“I’ve been praying,” Jock admitted. “I never pray.”

“Me too,” Geneva admitted.

“I think we all are.” I took a deep breath.

Jock turned his head to regard me closely. “I’d be an ass if I didn’t thank you for all you’ve done for us these past several hours. I’m not to the point where I’d admit we’d ever be best buddies or anything, but I’m not disliking you nearly as much as I did.”

Coming from Jock, that said a lot. I managed a nod as my throat constricted once again. It was doing that a lot lately. “Same here.”

“Stop it, both of you. You’re going to make us all cry.” Geneva sniffled and hugged me. “And you are part of this family as far as I’m concerned.”

She’d heard me. I met Geneva’s gaze, and as I looked into her eyes past the worry and grief, I knew we crossed an invisible bridge into territory neither of us had been in before. In all truthfulness, I liked this new territory a lot. It’d been a long time since I’d felt as if I belonged to something other than a hockey team. Being one half of a whole was the best feeling I’d ever had at the worst of times.

I prayed we’d make it through this bad time relatively unscathed and had the chance to build on this fragile thing growing between us like a flower pushing up through the soil in the spring.

If only.

Chapter 32—Lost and Found

~~Geneva~~

The call came in the next morning, three days since we’d last seen Teagan. Bria’s car had been spotted in a wooded area off I-90 about forty minutes from where Jock lived. She’d turned around and come back over the Cascades. For what purpose, I dared not imagine.

I hoped she was bringing her daughter back home and turning herself in, but if they found her car, I doubted that’d be the case. The car appeared to be out of gas. No one was near it or in the trunk.

Jock’s face took on a haunted look, and I knew mine was just as stricken. Even Axel’s ability to be our port in a storm seemed to evade him. We stared at each other and said nothing. There was nothing left to say. We’d spent the better part of the last few days talking, speculating, and praying, all in an attempt to convince ourselves this would all be okay. But all three of us knew the truth. The longer a child was missing, the bigger the chance they wouldn’t be found alive. None of us spoke this fact out loud, but I determined such a thing only applied in stranger abductions. A family situation had to be different.

As soon as the authorities received word regarding Bria’s car, they took off in their black sedan. I sat there, dumbfounded, not knowing what to do and despising the idea of more torturous waiting.

Axel regained his stride and reached for my hand. “It’s going to be okay.” He spoke that statement with such confidence I wondered where he’d hidden his crystal ball.