On the other hand, the fact that she’d disappeared herself all the way out here and went no contact for two years says a lot about her as well. Strong, fortified, and probably stubborn as hell. “Looks like we’re here.” The cabin was nicer than most of the ones we’d seen coming in, and it looked like she wasn’t alone after all because there was a trailer set up not too far away.
“Ma, take the mutt and head in ahead of us.” I had the guys stay back, even the pothead who grumbled a bit, but we were close enough to shoot to kill if anything went south. The SEALs, who never miss an opportunity to show off their murder skills, were hiding in the brush and trees like we were in Baghdad or some shit.
Ma was almost to the cabin when the mutt went nuts and flew out of her hands, making a mad dash for the door. A young woman stepped out, but it’s what was behind her that made me whistle low and long. “Oh, damn, this is going to be interesting.” I bet Kat’s going to blame me for this shit now, too, since the kid is a Lyon. Fucking aye.
GIANNA
I was just about to put away toys for the one-hundredth time that day when I heard a familiar sound. It was so unexpected I thought I was hallucinating from being overtired. Then my mind cleared, and I realized it was real. “Thor!” I ran to the door, not sure what I expected to find. For a split second, I thought Gabriel had finally found me, but no, there was a woman standing there in the clearing with a very familiar face.
She looked almost like grandma, but it wasn’t her, wrong height, and this woman had laugh lines around her eyes and a softness about her that grandma doesn’t have. I got distracted when Thor ran to me, and when I looked back up again, my face buried in his hair, I saw the men.
“Gia, I’m your cousin, Colton Lyon. I’m here to take you home.”
GIANNA
“What?” Lyon, why does that name sound so familiar? I knew I’d heard it somewhere in the not too distant past but couldn’t for the life of me bring it to mind. It came to me in a rush when the woman spoke again. She’d just been standing there with her mouth hanging open as she stared up at me. “Oh, my word, Daniel, that face!”
“I see; I told you she looked like you. Spitting image of you at that age.”
“It’s uncanny, first little Catalina and now this beautiful girl.”
She came forward with one arm outstretched and the other clutching Thor to her chest and enveloped me in a hug so warm it brought tears to my eyes. “You dear-dear girl, I’m your aunty Elena, your grandmother and I are cousins.” I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t think of anything to say when she finally released me, so I said the first thing that came to mind.
“How did you get Thor?”
“Oh, that, Eloise said the boy sent him to her a few days ago. She asked us to bring him with us so you’d trust us.” We were both in tears as the tall, distinguished gentleman, who was trying hard to look like a hippie, wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
There was a series of what sounded like bird calls and whistles, and the other men started coming forward, with the one who called himself Colton clearing the whole Porch to reach me. He placed himself in front of me just as Ron and Connie came barreling around the corner in their truck.
That’s when I saw the men with guns dropping out of trees and almost passed out. “You know them?” His voice sounded strong and gentle at the same time, almost like Gabriel’s.
“Ye…. yes, that’s my neighbors, Connie and Ron, they live in the trailer next door.” I stupidly pointed at the trailer as if he wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise.
He waved his hand in the air, and the guns disappeared, and the men came forward to join the others. Gabriel’s mini-me, who has not been exposed to many people except Ron, Connie, and the staff at the doctor’s office and should be by all rights afraid of this influx of strange men, just walked around my legs and started an interrogation.
“Who are you? Where did you come from? Where did you put it? It being their guns.” I didn’t know why they were all staring, but Colton said something about, oh shit, another Mengele, then someone else came forward and got down to eye level, and the conversation began.
It took me five seconds to realize this person, Mancini as he’d introduced himself, seemed to speak the language. He asked things I wouldn’t have thought to ask of one so young, but I can’t say that I was surprised by the correct answers given. “Gabriel is a genius.” Okay, I admit my brain wasn’t working quite right, and that was the only thing I could think to say.