Page 75 of Mistletoe & Magic
“Junie,” I try again, softer now, pleading. “Bug, it is Ivy. You are not in trouble. Please answer me.”
Wind tugs at my hat. Somewhere a crow complains. The property groans and cracks like old wood in the cold. I hear a shout and rocket upright, heart in my mouth, but it is Rowan calling to Willa to check the old chicken coop. Not Junie. Not yet.
I run to the creek path, because I cannot stop thinking about it. Remy beat me there. I hear him before I see him. His boots pound. His voice breaks on her name. He is down the bank, scanning the frozen shallows like his eyes can force her to appear.
“Anything?” I croak.
He shakes his head, fierce and quickly, jaw tight enough to break. He climbs toward me, grabs the low branch of a pine, and misses. His palm hits the trunk. He stares at his own hand like he does not recognize it, then wipes it on his jeans, breath ragged.
“We will find her,” I say again, because I have to or I’ll crumble. I reach for him without thinking. He jerks away as if my touch burns.
“Keep searching,” he says, and his voice is not his. It is shredded. It is a stranger wearing his shape.
I run. I check the equipment shed with Tate. I check the old apple tree grove with Donna and Lilith. I check the road with Willa and Rowan. Finn cuts across the back acreage like a bloodhound, eyes scanning, calling in a steady cadence that keeps me moving. Pete sits in the barn doorway with his blanket and his cane and his jaw set in a line I have never seen. We are all threads in a net, thrown wide and wide again, praying to catch one little fish in a sea of winter.
The hour hits some invisible mark and shifts. The light is different. The air feels colder. Panic tilts tosomething colder and thinner, a wire stretched too tight. I am shaking so hard I can hear my teeth click.
Then tires on gravel. A car that does not belong. I turn, and my stomach drops.
Sloane steps out of her car.
Of course. Of course, she would comerightnow.
She steps out in a neat coat and boots with clean tread, hair perfect, eyes already narrowed, like she arrived armed. She takes in the chaos. The running. The faces. The silence when we spot her. She zeroes in on Remy, who is cutting back across the lot with snow on his lashes and a look that could cut stone.
“What’s going on?” she demands.
He keeps moving. “Not now, Sloane.”
“I asked what is going on,” she says, sharper. “Where is my daughter?”
He stops. The air changes. I have felt storms roll in faster than this, but not by much.
“We’re looking for her,” he says.
“You lost my kid?” she accuses him. “You were supposed to watch her. How is this going to look in court?”
I’ve never wanted to throttle someone more in my life.
Chapter 22
Remy
“Sloane, I am out here every damn day raising her while you are off doing whatever the hell you want,” I roar. “You have no right to come here and act like you care more than I do. If you cared, you would have been here for the last eighteen months.”
Sloane crosses her arms, chin high, voice sharp enough to cut. “You clearly cannot handle being a parent.”
That burns through me like gasoline. The audacity of her coming here and saying this to me when my daughter ismissing.
“I don’t need you,” I snarl. “I don’t need anybody. Not even you.” My eyes flick to Ivy, who is frozen near the porch, tears glinting. “I can take care of my own kid. This was all a mistake. I should have taken care of her myself.”
The words hang there, ugly and sharp, and Ivy’s face crumples. She turns away, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand, and I feel something inside me break. Sloane looks at Ivy, confused and back at me and shakes her head angrily.
And then I hear Finn shouting my name.
I spin around, heart lurching. He’s jogging across the lot,snow kicking up under his boots, Junie in his arms, Lola trotting next to him.
“She’s here!” he calls.
