you.” His gaze brushed across Cash. “Clean this up, Cashion.” With a final grunt meant to dismiss them all, he walked out the front door, his face a mask of disgust.
Cord shared a glance with Chance before staring down at his youngest brother. “You know, I thought it was pretty crappy when you had those foreclosure papers served on Cassie, but this? Damn, Cash. You are really rolling around the bottom of the outhouse now.”
Cash wisely stayed on his butt. “Better me than a stranger, Cord. If the old man sent one of his thugs, we wouldn’t know where CJ was. That’s why I went to get him. And why I brought him here where—”
“What the—?” Cord forced his feet to take two steps back to put space between him and his brothers. “It would have been better not to do this at all. You could have stopped our old man. How could you do this to me? We’re family.”
Rather than kick—quite literally—his brother while he was down, Cord grabbed a decorative wooden box filled with doodads from a shelf and sent it crashing into the mirror hanging above a pine-and-deer-antler console table near the front door. The mirror shattered. “You’re my goddamned brother, Cash, and you betrayed me.”
Cash rolled to his feet in a lithe move. Without a glance at Cord or Chance, he strode to the door. He paused and stared back over his shoulder. “No, Cord. I’m not your goddamned brother. You and Chance and Clay are brothers. Chase and me? We never counted. We were always seconds.” He walked out, slamming the door behind him, leaving Cord and Chance staring at each other.
Stunned, Cord found his voice first. “What was that all about?” As he asked the mostly rhetorical question, he remembered his conversation with Cash in their old playroom. Yeah, the twins were technically half brothers to him, Chance and Clay, but he’d never considered them anything but family.
Chance frowned. “I don’t know where that came from. We’re brothers. All of us.”
“Exactly. I always thought it was us against the old man. All of us, Chance. After the old man married Helen, she was our mom, the twins our brothers.”
Tunneling his fingers through his hair, Cord felt rocked to his very foundation and completely out of control. He didn’t like either feeling. At all. He wanted to grab the world with both hands and twist it, shape it, stuff it back into the mold he’d created so that everything was nice and neat and running the way he wanted it.
Chance stared at the closed door. “He’s sure got a chip on his shoulder about something, though. I’ll call Chase in the morning, see if he knows what’s going on with Cash.” Chance stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Look, we need to talk.”
Cord sneered, but also replied in a quieter voice. “About Cash?”
“No. About—” Chance raised his hand in a vague wave “—all of this.”
“Cash and a couple of his goons scared the nanny and took CJ. On the old man’s orders. Without my knowledge or permission. What’s there to talk about, Chance?” He held out his hand for Jolie. “Let’s get CJ and go home.”
Chance’s next words pulled his attention back to his brother. “I want to see the order, check to see which judge signed it. This whole deal smells like an overflowing porta-potty on a hot July day.”
“You got that right.”
Chance exhaled and rubbed his eyes before addressing Jolie. “You may or may not believe me, Jolie, but here’s the truth. Yes, I had a paternity test done to confirm that CJ is Cord’s. And yes, I drew up some orders petitioning for a name change and amended birth certificate. Cord asked me to hold off filing. I did. I wish now I hadn’t. If we’d fixed things in the beginning, it never would have come to this. I’m also positive that Cyrus used one of his pet legal sharks to draft whatever the hell was filed. I’m sorry. If you’ll let me, I’d like to look at the paperwork you were given. And I’d like the opportunity to fix the mess my—” He choked off the expletive. “The mess our father made.” He offered her a bitter smile. “Sadly, I’ve been there, done that and my wife occasionally sleeps in the T-shirt.”
Jolie lifted a shoulder in a small shrug and flashed a tired smile. She leaned against Cord’s arm as he gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ll go get CJ, ’kay?”
He nodded and reluctantly released her hand. Chance stepped up beside him as they watched Jolie climb the stairs. “We’ll make this right, Cord. One way or another. And don’t worry about the old man’s threats. He can’t do a thing. I’ve made sure he can’t touch any of us.”
Overcome with emotion, Cord grabbed his brother in a bear hug. “You’ve always had my back. You know I’ll always have yours, right?”
Big John appeared with a broom and dustpan and cleared his throat. “Better get this mess swept up before the young ’un comes down.”
Miz Beth arrived a moment later, dragging a large trash can behind her. Chance hurried to relieve her of it and bent to help John. The older woman touched Cord’s arm. “Your father is a mean ole son of a gun, Cordell. Thank goodness you boys didn’t fall close to that tree. I was ready to box Cash’s ears when he walked in with CJ.”
A quick laugh burst from Cord at the thought of tiny Miz Beth giving Cash what for. “At least he brought CJ here, Miz Beth, where you and Big John could look after him.” And wasn’t that what Cash had been trying to tell him? He’d been too pissed to listen.
Miz Beth used a corner of her apron to dash away the moisture gathered in her eyes. She was rising on her toes to plant a kiss on his cheek when Jolie screamed Cord’s name. Miz Beth scrambled out of his way as he raced to the staircase and took the steps two at a time, Chance and Big John hard on his heels. He careened into CJ’s room expecting to find blood-splattered walls or worse.
“Jolie? Jolie, baby. What’s wrong?” Cord hauled her against his chest, checking out the room over her head. The bedclothes were rumpled but there was no sign of CJ. John checked the bathroom while Chance checked the closet and under the bed. CJ was nowhere to be found. John checked the window. It was closed and locked.
“Where is he, Cord?” Jolie seemed to clamp down on her panic. She gazed around the room. “Where’s Ducky? Where’s his backpack? Mrs. Corcoran said he’d had both with him when Cash took him.”
“We’ll search the house, Jolie. He can’t be far.”
“Do you... Would they...?
” She was unable to finish her thought, but Cord knew what she was thinking.
“No. There’s no way Cyrus or Cash could have taken him. He’s here somewhere. Maybe he woke up and heard the yelling, got scared. He’s probably hiding in the house.”
They split up and searched the house from top to bottom, which took far longer than Cord wished. As they gathered downstairs in the kitchen, Big John appeared, a hangdog expression on his face. “Back door in the utility room isn’t closed all the way. I’m sorry, Cord, but it looks as though he got out of the house.” The older man glanced over his shoulder. “And it’s starting to snow.”
Nineteen
The weak winter sun poked at the clouds riding low on the eastern horizon and touched the light dusting of snow with a handful of sparkles. The serene scene did nothing to alleviate the tension in the kitchen. Dark shadows bruised the skin around Jolie’s red-rimmed eyes. Her face was drawn and pale, and she looked as exhausted as Cord felt. Cassie sat next to her, attempting to get her to eat some of the eggs and bacon Miz Beth had cooked.
With Kaden’s help, they’d searched the barn, all the farm equipment and the stables. They’d awakened the ranch hands and checked each of the cottages. There’d been no trace of CJ, nor had he answered their desperate shouts. They did discover that Dusty was missing, too. Cord tried to take some comfort in that. The dog was big and furry and hopefully keeping CJ warm overnight.
A local newscast droned in the background, and when the morning weather forecast came on, Big John turned up the volume. The prediction wasn’t good. A big storm was due by noon, with plummeting temperatures and ice. They had to find CJ and find him now. Cord regretted calling off the search in the dark hours before dawn, but Chance, Kaden and Big John had all convinced him that stumbling around in the dark wasn’t smart. With daylight, they could find tracks, follow them. And search teams would arrive.
