Page 75 of A Furever Home
“I think I’d know him,” I said after another long scan. “But download that in case we need to put our friends on the lookout.”
“It won’t matter, though, right?” Cheyenne appealed to Brooklyn. “Once you have legal custody, there’s nothing he can do?”
“Right.” Brooklyn squeezed her shoulder. “Even without my custody, he has zero rights. Unlike our dad. They can’t force you to marry him and without a marriage, he’s just a mean stranger, no authority.”
“Yep. I know.” But she swallowed hard.
“And Harvey does have little kids and no wife. Not likely he can be away for a week. Dad said he’d send Denver. He expects to be obeyed.”
Cheyenne nodded.
I used my phone to pull up more information. “Okay, doing some math. The trip from Piperston, New York to Gaynor Beach is forty-two hours of drive time. Last night, you talked to your father when? Seven o’clock?”
“More like nine, by the time we had everything ready,” Brooklyn said.
“So if Denver jumped in his car midnight their time, and drove without stopping more than to pee, the soonest he could be here would be…” I did some mental math. “Three p.m. tomorrow.”
“I doubt Denver would kill himself to get here that fast.” Brooklyn straightened and set the laptop up out of dog-reach. “He won’t challenge our father, but I bet he’ll resent being sent off like an errand boy to fetch his sister. If he didn’t leave till morning, and took at least one full night’s sleep, he won’t get here till late Thursday at the earliest. Probably three days with driving fourteen hours a day, which would push it off till Friday.”
“Right.” I sat up a bit. “So we’re completely in the clear until tomorrow afternoon, and on yellow alert through till Friday, and then red alert. When will you hear from Wynn?”
Cheyenne said, “He was filing the paperwork this morning. He said there’d be notice if it was accepted or rejected within twenty-four hours, and then a court date within ten days for the emergency injunction.”
What will you do if it’s rejected? I didn’t ask, because I was afraid her answer would be to run, and I didn’t want to put that thought into her head. I’d brainstorm with Brooklyn later.
“I hate this.” Cheyenne leaped to her feet and paced back and forth. “Why can’t our family be normal? Why did they have to be freaks? If my friend Emma hadn’t let me use her smart phone all through school, I’d probably think that’s just the way life is. I’d be like Nevada, marrying some bastard like Harvey and having his babies and cooking and mending and canning, and waiting for the UN to invade America.”
“I know.” Brooklyn went to stand near her as she paused, her head tipped back, her hands clenched in her long, straight hair. “Hey, I do know. When I got kicked out, I was so damned lost. I’d never even been to the city, and there I was, like a total hick, wondering how I’d survive. I got luckier than I deserved, meeting another gay man at the bus station and going home with him.”
“You went home with a stranger?” Cheyenne stared at him. “You could’ve been, like, murdered.”
“I got lucky, like I said.” Brooklyn flashed me a look that suggested not everything had been rosy, but I figured we’d have lots of time to get to know each other’s sore spots without a vulnerable teen listening. “And now you have me.”
“And me,” I added, because yeah, I hadn’t known Cheyenne long, but anyone Brooklyn cared about was under my protection too. “We’ll get you through this crisis and you’ll be complaining about homework and zits again soon.”
“Instead of marrying Harvey. Shit, I’m looking forward to that.” She hiccupped a laugh, then sobbed. When Brooklyn reached out toward her, she fell into his hug. He looked at me over her shaking shoulders and I gave him a thumbs-up. There were times in my teens I’d have killed for a hug. Brooklyn was a great brother.
“Maybe you guys could take Eb and Twain for a walk,” I suggested. “It’d probably be good for Cheyenne to get out of the house while we know the coast is clear.”
“Can we?” Cheyenne straightened and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands.
“Sure.” Brooklyn rubbed her back and stepped away. “Some exercise would do me good, too.”
“Can we take Sadie?”
“She didn’t seem to like the leash last night,” Brooklyn said. “Let’s give her some time to settle in.”
“Okay. But I get to walk Ebony.”
Damn, I did like that girl’s sass. Luckily, I had Eb trained to wear a head collar that would give her some leverage if the big Lab saw a squirrel. “Sure. You wash up. I’ll get their leashes on them.”
When she’d vanished down the hall, Brooklyn came over and sat on the arm of the couch by me. “Do you want to come along?”
“I want to cuddle up to my nice ice pack.”
“I’m replaced already.”
I tugged him down for a kiss. “They recommend hot packing after cold packing. You could regain most-favored status.”
