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The closer she got, the deeper into the boggy woods he ran.
With sunlight fading, Brynn’s stomach knotted. Not only were the woods home to whining mosquitoes, ticks and other biting bugs, but poisonous snakes and gators. “Cayden, sweetie, I know you’re upset, but this is getting dangerous.”
“Go away! I wanna be alone!”
Brynn wasn’t especially prone to panic, but she honestly was at a loss as to what to do. Hands to her temples, she urged her mind to think and her pulse to slow. Her single-parenting books frowned on rewarding a child’s poor behavior, but it wasn’t as if Cayden had run off with malice in his heart. He was understandably hurt that his friends had the God-given skills to play baseball and not him.
The ground squished beneath her rubber soles and the air smelled dank. Darkness was closing in, accompanied by a cacophony of foreign sounds. Though the ballpark wasn’t that far behind them, they might as well have been in a different world.
“Cayden, please, come here!” she called. “This isn’t funny!”
When he failed to answer, her blood ran cold.
Anything could’ve happened.
Brynn now trekked through sloppy mud, making her footing treacherous. The vegetation was dense, choked with brambles and vines.
“Cayden! Answer me!”
Still nothing.
If something happened to her son, Brynn wasn’t sure how she’d survive. Aside from a smattering of friends, she had no one. Prescandal, at the height of his fame, it’d seemed she and Mack were never alone. They’d been the golden couple everyone wanted to be with. Postscandal, she’d become a pariah. Assets frozen and beyond broke. If it hadn’t been for Mack outright owning his old family home, Brynn and Cayden wouldn’t even have a roof over their heads.
“Cayden!” Deeper and deeper into the now dark woods Brynn crept.
“Mommy...” His voice barely carried.
“Sweetie, call me again so I can find you!”
She heard her son, but also a low, guttural grunt.
Panic set in and the faster she tried reaching her son, the tougher time she had finding solid footing. Her feet and the hems of her maternity jeans were cold-soaked, yet her upper body was sticky with sweat. The stench of rotting leaves turned her stomach. The humidity was as unbearable as her storming pulse.
“I’m scared...”
“I know, angel.” She trudged forward. “Do I sound closer?”
“I don’t know.”
Foliage clawed at Brynn, making her every move torture. The grunt came again, filling her mind’s eye with horrific images of her baby boy clamped between an alligator’s jaws.
“Mommy, please hurry! It’s gonna eat me!”
Panic surged through Brynn, making her strong but stupid, chasing after her boy without a clue where to find him.
* * *
“THANKS FOR HELPING ME OUT.”
“Anytime, man. Looks like you’re going to have a great team.” Tristan Bartoni shook Jason’s hand. They’d been friends since Mrs. Fleck sat them next to each other in the second grade. A week later, he remembered with a chuckle, she’d separated them for talking too much.
“What’s caught your funny bone?” Jason hefted the last of the equipment into his truck bed. The vehicle had come along with his recent election win as Ruin Bayou Chief of Police. Not only was the rig equipped with flashing lights and a siren, but tires that could handle damn near any terrain—a good thing considering the whole town was practically a swamp. His wife and toddler son had already long since gone home.
“Just thinking how much trouble we used to get in. Hard to believe where we are now.”
Jason snorted. “Yeah. Back when we used to sit in detention every afternoon, who’d have thought we’d now be in charge?” He elbowed Tristan. “Well, me anyway. I don’t know what you fancy navy SEALs do.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tristan took out the keys to his own more modest black Ford pickup. “Just keep tellin’ yourself that. You might keep Ruin Bayou safe, but my jurisdiction’s the world.”
“Modest much?” Jason had climbed behind his wheel.
“Nah.” Tristan slipped his key into the ignition when he noticed the SUV the crabby pregnant woman had stood alongside was still parked at the far end of the lot, only with no one inside. She hadn’t chased after her kid on her own, had she? Mother Nature was a full-on raving bitch in these parts. “Hold up a minute. We might have a situation...”
* * *
CAYDEN LOVED HIS MOM A WHOLE, big bunch, but right now he wanted his dad. His mom said his dad died, but most times Cayden wasn’t even sure what that meant. All he really knew was that his dad was gone and ever since they left their house in St. Louis, all his mom ever did was cry.
Now he was stuck up in a tree and his big toe hurt really bad and he was pretty sure something giant was trying to eat him.
“Mommy!”
He barely heard her say, “I’m coming, sweetie!”
He usually hated it when his mom called him sweetie pie and stuff like he was a little kid, but out here, it was kind of nice, knowing how much she loved him. He worried once the baby came, she’d only love his new sister, then he’d be all alone.
Cayden started to cry, and he hated crying.
Crying was for stupid babies.
He called out for her again and again, but this time, heard nothing. Forever and ever he sat alone in the tree, until even his own breathing sounded scary.
“Cayden?” Who was that? Sounded like Coach Jason. “Mrs. Langtoine?” Was he coming to tell him he made the team?
Light bounced through the dark trees, making everything look waaaay more spookier. “Coach? I’m up here! All my bones are broke bad! And there’s an alligator trying to eat me!”
“You mean this guy?” Coach held up a loudmouthed frog.
“Guess it could’ve been him.”
Coach asked, “Where’s your mom?”
“Don’t know. I—I think she’s lost.”
* * *
FROM DEEP WITHIN THE WOODS, Brynn glanced over her shoulder and saw a light bobbing in the gloom. Not sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her, she did a double take. “Hello?”
A hulking figure emerged from the brush. “Mrs. Langtoine?”
“You...” The man she’d admired on the field for his knack for talking with the players and whom she’d later regretted snapping at for sharing his advice concerning her son had now come to her rescue. Relief sagging her shoulders, she cupped her hands to her belly.
He extended his hand. “High time for a formal introduction. Tristan Bartoni. Guess I owe you an apology. Seems letting your boy run off wasn’t such a great idea.”
“Brynn Langtoine. And actually, if I’d done as you suggested and left him alone instead of chasing him, he probably wouldn’t have gone so far.” The man’s fingers enveloped hers. His height and breadth made her feel all at once vulnerable, yet strangely safe. “Have you seen my son? I thought I had him, but this swamp got me all turned around. Sounds don’t carry right, and...” She shook her head. “I need to find Cayden. He’s all I have.”
“Understood.” Tristan punched numbers into an electronic gadget, then took a handheld radio from a side pocket in his cargo pants. Into the radio, he said, “I’ve got the mom. How’s it going with the boy?”
“Got him,” came a static-garbled voice.
Relief turned Brynn’s knees to rubber. When she nearly collapsed, her new friend was there to support her. “Whoa. We’ve had enough excitement for tonight.
“Copy that,” he said into his radio. “Meet up back at the trucks.” With the radio returned to its pocket, he again consulted his gadget. “You hauled ass through rough terrain.”
“Um, thanks, I guess.” Legs again steady beneath her, Brynn straightened, trying to regain her composure. “Desperation makes a body do crazy things.”
“No kidding. Now we have to trek damn near two miles to get back.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, hey—” he held back an armful of brush for her to pass “—I’m not complaining. Truth is, you’re doing me a favor. This beats the hell out of watching reality TV. Been cooped up at my mom’s too long.”
“Oh?” She wanted to ask why, but figured not only wasn’t it her business, but the last thing she needed was to form a connection with someone when it would inevitably fail. Since moving to Ruin Bayou just after Christmas, Brynn had done a good job of keeping to herself. Selling Mack’s Escalade had given her enough cash to buy a less expensive SUV, and not have to get a job right away. But with that money dwindling, she couldn’t hide forever.
Maybe not forever, her wounded heart cried, but at least until she had her baby.
After ten minutes walking in silence, he said, “I grew up around here and only knew one Langtoine. My mom said Mack’s widow was back with their little boy. You her?”
“Yep.” So much for hiding.
Chapter Two
Last thing Tristan wanted was to get in Brynn’s business. He knew all too well what it was like to be caught in a situation bigger than he could handle. That said, he’d considered Mack a friend, and had been shocked and saddened by the allegations lodged against him.
The muck they sloshed through sucked at the soles of his boots, making travel arduous. Most women he’d encountered would’ve bitched a blue streak over being caught in this kind of mess, but Brynn trekked on without complaint.
“Go ahead,” she said with a defensive tone, “ask away about my husband. Everyone else does.” She stopped, tilting her head back, giving her long curls a shake before arranging them into a messy ponytail with a band she’d had on her wrist.
“Well?” Tristan probed. “Did he do it?”
“Which of his transgressions in particular? Gambling ring—check. Game fixing, partnership in an underground casino—check, check.” She started walking.
Tristan whistled.
“That about sums it up.”
And here I thought I’d had it bad. Sidestepping a log, he said, “Hang to the left just a bit.”
She set a quicker pace than he’d expected from a woman in her condition as she asked, “What’s your story?”
“Complicated.” And it still stung plenty bad. But he didn’t discuss his past even with his mom, let alone a stranger. “Mack was a great guy. I can’t imagine him—”
“You don’t have to imagine it. I lived it.” Her snippy voice had returned with a vengeance—not that he could blame her for being cranky.
“Back in school, Mack never even cheated on tests.”
“And you did?” They kept an even pace and the look she cast his way wasn’t exactly complimentary.
“Maybe once or twice in a pinch. Who didn’t?”
“Me.” He didn’t appreciate her high-and-mighty tone. “And just think what that says about your moral character.”
“Give me a break. I was thirteen.”
Having reached a small creek, she said, “I don’t remember crossing this before. Check your navigation thingy and make sure we’re still going the right way.”
“Seriously?” He shook his head. “I’m not the one needing to be rescued. And as for cheating, now that I think about it, I only did it once—on my Algebra midterm. But for the record, I felt so bad about it I went home and learned the work inside and out. Plus, the kid I copied off of made a lousy grade, so I didn’t even reap any benefits.” Lord, listen to him—rambling like a guilty third-grader. Why? What was it about Brynn that made him even care what she thought?
* * *
“MOMMY!” TEARS CAUGHT IN Brynn’s throat when Cayden ran across the field to meet her, crushing her in a hug. Only two hours had passed since she’d last seen him, but it felt like a lifetime. “I was so scared.”
“I know, baby.” She kissed the top of his head. “Me, too.”
“Coach Jason said I was really brave, and if I practice I might be able to play later in the summer with the team.”
“That’s awesome.” Still holding her son, she looked to the man she also knew was the town police chief. “I can’t thank you enough for your help. Tristan, you, too.”
The man she’d spent a large portion of her evening with merely nodded.
The chief’s truck radio squawked, then a dispatcher called him. “Looks like I’m needed down at the Suds & Swirl, but, Cayden, no more running off when things get rough, okay?”
In the truck light’s glare, her little boy nodded.
“Promise?”
“Yeah,” Cayden said with a solemn nod.
“All right, then.” After a quick ruffle of Cayden’s hair, Jason said, “Tristan, you got this handled?”
“You know it.”
“Y’all have a good night, then.”
Brynn thanked him again for his help finding her son, waving him on his way.
When Cayden climbed into their SUV’s passenger side, she found herself once more on her own with Tristan. Immersed in darkness tempered only by the faint light of the moon, she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, let alone her galloping pulse. She owed him so much, and wanted to express her gratitude, but she was broken, and couldn’t find words to match the emotion swelling in her heart. “What you did—and the coach—helping Cayden and I...” Rather than meet his intense dark gaze she looked to her clasped hands. “Well, I appreciate your help. I haven’t had a lot of folks on my side lately, and—” Her voice cracked and that chink in her carefully constructed armor proved her undoing.
“Hey...” He approached her, but held a respectful distance.
