Aside from Elijah, Jesse, and Webb, we’d been too young to help out when my cousins in Piersville had their problems. Jesse and Webb had spent a lot of time there on and off over the last five years until they’d found their own bases.
Then, with the family we had in Gonzales County, we’d helped out with a couple of their issues, but not all of them, again because of age and the fact that Elijah was in the Coast Guard and Jesse and Webb were doing their own things.
With each incident and drama in the family, I’d always wondered how I’d feel in my cousins’ shoes. Would I be as calm as my grandad was? Would I be able to smile still and laugh after it? Would I lose my shit and explode? After some consideration, I’d settled on the last one being the most probable out of them all, but I’d been wrong. It’d been secret option number four—I was just numb, on the inside and outside.
“Mrs. V doesn’t have security cameras, but she saw a black Corolla with the hood up earlier this morning about one hundred yards away from the road to the ranch. She said it was an old one with dents and scrapes all over it, and the rear left tire was the spare.
“She was going to go out and ask them if they needed help if they were still there after she’d done some things, but when she looked about forty minutes later, it was gone.”
Like a robot, I moved away from the group and walked over to my bike, swinging my leg over it. There was no certainty Addy was in that car, but with it being the only thing we had to go on, I had to find it.
“Marcus,” Jackson called, jogging up beside me. “You gotta snap out of this, or you’ll wreck before you find Addy. She needs you to be aware, and your brain switched to on instead of off. If you can’t do that right now, stay and have a coffee with her grandmother while we all go out looking.”
My confusion turned to irritation. “I’m fine.” I only just got the words out through how tightly clenched my jaw was.
A small smile played on his lips, and I kinda wanted to punch him for having anything to smile about at this moment.
“Now you are because I’ve pissed you off. Before that, you were like a zombie, and you’ve been trying to start your bike with your car keys.” He nodded down at my hand, and when I followed where he was looking, I saw he was right. I was pressing the button to unlock my truck on the key fob like it’d turn my bike on.
Shoving them back in my pocket, I grabbed the other set of keys, getting the right one this time and putting them in the ignition.
“I’m going to head east,” I told him, pointing to the left. “You guys decide which way you’re going to split up, and we’ll meet back here. Call me or text with any updates.”
He’d just opened his mouth to reply when Remy yelled, “There’s a fire at the ranch. Marni just called Gus and told him her house was on fire. I’m going up there, but I’ll head out to find Addy once it’s sorted out.”
For the first time since I’d opened it, something big like that didn’t even affect me a little. Instead of barking out suggestions and reminders like I usually would have done, I shrugged a shoulder, totally uncaring about it all. I mean, it wasn’t like the horses or someone’s lives were in danger…unlike Addy’s. Why else would someone take her?
Looking back at my twin as I started the bike, I raised my voice over the loud rumbling. “Do everything you can to find her, man.”
And with that, I took off, feeling like I was going to be sick with every minute I rode around looking for her. That feeling only got worse when I didn’t find even a tiny trace of her.
Not a shoe, a hair tie…nada. There was no way I’d assume the worst case scenario, though. Fuck no.
And when I found her, all of the plans I’d been secretly building since she’d come back into my life—fuck, since I’d seen her that first time—would be put into motion.
Chapter Twenty-One
Addy
As a kid, I’d try to hold my breath underwater for as long as possible until I got that panicked feeling and admitted defeat. I’d feel the relief in my body as I gasped in that first deep breath after I broke through the surface, and regardless of how scary it was to be without oxygen, I’d do it again and again. Shit, I still did it when I went swimming as an adult. Who didn’t? At some point, we all tested ourselves to the limit with something, and holding your breath underwater was likely to be the most popular example.