He spoke to Ryan’s dad and confirmed that Jake wasn’t at the sleepover. Apparently, Jake had claimed a stomachache and said he was going home with Cody. Ryan’s dad didn’t think to check and promised to call if Jake showed up or called Ryan. Cody hung up and called Dylan, told him to round up some men and then dialed Logan.
“We’ve got a problem. Nope, JT this time.”
Cody’s hand slid around her neck to rest at the base of her skull, pulling her against him. She wrapped her arms around his middle and leaned in, burying her face in his stomach.
“He’s missing. No, he left a note. I need you to get up here and bring a couple of men to help search.” Shelby squeezed her eyes tight, silently praying Jake was okay. “Thanks. I’m heading west. Toward the river. All right, see you there.”
Shelby’s stomach dropped.
The river?
JT could swim, but not all that well. Plus he hardly ever spent time at the river. She tilted her head all the way back so she could look into Cody’s eyes. “Why the river?”
“Because it’s where I’d go.”
When I was hiding from my dad
went unsaid, but hung there between them. So did something else. Something that made breathing hard.
“Oh, God, honey,” was all he said, but it carried a weight that was crushing. He dropped to his knees and buried his face in her lap. She had no idea where this was going, but seeing him crumble made her suddenly sick. “I screwed up and I’m so sorry.”
“What are you talking about?”
That was when Cody looked up, and she knew whatever he was about to say was going to be shattering. “I was riding with JT and we started talking about where we were going to live—”
“You what?”
This could not be happening, she thought. She wanted to scream, thought her lungs would seize up so tight from the pain that her whole body would ache. But it didn’t. She was physically and emotionally numb. When she spoke, even her voice was empty.
“But we’re a team. We were going to talk to him together, after we discussed it. You said. I trusted you to wait.”
“I know, but he was excited about us getting married so I thought I’d see how he felt about Austin. I told him what the town was like and somehow he must have misunderstood what I was saying.”
“No!” she finally yelled. “No! You wanted to sweet-talk him into moving, bribe him with your big house and money, so when I said no I’d be the bad guy and you’d get your way.” Her hands shook and she was suddenly angry enough to want to slap him. Instead, she shoved at the wall of his chest, almost knocking him backward, and paced to the window.
“He’s a boy, Cody. Your son. And because you needed to control every damn thing in your world, you chased him out of it. And in the process you chased him out of mine. You had no right!”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Of course you did! Remember, you’d do anything to convince us.” Pain sliced through her. “I was stupid enough to believe you when you said that you really wanted to make this work.”
“I did. I do.” Cody crossed the room and reached for her hands. She drew back and his eyes went bleak.
“No. You don’t. Because if you did, you’d see how happy Jake is here. How happy I am. And instead of going at this alone, trying to make everything perfect, you would let us in, let us help.”
“I don’t know how,” he yelled. And there it was.
Shelby walked to the bed and sank down. Drawing her legs up to her chest, she wrapped her arms tightly around her knees and closed her eyes. If she squeezed them tight enough, she wouldn’t see her world crumbling around her. She wouldn’t notice that Cody was hurting just as much. Maybe more.
No matter how hard she fought, the tears came. “You lied to me, Cody. You said we were your family.”
“You are.” Cody squatted in front of her, taking her face between his hands. His fingers shook as they brushed away her tears. “God, baby, you are.”
She saw the pain in his eyes. The little boy who thought that if he made everything perfect, maybe he’d finally be loved. Silas had taught his sons that love had contingencies. It was something that tied you to a person even when it hurt. If they were to make it through this, Cody needed to see that love could be forgiving and unconditional.
“Well, then you’re ours too. And you need to let us start acting like it.” She put her hands on top of his, which still rested on her cheeks. She could barely see through her tears.
“Boss,” Dylan said from the doorway, looking sleep-tousled but alert. “Sorry to interrupt. Wanted to let you know we already checked the areas you mentioned and a few dozen others. No luck. But the horses are saddled and ready to go.”
“Be right down,” Cody said, his hands still cupping her face. He waited for the younger cowboy to leave before he continued. “I wish I could stay here and hold you. Somehow make this all right.”
Her heart ached. For both of them because he still didn’t get it. It wasn’t about him making it right. It was about them making it through this together.
“Go find our son, Cody. You can hold us both when you get back.”
“What if I can’t fix this, Shelby Lynn? What if I screwed up one time too many?” Cody dropped his gaze. “What if I keep screwing up?”
“Then we’ll fix it together.”
Cody nodded, his eyes looking a little misty. He brushed a kiss on her forehead and stood, making his way to the door. At the threshold he turned, his face tight with emotion. “I have my cell. If you hear anything, call. Or even if you just need to talk, okay?”
“Okay,” Shelby said, twisting her fingers together so tightly they went numb.
Cody turned to leave, only to pause, and turn back again. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
She shook her head. “I don’t need to anymore.” He would come back. Cody was done running.
“Well, I do.” In two strides Cody covered the room, and captured her lips. Pulling back he whispered, “I need to. I’ll always need to.”
Cody made short order of rounding up the men and heading out to the west end of the property. He rode Goliath hard, figuring JT had at least a few hours’ head start. He didn’t know what his son was planning, but being scared, feeling like you were in the way, and finding yourself playing at Huck Finn would most likely equate to trouble.
Add to that the fact that his son was a Tucker, and “most likely” suddenly became “absolutely.”
Goliath’s hooves thundered over the ground as Cody navigated him through the trees, over the west bank and up the river’s edge, covering ground quickly. Cody wasn’t worried about finding JT. He was worried about finding him in one piece. And even more so, what he was going to say to his son to make this right.
When he reached the bridge, Cody slowed his horse to a trot, the other cowboys following his lead. Stopping Goliath by the water’s edge, he told the others to hang back. If JT was here, and he was pretty sure by the apple core and wad of candy wrappers that he was, Cody didn’t want to scare the kid or make matters worse by embarrassing him.
Sliding out of the saddle and making his way to the bridge, Cody skirted around the base and entered from underneath. He’d pointed out this place to JT when they’d been riding. It was where he and his brothers used to hide when Silas got raging drunk and tossed them out. The second time it had happened, Cody had gotten smart, stockpiling canned foods and sodas in case it happened again. And it did.
Cody clicked on the flashlight, searching for the entrance that he and Noah had carved out. Locating it, he bent down, barely squeezing through the hole in the bridge’s base. The smell of water and algae filled his nose.
He pulled himself up into the actual dwelling and immediately spotted JT. Legs pulled up to his chest, nose buried in his knees, he sat on a sleeping bag, football nestled at one side, their trophy at the other, tossing pebbles into the water below. The kid had a pretty decent stash of cookies, chips, soda, and a couple of sorry-looking apples.
JT looked up at Cody, his dust-covered face streaked with dry tears, and then back to the water, saying nothing. Cody’s heart tugged at the resigned look on his son’s face.
“Mind if I pull up a piece of sleeping bag?”
JT shrugged, eyes on the river, tossing another pebble in. Cody eased down next to him, making sure their shoulders touched, needing contact and knowing JT did too.
Cody didn’t say a word. Just picked up a few pebbles from the pile at the end of the sleeping bag and tossed them in the river. Content, for the moment, just to be beside his son, breathe in his scent, knowing he wasn’t hurt, and he wouldn’t have to tell Shelby any different.
“Got your letter.”
JT slumped down lower, making himself look even smaller. “Did Mom see it?”
“Yeah,” Cody said, keeping his voice light, just two guys shooting the breeze.
“Was she mad?”
“Naw, she was scared though.”
“Ah, man. Did she cry?” JT’s voice was the equivalent of a good old-fashioned eye rolling. But his body language said he needed to know that his mama had missed him.
“Yeah, partner.” Slowly, Cody wrapped his arm around JT, expecting him to pull away and surprised when he leaned into him a little. “I cried a little too.”
“Really?” JT sounded horrified and pleased all at the same time.
“Really.” Cody scooched him a little closer, held on a little tighter. “I was afraid you’d get hurt. Or that when I found you, you wouldn’t want to talk to me or come back to the ranch. Seems I messed up pretty bad the other day.”
JT looked up at him, eyes wide with confusion.
“I was showing off, trying to get you to like Austin so you’d want to live there. With me and your mom. But from the looks of that letter, I was saying one thing and it was coming out another. If I had waited for us to talk as a family, you wouldn’t have felt like you had to run. And I’m sorry, partner.”
JT hung his head, rested it against Cody’s side. He heard a few sniffles and saw the boy rub at his eyes, trying to pass it off as nothing. “I didn’t want to be underfoot while you and Mom were connecting.”
“So your note said. Those are some pretty big concepts for a growing cowboy.”
JT was silent for a long while. “Preston said that some guys don’t take well to their new wife’s kid being underfoot.”
“Did he now?” Cody struggled to keep the violence out of his voice, pretty sure he was failing. “I didn’t know you two still talked.”
“Didn’t used to. Then Grandpa died and Preston wrote me a letter with his number. So I called. You know, asking him guy stuff. Then he showed up today at the fair and I told him about Austin. He saw my trophy, the one we got, and said he was proud. He likes the Cowboys.”
“Imagine that,” Cody said. The loneliness in JT’s voice made Cody want to pull him onto his lap. So he did, wrapping his arms tightly around his son and tucking him safely into his chest. It felt good.
“Did you do guy stuff with your grandpa?” Cody heard himself ask and was surprised to find that he really wanted to know. Because sitting there in his childhood panic room, surrounded by frosted animal cookies and grape soda, Cody needed to see a different side of the man who had raised him, the man who had, in a roundabout way, kept him from his own son.
“Yeah, we’d go fishing and riding and sometimes he’d let me sit in his chair and he’d read to me.” JT stopped and looked out toward the water, his shoulders rising and slumping once. “You probably don’t like me talking about him though. Being that he said he was a crappy dad and all.”
“Yeah, he was a pretty crappy dad.” Cody swallowed—wishing for what must have been the millionth time that it wasn’t true—and wrestling with the direction the conversation was taking. He wasn’t entirely sure how to process the love he heard in his son’s voice when talking about Silas. “I guess we all mess up sometimes. But I like hearing about you growing up. What did you two read?”
“We read all the Harry Potters.” JT straightened, taking on an animated tone that Cody had never heard before. “We read all seven in one month, can you believe it? He even taught me how to ride a bike and helped me make the Mini-Mites. Said he had to step in ’cuz Mom sucks at football.” JT leaned back, his big blue eyes taking on the color of wonder and looking directly at Cody. “Maybe tomorrow, if you aren’t too busy, we could go for a ride. I mean, if you still want me to come back like you said.”
“Hear this, JT. You’re my son. I am
never
too busy for you. And underfoot, with me and your mama, in the ranch house, is where you belong.”
“But you just said you were moving to Austin,” he said solemnly, fiddling with one of the buttons on Cody’s shirt.
“I’m not sure where we’ll live. Your mom and I have to talk about that. But I can tell you that if you and your mom are happy here, then here is where I’ll be.”
“But when you’re here you’re always riding with the hands. Or doing something in your office. Or staring at mom.”
“And you figured if you left I might hang around more, not be so distracted?”
JT’s answer was a single shaky nod.
“Let me tell you something, partner,” Cody chuckled. “Your mom will always drive me to distraction, that’s what women do. But you and me, we’re family. And family belongs together. Not running from each other. Understand?”
JT sniffled, leaned in to wipe his nose on Cody’s shirt, blew, and nodded. Cody palmed the boy’s head and pulled him tight against his chest, swallowing the lump threatening to choke him.
“If you’ve got a problem, come talk to me about it, just like I did with you when I needed advice on marrying your mom. That’s what family does.”
“Okay.”
Setting JT on his feet, Cody stood and clapped him on the back. “What do you say we go home? To your mom?”
“She’s gonna freak.” JT underscored the last two words, almost making them each their own sentence.
“I imagine she will.”
Cody took his son by the shoulder and steered him back through the maze of broken slats. After calling Shelby to tell her JT was okay, he settled his son on Goliath. “Give me a minute, partner.”
JT nodded and Cody set off to thank the men for their help but stopped short when he saw Sam sitting on his horse, lingering on the edge of the group.