Hold On

To get close because he was going to lower the boom.

I stared up at him, heart slamming against my ribs, and waited for the blow to land.

“She’s prayed to God to find the answer, brown eyes,” he said carefully. “And according to her, He’s given her the answer. She’s got lotsa help back home with a big family, brothers and sisters, mom and dad, aunts and uncles. That means they just gotta find a way to get her man’s boy away from his momma. Then they can take him down to Missouri, her family can find her husband a job, and she can stay at home, raisin’ her brood in the God-fearin’ manner they need.”

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“Do not send your boy to them, Cher,” Merry whispered back. “Vera did not get good vibes from this woman. She’s determined and she might not do what she feels she needs to do in a legal way. She might grab your boy, pack up her family, and go.”

My legs were trembling, as was my repeated, “Fuck.”

“Now, I know you’re pissed at me,” Merry said quietly. “And I know you got reason. I also know right now we got that, and if you’d waited to call Ryker in on it today and shackled him by not lettin’ him gather the team the way it was needed, we wouldn’t have it. Not ever. So I hope you got it in you to get past bein’ pissed, because you know I did the right thing for you and Ethan.”

I wanted to pull the anger around me to hold Merry back, but I didn’t have it in me to do that while fighting back the fear.

I didn’t know what to do.

Should I share this with Ethan? Should I break his heart that two people he’d come to care about, family he thought was his and would be forever, were plotting to take him away from me?

Should I get an attorney and confront Peggy and Trent with what I knew and warn them to back off? Negotiate something that would work for all of us, especially Ethan, in a way that was healthy?

And truthfully, was Peggy Schott even healthy? Did she know the God who was “giving her the answers” wasn’t what it actually was, her deciding the way things needed to be?

Or should I sit down with Colt, report this, and ask for protection so nothing would happen to my son, and if it did, they’d know right where to look?

(Though, Merry already knew, so that last was rhetorical.)

“Cher,” Merry called as his phone rang.

I realized I was looking at him but not seeing him. I focused to watch him pull his phone out of his back pocket.

Distractedly, I noted that since the last time I’d seen his phone, the screen had cracked.

“Shit,” he muttered, sliding his finger on the cracked screen and looking at me. “Gotta take this, baby.”

I didn’t say anything. I might be focused on him, but my mind was still clogged with everything he’d told me.

“Merrick,” he said into his phone.

My mind cleared when what was coming off him slammed into me in a way it was a wonder my body didn’t jerk.

“Where?” he barked ferociously. “When?” he asked, only a little less sharply. But his voice deteriorated significantly when he asked, “How long?”

He listened. I watched him do it.

Then he said, “Fuck. I’m with Cher. I get her and Ethan sorted, I’m there.”

He took his phone from his ear and ordered tersely, “In your car. I’m followin’ you to your mom’s, then I’m followin’ you and Ethan home.”

Oh no.

What now?

“What’s goin’ on?” I asked.

“In your car, Cher,” he commanded, then moved. Starting in a prowl that fed into a jog, he went to his truck.

Sensing I needed to do what he told me to do, though I’d do that anyway because I needed to go get my kid, I got in my car.

I pulled out and headed down the alley. Merry’s lights already on, he pulled out right on my ass.

He stayed on my ass all the way to Mom’s.

I jumped down from my car and he was at my side.

“Merry, what’s goin’ on?” I snapped, hiding anxiety behind anger as he took my hand and yanked me toward the hood of my car, his attention not on me but on the night.

That was not good.

“Let’s get inside,” he ordered.

“Merry—”

He looked down at me, his face set in stone. “Fast.”

Fuck, fuck…shit.

We got inside, fast, but I didn’t have a choice since Merry all but dragged me there.

By the time he closed the front door, Merry had rearranged his features, but not by much.

Mom took one look at us and came right off the couch, face lighting up, mouth smiling, eyes darting to Merry, Merry’s hand in mine, to me, then back to Merry.

“Well, Garrett, this is a lovely surprise,” she declared.

“Yo! Merry!” Ethan greeted, jumping up from an armchair, his face just as surprised and excited as his gramma’s.

“Grace,” Merry muttered to my mom, letting me go to move in, bend down, and touch his cheek to Mom’s. He turned to Ethan and stuck out a hand. “Hey, man.”

Ethan stared up at him, his excitement at seeing his cool, grown-up, badass friend fading as he took in Merry’s manner and he also stuck out his hand.

Merry shook it like they were adults and let him go.

Then he looked to Mom. “Grace, gonna get Cher and Ethan home, but before I do that, me and Ethan are gonna walk through your house, make sure windows and doors are locked. You got a back door light?”

Mom was also cottoning on to Merry’s look and demeanor, so she just nodded.

Merry looked down to Ethan. “Check windows, buddy. I’ll do the back door.”