No Gentle Giant (A Small Town Romance)

My body creaks, and bones ache with how long I’ve sat here as I rise to my feet and reach for my jacket—before freezing as my desk phone rings.

Who’d be calling at this time of night?

I snag the receiver, lifting it to my ear.

“Charter.”

“Paxton?” My mother’s breathless voice—and the panic in her tone—makes my body stiffen. “Why haven’t you been answering your cell? I’ve been calling for hours!”

“What?” I pull my cell from my jeans—and realize it died while I was staring at that survey map from hell. Shit. “I’m sorry, Ma. The battery died. What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“There’s...there’s been an accident with Eli. The park rangers tried calling you, but when they couldn’t reach you, they called me and—”

“Stop—back up. What accident?” I snap off. My heart’s stalled, every inch of me iced over. My worst fears play through my head: Eli dead, Eli drowned, Eli injured so badly there’s hardly any life left for him at all. “What happened to Elijah? Is he hurt?”

Her pause fucking kills me.

“We...we don’t know,” Mom gasps. “He’s missing. And that bitch isn’t even sober enough to really tell us what happened. But he needs you, Paxton. If anyone can find him, it’s you.”

I don’t even realize I’m moving till I’m yanking up short on the tether of the phone cord.

“I’m on my way,” I say. “Let me charge my cell, and I’ll call you right back. Need you to tell me where he’s at. Tell me everything you know.”

I hang up without waiting for a response, nearly flinging it into the cradle and charging outside under the night sky, barreling toward my Jeep.

Hurling the door open, I throw myself inside, shove my phone onto the car charger, and go ripping out into the night.

Within a few minutes I’ve got enough charge to call my mother back.

Directions. Details. While I test a few speed limits and pray I’m not too late.

And I don’t think I’ve ever burned with a hatred deeper than what I’m feeling for my ex-wife in this red-hot moment.

Katelyn took Eli to the park, but she also brought a few other friends.

Namely, her new boyfriend and several forties.

While she got wasted and fucked around, Eli wandered off into the trees. In a wilderness preserve filled with roaming grizzly bears, moose, wolves, the works.

A massive yawning wilderness preserve with acres upon acres of virgin forest, practically uncharted land. The kind where it could take days to cover every square inch and find a small child who could be dying of exposure in some hidden hollow just yards away from search teams, dehydrated and starving and too weak to even call out for help.

My imagination’s already painted a picture of how my son will die—and the holy hell I’ll visit on Katelyn if he does.

Halfway to the park, another call cuts in, and I damn near jump out of my skin.

I put my mother on hold and swipe over with a breathless, “Hello?”

“Mr. Charter? This is Ranger Stephenson. We’ve found your son, Elijah. He’s unharmed, just a little scared and scratched up. You can come get him at...”

That voice fades into white noise.

I vaguely realize he’s directing me to a hospital close by, and I adjust my course.

Above all else, I’m sobbing like a baby.

Whimpering and broke with sheer gut-wrenching relief.

He’s okay.

I can’t believe he’s okay.

They found him. Catastrophe narrowly averted.

I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Eli.

I just know one thing.

I’m never trusting Katelyn with him again.

No matter what I have to do, I’ll get full custody of my son, and make sure she can never endanger him with her reckless schoolyard bullshit again.

One way or another, he’s staying with me.

Nothing on heaven or earth will ever stop me from keeping my boy safe.

Present

I can still taste the adrenaline of that scare years later and thousands of miles away from Alaska under a warm Montana sun.

Eli’s excited shouts echo through the trees, bright and happy and announcing everything’s okay.

It doesn’t change the ache in my chest, the bitter memory of how I almost lost him for good.

Katelyn’s long gone. She can’t hurt him—or me—anymore.

Even so, she’s the reason why I have to be careful.

To make sure I’m a trillion percent confident of anyone I invite into Eli’s life, when one wrong choice could put him in danger all over again.

Just how dangerous could Felicity be? I wonder darkly.

Sure, she’s got her secrets. There’s her old man’s gold that clearly came from somewhere shady, and she’s got some hard choices to make about what to do with it. But those are her dad’s problems, and once she gets out from under his shadow, what then?

I could help her, couldn’t I?

Help her get that mess sorted.

I want to help her, dammit, regardless of how I’m starting to feel about her.

She deserves someone loyal.