Page 128 of Whenever You Call

Stay calm, Logan. You’re no good to anyone like this, either. She’s out there. Find her.

“You go left. I’ll go right,” I told Hannah, turning around to grab her shoulders and lower myself to her eye line. “Remember how strong you are. Remember that Bella needs you, and remember that I love you.”

Hannah sucked in a shaky breath before nodding and pushing her shoulders back. With a quick kiss to her forehead, we pulled apart, and I set off down the sidewalk, leaving Hannah to venture in the opposite direction.

Bella’s name occupied the air, and it didn’t take long for other people to notice. A jogger slowed down, pulling out his air pods to ask what was wrong. A red Ferrari slowed down to see if they could help. A neighbor jogged down the driveway of their expensive home, looking to see what was going on.

And then I heard a blood-curdling cry of my name from far away on the same street.

“Logan!”

I spun on my heels and ran.

It took me no time to race back to Hannah, charging across the road before I came to a stop in front of her, grabbing her arms much harder than I intended. “What is it? Where is she?”

“She’s…”

“Mr. Logan, I’m here!”

The sound of my name on Bella’s lips sent a rush of adrenaline through my body, and before Hannah could say anything, I turned toward Bella’s voice, my eyes rising until I saw her.

There she sat, perched in the midst of a small tree, her little limbs barely holding her in place despite her bottom balancing on a branch that didn’t look sturdy enough to hold her.

“Oh, thank God,” I exhaled. “Bella.”

Abandoning Hannah without a thought, I turned and jogged toward the small tree, coming to a stop beneath Bella to see she was only a foot or two above me. Her pink pajamas were covered in dry dirt, her hair wilder than ever, and her eyes red from her worry.

“I think I did a bad thing, Mr. Logan,” she whimpered.

“As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters. We were worried about you.”

Her bright blue eyes shone down on me. “I thought you and Mommy had left me, so I came outside to look for you.”

Hannah’s earlier words of us being too pre-occupied drifted through my mind, but I forced them away, focusing on the here and now before I let my stomach twist with dread, knowing what this would do to her.

“Do you really think we’d ever leave you behind, bug?”

“Daddy did. He didn’t even say goodbye.” Her bottom lip trembled before she trapped her teeth on top of it and forced it to stop.

I shook my head and blew out a breath, breaking inside for the six-year-old who had been forced to grow up too fast. “He didn’t leave you by choice, Bella. If he could have said goodbye, he would have.”

She tried to dry her tears on her shoulder, but it only made her body wobble and her grip unsteady.

My hands flew up to catch her instinctively, and it was only when I heard Hannah’s quiet gasp that I registered she was behind me now, but I stayed focused on Bella. She needed me more. With my arms up, I looked into her eyes, hoping she saw a pillar of strength and not a grown man who was dying inside at the sight of her so distraught.

“I think it’s time to get down from there now, Bells, don’t you?”

“I’m scared I’m going to fall.”

“I won’t let you fall.”

Her eyes found mine, assessing me as though to see if she could trust me fully.

“It’s my promise to you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you. Not even yourself.” Encouraging her with a nod, I said, “Get your footing right on the trunk there and then let go. I’ll catch you.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

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