“I swear to Christ, Hope, if this isn’t about one of the—”
My body had strung tighter at the name he spoke only for it to threaten to snap when I caught the look that hit his face before he rolled off me, knifing up to sitting, but yanking me up with him and plastering me with his arm around me to his side.
“How long?” he asked and there was barely time to take a breath before he went on, “Okay, I know, of course you don’t know.” He was now speaking in a calming tone, doing it taking his feet at the side of the bed and hauling me up with him. “You call your dad?” he inquired. “Okay, right. Get off with me, Hope, call him. Her girlfriends’ parents. Madam DuBois. Anyone you can think of she’d go to. I’m goin’ out to look for her.” A pause while he pulled me to his closet, my heart racing at listening to his words and what they might mean. “Yeah, now. Goin’ out now, Hope. You hear anything, you call me, okay?”
We were in his walk-in closet. I flipped the light switch on and went right back to him, pressing into him, one arm around him, one hand at his chest.
“Yeah. I’ll do the same,” he said. “We’ll find her.”
“Oh God,” I mouthed, no sound coming out but it was like Hix felt it because he looked down at me.
“Right. Yeah. Gotta go look so lettin’ you go. Okay?” He paused. “Okay. Later, Hope.”
He listened for a split second then took his phone from his ear.
“Hope was gonna surprise the girls with a shopping trip today, takin’ ’em to Scottsbluff. She went in to tell Mamie she had to get up and get ready and Mamie wasn’t in her bed. She woke Corinne. Mamie isn’t anywhere in the house. They looked everywhere, she’s nowhere. Gone.” He sucked in a deep breath through his nose and finished, “I gotta get on the road and find my girl.”
“Oh God, Hix, of course, yes,” I replied, rushing to the back of the closet where there were some as-yet-unpacked suitcases and boxes filled with clothes, dropping down to my knees in front of one to unzip it and flip it open.
That was as far as I got. I didn’t even get a look in to see if any of his jeans were there before he wrapped his fingers around my biceps and pulled me up and around to face him.
“Get dressed, sweetheart. I need you to get dressed. I can find some clothes.”
Of course, I was naked.
I was so stupid.
I needed to get dressed.
I nodded and ran out to the bedroom where he’d dumped the bag I’d brought over with me yesterday.
I had panties and bra on with my jeans up but undone when the doorbell rang.
I stilled in buttoning my fly and looked to the bedroom door, but then my eyes flew to the closet as Hix tore out of it wearing jeans, a thermal in his fisted hand, his phone in the other.
He sprinted out the door and I wasted only the time it took to bend and tag my top before I took off after him.
I was pulling the top down at the same time hiking my jeans up because they were still undone and sliding down my hips when I raced down the stairs to see Hix pull open the front door.
“Daddy,” I heard and I halted on a sway, nearly slipping off the stair four steps from the bottom but not caring if I went down, my relief at hearing Mamie’s voice was so intense.
“Jesus, Mamie, Jesus, baby,” he rumbled and squatted.
Coming right back up, he carried her in, holding her tight to him, leaving the door open behind him.
I quickly did up my jeans and then hurried to the door to close it as he pushed his girl’s face into his neck, still holding his thermal so her face was hidden from me, and he swayed her in his arms, muttering, “Jesus, God, baby. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Her voice came muffled against his skin, and then I heard a sob and her arms locked around him but she pushed her head back to look at her dad’s face before she wailed, “I can’t be there anymore! I wanna live here with you! I wanna live with you and Shaw. I wanna live with you, Daddy. You and Shaw and you . . . and . . . and . . . you!”
After that, she shoved her own face in her father’s neck and her slender, not-so-little-but-still-little girl’s body bucked in his arms as she burst into loud, body-wracking sobs.
I moved into Hix’s line of sight in an attempt to assess his state of mind only for him to catch my gaze and reach out with the hand he had still holding his phone.
“Call Hope,” he mouthed.
I moved immediately to take his phone and he wrapped his arm back around his girl, moving to the couch and swinging out her legs as he sat in it with her in his lap.
She burrowed deeper, still bawling.
I’d taken his phone but my heart was hammering in my chest at the idea of calling Hope.
But she had to know, immediately, that her daughter was safe.
I looked down at the phone and started to rush out of the room toward the kitchen.
“Fourteen, nine, three,” he called, and I looked back over my shoulder at him, nodded and then hurried into the kitchen, touching Hixon’s code into the screen.
I went to recent calls, saw Hope at the top and touched her name.
I put it to my ear, it rang once, and she answered saying, “I called Dad. He’s coming into town. I’m making calls to her friends. Corinne’s helping me. I—”
“Hope, I’m so sorry to interrupt you but you’ve got Greta and you need to know that Mamie’s here. She’s with her dad. She’s all right. I don’t know what’s happening but she rang the doorbell before Hix had the chance to go out to look for her, but she’s here. She’s fine. She’s safe. She’s with her dad.”
“She’s there?” Hope asked for confirmation.
“She’s here. She’s fine and she’s here.”
She wasn’t fine. She was bawling and asking to live with her dad but at least she was safe and healthy and the people who needed to know where she was knew where she was.
“She’s there, honey. She’s at your dad’s,” I heard Hope say, probably to Corinne, her relief running so deep, it dribbled out of the phone into my ear.
I drew in a breath.
“I’ll . . . I-I’ll . . .” Hope started but said no more.
Okay, crisis over and I had Hix’s ex on the phone.
Now what?
“I, um . . . why don’t I get him to call you after he calms her down?” I suggested.
Wrong thing to say.
“Calms her down?” Hope asked.
“Well, she’s wound up about something, and Hix was intent on you knowing she was safe so he just gave me his phone and I gave them privacy and came into the kitchen to call you.”
“You’re in Hix’s kitchen at seven thirty on a Sunday morning?”