“You go on dates with all your guy friends? Spend all your time with them?”
“I am not spendin’ all my time with him.” Okay, fine, he sounded extremely defensive here.
Clearly she noticed because JJ chuckled as they stepped out into the night. “Whatever you say.”
“How ’bout you drop the subject and I’ll spring for cinnamon bread.”
JJ grabbed his arm, threaded hers through, and peered up at him with wide eyes. “You really are my hero.”
“I thought that was Dante’s status,” he grumbled.
“Speaking of…” JJ released him. “He told his dad what was going on. Governor Greenwood wants him to keep him apprised of the situation.”
Brantley wasn’t sure how that would benefit anyone, but he wasn’t going to argue the point. The more people who were working on this case, the faster they could get Kate home. Which was the only thing that mattered.
“You don’t think this is random, do you? That woman takin’ Kate from the capitol? Seems too well-planned.”
“No, I don’t think it’s random. Just a gut feelin’.” And yes, he did believe that woman had taken Kate. They had no hard evidence to confirm his suspicion, but Brantley wholeheartedly believed she was the key to all of this.
“Well, I don’t think your gut’s ever steered you wrong.”
Brantley wasn’t so sure about that, but he tended to listen to it.
And right now, there wasn’t much else he could do.
Unfortunately.
***
Travis paced his living room, boots shuffling over the hardwood, hands fisting and unclenching at his sides, anger coalescing with fear, worry superseding anything and everything, threatening to morph into a full-blown panic.
As of half an hour ago, four of his children had been put to bed. Four, not five.
And because of that, he knew there would be no sleep for him tonight. Instead he would pace the house in the event the fucking kidnapper called, praying they would.
When he wasn’t pacing, he was glancing at the picture he’d had Brantley send to him. The one of the woman they suspected had taken Kate out of the capitol. His gaze skimmed past the woman in the driver’s seat, as though it would allow him to see his little girl somewhere behind her. Was she buckled in safely? Or had the woman had to do something to restrain her?
The thought of Kate tied up had a sob escaping. He prayed like hell Kate came home safely. There’d better not be a single bruise marring her flesh, otherwise there would be hell to pay.
“Hey.”
The gruff greeting had Travis turning to see Gage stepping into the living room. His eyes were bloodshot from the tears he’d shed throughout the afternoon. His hair was sticking up because he’d run his fingers through it from the stress of it all. Of course, Travis figured he looked no better. God knew he felt like warmed-over dog shit.
“Hey.” Travis glanced back down at the phone, then resisted the urge to throw the damn thing through the window.
It was then his own tears emerged like a flood. The pain in his chest threatened to take him out at the knees.
“Baby…” Gage was instantly there, holding him up off the floor as Travis let the fear and anger merge into a storm that had been building all day.
His heart was breaking, cracked right down the fucking middle at the thought of Kate out there by herself. No one to hold her, to tuck her in, to tell her they loved her.
“Where is she? God, where is she, Gage?” he sobbed, his arms wreathing his husband as though he was a lifeline.
Rather than offer placating words, Gage cradled the back of Travis’s head with his big hand, holding him tightly, keeping him together while he himself was splintering on the inside.
As much as Travis needed him, he knew it wasn’t enough. Right now, their wife was in their bed, likely tossing and turning as she was forced to sleep thanks to the sleeping meds the doctor had given her. It had been the only option in keeping Kylie from losing it. The only option because Travis hadn’t brought their daughter back to them.
How the fuck did people deal with this? He knew Kate wasn’t the only child to go missing. He knew there were hundreds, maybe thousands of parents who endured this living hell every year, some never getting closure. His heart ached for them, but deep down, he prayed they weren’t one of those parents. He wasn’t sure he could go on without Kate. Along with the other four, they made up the whole of his heart.
“Shh,” Gage whispered. “I’ve got you.”
Yeah, he did.
But for the first time since he’d fallen in love with the man and woman who completed him in ways no one else ever had or would, Travis hated to admit … it wasn’t enough.
***
Reese was sitting on the couch, which doubled as a bed in his small studio apartment. With a pillow under his head, his legs stretched out, he stared at the laptop propped on his thighs.
