by Avelyn Paige
Priest shakes his head. “I don’t get you, man. All these women around here, and I haven’t seen you touch a single one of them. You have something against free pussy?”
Fucking asshole. “Hey, I got a question for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Does this barstool look like a fucking confessional, prospect?”
Without another word, Priest stalks off, the reminder of his rank like a kick in the nuts. Mission accomplished.
Tonight’s the kind of night I just want to sit here at the bar, get drunk, and pass out until tomorrow. I shouldn’t even be here, seeing as I’m in no mood for celebrating, but ghosting them like Shelby did to me on such a big night for our club isn’t in the cards. I’d be disrespecting both GP and Blair if I hadn’t shown up. So, here I sit, wallowing like a fucking asshole in my own personal shit instead of celebrating with my club.
“Hot damn!” Karma yells out from the crowd. “Hey, honey, how about you come and sit on my lap?”
Great. One of the club girls must be putting on a show. Grabbing my beer, I start to turn around when…
What the fuck?
A fucking ghost from my past. One I never expected to walk back into this place so long as my lungs still sucked in air. Shelby fucking Dawson. The woman who broke me.
“Is he here?” her voice calls out over the noise, rocking my fucking world. The beer drops from my hand, shattering to the floor, bringing her attention to me.
Fuck me sideways. Ain’t no hiding from her now. Way to go, asshole. Couldn’t just make a quick escape, could you?
She bolts toward me, fear clear as day on that pretty face I used to call mine all those years ago. The face that fucking bailed without so much as a goddamn word.
Each step she takes closer to my location, my heart thuds inside of my chest. The years have been good to her. Damn good. The girl I knew has grown into a woman, and a smoking hot one at that. Her short, spiky, pink and blonde hair has changed into an even punkier look of bright purple. Every pair of unattached male eyes are on her. Hell, even the ones attached are looking. The beast lying dormant inside of me growls, wanting to re-stake my claim on her and force them to look away. But she’s not mine anymore. She’d made that clear enough when she left.
“Wyatt,” her silky voice calls out to me. A voice I never thought I’d hear again. A voice that still—after everything—has the power to ruin me.
“So, you do remember my name. Figured you’d forgotten it with the way you left.”
Her beautiful eyes soften as a tear slides down her cheek. The pained look tells me all I need to know. She’s not here for a reunion, nor to apologize for leaving the way she did. She wants something, and she’s desperate enough to come to me after all these years.
Well, she came to the wrong fucking man.
“I need your help.”
“I ain’t in the helping mood, darlin’, not anymore. Go ask someone else,” I snarl, stepping around her.
“Please,” she pleads. “My daughter’s gone.”
She has a kid? The fact that she could leave me so easily and have a child with someone else doesn’t escape me. It’s been years, and her moving on should be a given. So why does that hurt so much? I peek at her left hand. No ring. Commitment still isn’t her strong suit, it seems.
“Must get that skill from her mother. You were real good at running away yourself.”
“I’m not here to rehash the past, Wyatt. I really need your help.” Good. There’s nothing for the two of us in the past or in the present. She made damn sure of that thirteen years ago.
“Why should I care about some other man’s spawn?”
“Because she’s yours.”
Those words hit me like an electric shock, straight to the heart. I gape at her, unable to move. “Say that again? I could’ve sworn you said she was mine. Last time I checked, I didn’t see my name listed on a birth certificate anywhere.”
“My daughter… she’s yours.” This time, her voice cracks.
I narrow my eyes and take a step closer. “How do you know she’s mine? It’s been fucking years, Shelby. For all I know, you’re lying to me so I’ll help you.”
“She’s twelve, Wyatt. Do the math.”
With a frown, I push past her and pace the floor, ignoring the people around us watching our every move. If she’s really twelve, the timing would be right, but why the hell would I believe her? The woman I knew back then wouldn’t have hidden this from me. She knew I wanted kids. A tie to someone by blood, since my own family didn’t bother to stick around.
“Please, Wyatt,” she sobs. “She’s missing. I know something’s wrong. Someone’s taken her.”
The hurt in her voice brings every protective instinct I’ve ever had for her rising back to the surface. Between the noise, the eyes of everyone looking at us, and this fucking revelation swirling around my head, I can’t take it anymore.
Reaching out for her hand, she recoils.
“Jesus, Shelby, I’m not going to fucking bite you. We need to go someplace, away from all this noise, so I can think.” I reach out for her again, and this time, she allows me to touch her soft hand. I lead her down the hallway, straight toward the room I keep at the clubhouse. She stops dead the second she sees it, her face sullen and white.
“Come on.” Opening the door, I drag her inside, releasing her long enough to shut the door and everyone out. Shelby’s eyes dart around the space before focusing back on me. A slight tremor rolls down her body, as if she’s afraid of me.
“Start from the beginning.”
Shelby
I stand like a statue, unable to move a muscle as I take in the room that changed everything about my life as I knew it. I hadn’t spent but a few seconds in here that night all those years ago, but from what I can tell, not much has changed.
Computer parts and cords are scattered across every available surface, with boxes stacked in the corner. The bed is made, but rumpled. At least it’s empty.
“Shelby,” Wyatt calls, snapping me back to the here and now. “Your daughter.”
I blink at him. My daughter. Him saying those words to me is so strange. But she’s not just my daughter; she’s his too. Oh, God. What was I thinking coming here?
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here,” I blurt out, bolting past him toward the door.
When it opens just a fraction, my heart soars with hope. I need to get out of this room, out of this clubhouse. Out of this godawful town. But I only get it open a fraction before it’s closed with a thud so loud, it rattles the walls around us.
Wyatt stands behind me, so close, I can feel the heat of his chest against my back, his muscled forearm pressing against the door beside me. “I don’t fucking think so, sweet cheeks. I’m done watching the ass end of you running away from me. You came to me, asking for help.” His words, whispered against my cheek, sends a shiver down my spine. And just for a moment, I revel in his nearness, my eyes falling closed as he moves even closer.
“Fuck,” he snarls, pushing away from me and stalking across to the other side of the room. “What the actual fuck, Shelby? You can’t just fucking walk back in here thirteen years later and tell me I have a goddamn kid. You think you can drop an atomic bomb like that and just bolt again?”
I press my back against the door and fight back the tears that are already spilling down my cheeks. “I shouldn’t have come to you. I shouldn’t be here.”
Anger and hatred stare back at me from the same eyes that once looked at me with reverence and admiration. “You heartless bitch,” he spits. Those words assault my heart like serrated blades, but I still don’t move. “You think long and hard about your next move, Shelby. If what you say is true, and that you’ve been keeping my kid from me all these years, we’ll deal with that. But if it’s also true this kid is missing, we need to move, and we need to move fast. So, pull your fucking head out of your ass and fill me in so I can find my fucking daughter.”
I gape at
him before finally dashing away my tears on the backs of my trembling hands. Reaching into my purse, I pull out the small stack of photos I’d been showing to anyone who would look and hold them out.
He doesn’t take his eyes off of mine as he steps forward, plucking them from my fingers. I stand rigid and watch as he takes in the image of his daughter for the first time. There’s no mistaking she’s his. She has his brown eyes, and dark, unruly hair. She even has the little dimple in her chin that I had once teased him about, even though it was one of my favorite features. He swallows thickly and flips to the next photograph, and then the next. All of them are current, and taken within the past few months.
“Her name is Hayden,” I say quietly, my heart cracking a little when his eyes fall closed.
“You gave her my last name?”
“And mine,” I say, pushing past the pain in his voice as I explain. “Hayden, for your last name, and mine, Dawson. So, Hayden Dawson she is.”
I watch as he opens his mouth to speak, but then appears to reconsider, and gives his head a shake. “How long has she been missing?”
“Almost seven hours now,” I whisper.
“Jesus.” Wyatt glances back down at the photographs. “What can you tell me?”
“She’s a computer nut, always has been. She programs video games and other stuff I don’t even try to understand. But, a few weeks ago, she started acting really secretive. She'd close her laptop when I came in the room, or she’d be up after her bedtime when she thought I was asleep. None of it was normal for her.”
Wyatt pulls a chair away from the desk and brings it closer, indicating for me to take a seat. With a sigh, I move to it and accept the offer, watching as he perches himself on the edge of the bed.
“Then, this afternoon, she didn’t return from summer camp. Nobody knew where she was, and the police weren’t much help. They figure she’s a runaway, but I know my daughter.” I ignore the way his jaw hardens at that statement.
“I phoned every friend she has, and all but harassed the police those first few hours, but I got no closer. I got on her laptop, but I can’t get on. I’m worried something terrible has happened, Wyatt.”
“I’m gonna need that laptop,” he says, all business now.
“I have it in my car. I grabbed it before I left to come here.”
“Where have you been living?”
I hesitate before answering him. I’d spent so long keeping my whereabouts a secret so he’d never know, and telling him now would go against all that. “Beckettville.”
His jaw ticks with anger, but again, he holds back on saying anything. I know he’s wondering how we could have been so close all this time and never ran into each other at some point.
“Why didn’t the police put out an Amber Alert?”
I sigh. “They wanted to speak with you before they did.”
He curses. “I’ll speak to them all right. There’ll be an Amber Alert out within the hour. Now, go get me that laptop so I can see what she’s been up to.”
Hashtag
The second Shelby is out of my room, the rage inside of me, simmering just below the surface, rips from my chest. With a single swipe of my arm, I shove everything off my work desk, sending it crashing to the floor and against the wall. The thud echoes throughout the room, sounding like a rocket exploding in the night’s sky.
“Fuck!” I roar, raking my hand over my face. All these years, she hid my daughter from me, and the only reason her existence was made known to me now is because Shelby needs my help to find her, leaving me only to wonder: what would’ve happened if she hadn’t disappeared? Would she have ever told me?
Now, because of her mother’s decision, I may never get the chance to meet her. The one person on this earth with a piece of me inside of her, stolen away before I could even set my eyes on her.
The minutes tick by slowly until Shelby walks back into my room, clutching a hot pink MacBook against her chest like a shield of armor. Her eyes fall to the mess behind me and soften.
“I, uh… here,” she stammers, handing it to me. When my fingers graze hers, she recoils from my touch, and fuck if it doesn’t hurt, even as pissed as I am. I loved this woman with every fiber of my being. I wanted to make her mine, to give her my last name. Now, as she stands there, she shivers at the idea of breathing the same air as me.
Focus on the girl. Thinking about the past isn’t going to fix the present.
“I don’t know the password.”
“A password has never stopped me before, and it isn’t going to now.” I retrieve both items from Shelby and set them on my now cleared desk before I turn back to her. “First, we’re going to call and get this Amber Alert bullshit taken care of right now.”
“You really think you can get them to issue it?”
“You said they needed to talk to her father, which according to you, is me. If that’s all that’s holding up the process, it should work.”
Shelby doesn’t move.
“You gonna call them, or are you going to give me this detective’s number?” Shelby pulls out her ancient cell phone and presses her finger to the screen. Snatching it from her as the first ring goes through, I put it on speakerphone. “What’s this asshole’s name?”
“Detective Fischer. Please, don’t piss him off. He was less than helpful earlier. I’m worried that if you go all you on him, he’ll refuse to help at all,” she pleads.
“It’s his fucking job to help, Shelby. If he’d done his job, there would’ve been an Amber Alert out hours ago.” And then she wouldn’t have come to me and turned my life upside down, but I leave that part out.
A voice answers on the second ring. “Beckettville Police Department.”
“Yeah, I need to speak to Detective Fischer regarding my missing daughter.”
“He’s not here right now, sir.”
“Then who the fuck’s there?” I growl. It’s no secret that I hate fucking cops, but this one time, they could prove useful. As I don’t have that kind of reach, an Amber Alert will have every single person in the state on the lookout for my girl.
“Please hold. I’ll transfer you to one of the detectives on duty.”
A few beeps go by before someone else answers. “Detective Moulton.”
“Yeah, my kid’s missing, and I want to know why the fuck your department is refusing to put an Amber Alert out on her.”
“Sir, calm down. Amber Alerts have certain criteria that have to be met before we can issue one. We can’t just put one out on any kid who’s wandered away from home.”
“She hasn’t run away,” Shelby interjects. “I tried to tell Detective Fischer that, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“What’s her name?” he asks.
“Hayden Dawson.”
I hear the clicks of the keyboard in the background.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t show a report anywhere. Detective Fischer may not have it filed yet in the system, and until he does, there’s really nothing I can do. My advice would be to call back in the morning and talk to Fischer directly.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me. All those resources at your fingertips, and you won’t do a fucking thing? Your detective told her mother that he’ll look into it but needs to talk to me. Well, here the fuck I am. She’s not with me. Issue the fucking Amber Alert.”
“If you’re going to continue to speak to me like that, sir, I’ll have to end this call. If you call back and talk to the detective who spoke to your wife, you’ll be able to get more answers than I can give you.” I ignore his assumption that she’s my wife. If she was, this would have never happened. That was Shelby’s choice, not mine, and I’m paying the consequences now that she needs my help.
Shelby’s eyes plead with me to stop, but I can’t. I may not have known about Hayden until tonight, but Shelby’s assured me that she’s my blood, and a DNA test will prove that later. But even if she isn’t, I’m not about to sit around and let the police shove a child’s safety on the back burn
er. I’d been down that road myself, and no child deserves to be ignored by a system meant to protect them from shit like this.
“If you and your department don’t want to handle it, I’ll fucking do it myself,” I bellow before hanging up on the guy. “So help me, Shelby, I’m going to get her back, police or no police. I’ll do it.” Tears stream down her beautiful face, but I can’t focus on her sadness or my rage.
Focus on what you can do. Ignore how much you want to take Shelby into your arms and comfort her.
“Does she have a cell phone?”
“She does, but it wasn’t at the house. She never leaves without it.”
“What’s the number?”
Shelby hesitates. “It’s 554-0690.”
Opening my desktop, I pull up a geo-locator site I use for the club.
“Service provider?”
“T-Mobile.”
My fingers fly across the keyboard, quickly entering in the information and the provider. With a click of the enter key, the screen flashes. My heart drops.
“Her phone hasn’t connected to a cell tower since early yesterday morning.”
“Oh, God.”
“Relax, Shelby. It could mean her phone’s off or the battery’s dead. We just have to keep checking to see if it connects to a local cell tower, which will get us a close proximity of where she could be or has been. You just have to have a little faith. Let’s try her laptop.”
My attention goes immediately to the device. I flip it open and the screen lights up. Dozens of strings of green code, like a science fiction movie, cover her home screen, not all that unsimilar to my own setup. “Shit,” I mutter, glancing up at Shelby just as the log-in screen pops up with the password box.
“She knows her computers,” she confesses with admiration. “Do you think you can get into it?”
“Let me think.”
She wasn’t kidding. This girl knows her way around a computer and back again. Hayden is definitely not your ordinary twelve-year-old. A strange sense of pride tingles deep in my gut at the realization that I have a daughter who can set up a system like this.
