been the easy part. She had rosy cherub cheeks, dark curls for days and a laugh brighter than the Texas sun. Caring for a two-year-old who’d just lost everything known to her, everything comfortable, had been harder than his tour in Afghanistan.
What a difference a year made.
Dylan squatted at the end of the hallway just out of sight, listening intently as the sounds of Maribel’s electric toothbrush hummed, then died. The pitter-patter of her bare feet on bamboo flooring in the hallway came next. She knew the drill, the same ritual they’d performed every morning since she’d come to live with him in Mason Ridge. She’d be on the lookout, ready to find Da-da.
Her giggle was like spring air, breathing life into everything around her. And he’d been on a certain path of destruction before she came into his life.
The tap-tap-tap of her footsteps stopped at the end of the hall. She’d expected to find him by now.
“Da-da.”
He rolled and landed with his back against the floor a few feet away, arms spread open.
She jumped, squealed and clapped all at once. A second later, she launched herself on top of him. “Da-da!”
Thanks to reflexes honed by the US Army, he caught her in time.
“Airplane, Da-da,” she said. Her r came out as a w.
Dylan extended his arms and made her fly. “Mrrrrrr, mrrrrrrr.”
A knock at the back door interrupted their playtime. It was probably for the best. Maribel shouldn’t be late to preschool again. Dylan didn’t think he could stomach another disapproving look from Mrs. Applebee. He might not be the most punctual guy when it came to dropping his daughter off at school, but no one could argue his love for the child. Not even stern-faced, disapproving Applebee. She might run a tight ship, but her heart was pure gold. More important, she loved Maribel.
He set his little girl on her feet next to him. “Daddy needs a favor. Go to your room, put on your shoes and grab your backpack.”
She planted her balled fist on her little hip and argued for a little more time as a plane.
The knock came louder this time. Dylan didn’t like the sense of urgency it carried. “When you get home from school today, I promise. Okay, Bel?”
She pursed her lips and narrowed her gaze.
“And we can have ice cream after,” he threw in to tip the scale in his favor. “You don’t want to miss your field trip to Dinosaur Park.”
“Ho-kay” came out on a sigh. She turned and bolted toward her room. Toddlers had one speed. It was full tilt.
Dylan popped to his feet in one swift motion and crossed to the kitchen, his muscles still warm from his early-morning push-ups. He liked to get his workout in before Maribel opened her eyes. When she was awake, his full attention was on her, had to be on her. Three-year-olds had no sense of danger.
Only a few people used his back door. He saw his friend Rebecca Hughes through the glass and motioned for her to come inside.
“Everything okay with Shane?” Shane was the younger brother she’d recently located who had been abducted at seven years old. Dylan tried not to think about the fact that Shane had been only four years older than his Maribel when he’d been taken from Mason Ridge and the Hughes family all those years ago. Even so, a bolt of anger flashed through him quicker than a lightning rod and with the same explosive effect.
“He’s fine. I’m not here about him.” Didn’t those words leave a creepy-crawly feeling all over Dylan?
“What is it? Something going on with Brody?” She had reunited with her high school sweetheart, who was one of Dylan’s best friends, when the man responsible for kidnapping her and her brother as children had come back for her last month.
She shook her head. “It might not be anything. It’s just that Samantha stopped answering her cell phone four days ago. I have a bad feeling.”
“You call her father?” he asked.
“Store says he’s gone fishing,” she supplied. Samantha’s father owned the only hardware store in town.
“So you want me to look into it?” Since opening the doors to his security consulting firm last year, he’d taken the occasional missing-person case, none of which had involved a friend’s disappearance. He, Rebecca and Samantha had been part of a close-knit group of childhood friends. The group had broken up fifteen years ago when Rebecca and her brother, Shane, had been abducted.
For the past few weeks, everyone in town had been focused on the manhunt for the Mason Ridge Abductor after he’d returned to permanently quiet Rebecca. Her search for her brother had brought her too close to the truth. Thomas Kramer’s grip on the community had lasted fifteen years, but luck had finally smiled on the town and they’d gotten him. He wasn’t in prison, where he belonged, but he’d been killed in a car crash and that was just as good. Either way, he was no longer a threat.
Dylan thought about his word choice. Luck? There was a reason he didn’t have a rabbit’s foot tucked in his pocket. Hard work was reliable. Luck was for ladies in Vegas at the slot machines. Luck was for people who believed in things they couldn’t see. Luck was for pie-in-the-sky dreamers. Dylan was far too practical to fall into that trap. People created their own luck.
With a state-of-the-art computer, a strong network of contacts and skills honed through the military, Dylan didn’t have to rely on chance to help his clients.
Even so, he couldn’t shake the bad feeling he had about Rebecca’s visit.
Maribel bounded into the room, ran straight for Rebecca and wrapped tiny arms around her knees. “Auntie Becca!”
“Hey, baby girl.” Rebecca bent down to eye level and then kissed Maribel on the forehead.
The two had become fast friends. A tug Dylan didn’t want to acknowledge stirred his heart. Rebecca was fantastic, don’t get him wrong, but he suspected the bond had happened so quickly in part because Maribel missed her mother. He kept Lyndsey’s picture on Maribel’s nightstand. Maribel kissed the photograph every night before bed and then said good-night to her mother in heaven. It was important that Maribel knew just how much her mother had loved her. Even more important to Dylan was that Maribel knew her mother had wanted her.
On some level, he understood why Lyndsey had kept his daughter from him. He’d been partly to blame, having declared long ago that he never wanted kids or marriage. How many times had he told Lyndsey that parenthood was about the cruelest thing a person could do to a child? Too many.
His wild-child ways hadn’t helped any. He had no right to hold on to anger when it came to Lyndsey’s decision. She’d been trying to protect her baby.
Dylan never took for granted how very blessed he’d been from the day that little girl had come into his life. His only regret was that he hadn’t known sooner, that Lyndsey hadn’t realized how much being present in his child’s life would mean to him. Had he been that much of a jerk?
The short answer? Yes.
He had to have been. Lyndsey would’ve trusted him otherwise. He couldn’t blame
