Daddy Wanted

“Cool!” Kaden said, then looked at Mandy. “Mom, I’m getting hungry, and they’re hungry, too.” The twins walked behind him wearing the identifying shirts Savvy had dressed them in this morning. Rose’s pink T-shirt had a bright yellow R in the top left, and Daisy’s yellow T-shirt had a pink D. Savvy needed the helpful identifiers, since she couldn’t tell the two apart.

“Aunt Thavvy,” Rose said, her missing front two teeth causing a precious lisp that made her seem even younger than six. Or maybe the girls seemed younger—smaller—because they’d lost their mama five days ago.

Savvy dropped to eye level with the girls. “Hey, Rose,” she said as Rose moved into the crook of her right arm. “Hey there, Daisy,” she said as Daisy found the left side.

Daisy hugged Savvy like Rose, but then pulled away, her green eyes blinking her eagerness to speak. “Aunt Savvy?” She had yet to lose those two teeth, which was good, since it provided another means for Savvy to tell them apart without asking.

“Yes, Daisy?”

“Mommy can’t make us pancakes, or take us to church, or anything, since she’s with Jesus now.” Her small hand gripped the back of Savvy’s shirt as she spoke, holding on as if she was afraid Savvy would slip away, too.

Savvy’s stomach knotted. How could she give them everything they needed? She’d never been a mommy and didn’t know all that much about it. But the girls were hurting, and Willow had apparently thought Savvy was the best person to take care of her kids in case something happened.

Willow, are you sure?

“Can you make pancaketh?” Rose asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “I can make pancakes.”

You’re going to do fine, Mandy mouthed, and Savvy prayed that she was right.

After Mandy and Kaden left, Savvy turned to Brodie. “You should probably go, too.”

“I want to meet Dylan,” he said. “And I do want to help him, to tutor him the way Willow wanted.”

Savvy figured as much, and those last four words—the way Willow wanted—were the ones that made her say, “You can meet him and see if he wants you to help him. But if he says no, then that’s it. You’ll go, and we’ll get someone else to help—” She tried to sound authoritative, but her voice broke when a loud boom of thunder belted overhead.

“We’ll see,” Brodie answered, and then peered up at the charcoal clouds swiftly moving above the trees. “Storm is coming.”

Rose and Daisy had already darted up the steps toward the trailer. “Hurry!” Daisy called. “We need to go in!”

“But whereth Dylan?” Rose asked.

“Go on inside,” Savvy said, shivering as lightning sliced the sky. “Dylan will be here soon.”

The girls disappeared into the trailer, and Savvy peered toward the woods, then yelped at a loud blast of thunder.

“Still scared of storms?” Brodie asked, the rumble of his voice resonating close to her left ear.

She nodded, too spooked to even attempt to lie. “But I’m also worried about Dylan.” She looked at him, then back at the trailer. “I can’t leave the girls, but...”

“I’ll go find him,” he said, before she’d even bolstered the courage to ask him for help. “You take care of the twins. I’ll bring him back safely.”

Lightning once again split the sky in two, and this time, it hit something with a deafening crack.

Savvy’s hand flew to her throat as the rain began to fall.

“I’m pretty sure that hit a tree,” he said. “Go back inside and get out of the storm. I’ll find him. Don’t worry.”

But Savvy was worried. Because Dylan was lost, and because Willow had written to a guy she said she’d hate forever, and now Savvy relied on that very same guy...to find Willow’s son.

Chapter Three (#ulink_c5478331-0099-5e6c-b550-ecc6529c61c3)

“Dylan! Dylan, can you hear me?” Brodie was glad he’d had the wherewithal to grab his jacket and flashlight out of his truck before heading into the woods. It’d gotten dark much quicker than he had anticipated, and the drizzling rain combined with the unseasonal wind chilled him to the bone. He hoped the boy had already made it home, but in case he hadn’t, Brodie would keep looking.

When he was a teenager, he’d been familiar with this section of the woods that led to Lookout Mountain; however, he’d always entered from the Claremont side, near Landon Cutter’s place. Coming in from the Stockville end was different. The trails weren’t as wide and hadn’t been cleared out. You could ride horses through the trails on the Cutters’ property, and he’d often done that with his friends back in high school. Sometimes Landon and John Cutter would come along. Sometimes Georgiana Sanders did, as well. But always Savvy and Willow.

They’d been the three “wild ones” of Claremont High back in the day. Always together, always defending each other to the end.

Willow, the one whose family expected perfection and who couldn’t find her way out of her big brother’s shadow. It hadn’t surprised Brodie when Savvy said her son’s name was Dylan. Naturally, Willow would continue idolizing her brother through her son. By the time Brodie, the army brat, had moved to Claremont in the ninth grade, he’d lived in more cities than he could count, thanks to his father’s military career. But he’d found his comfort zone—and his baseball talent—in this town. Savvy, the self-professed black sheep of the Bowers family, abandoned by her mother as an infant and then raised by grandparents who loved her unconditionally but had no luck controlling her free spirit.

So much had changed since then, yet a lot had remained the same. Savvy. Just thinking of her now brought back so many feelings, so many untapped emotions. Her long, straight blond hair from high school had been cut into one of those modern styles that stopped just below the chin. She looked older, but not in a bad way. More mature. And those eyes were as dark as he remembered, except he’d never seen her give him the look of venom he’d received today. She hadn’t denied that Willow had told her what happened way back when. Brodie suspected fiery Savvy would have a harder time forgiving him than Willow.

If either of them forgave him. Now he’d never know if Willow did, but he still had a chance with Savvy...after he found Willow’s son.

A clump of wet pine sent him skidding toward a thick tree trunk, and he grabbed a nearby branch to keep from sliding down the mountain’s incline. It’d be easy to slip and fall on the loose leaves and straw covering the ground, and he prayed Dylan hadn’t done just that. Or worse, slid off one of the ledges that surrounded the summit.

God, please let him be safe, he prayed. And then, thinking about what would come later, he added, And if it be Your will, let Savvy forgive me.

He wiped thick, gummy sap from the tree against the front of his jeans and continued to plunge through the thick forest. “Dylan!” he called again, yelling the name every ten feet or so in case he’d gotten nearer to the boy. “Can you hear me?”

A sound carried on the wind. It could’ve been an animal, but Brodie didn’t think so. He squinted against the rain, now coming sideways and slapping his face like needles.

“Dylan, is that you?” he yelled.

“Yeah!”

Brodie picked up his pace, sprinting toward the sound. He took another off-balanced slide when he hit a slick rock in the path. “Where are you?”

“Under the ledge!”

Pushing low limbs out of the way as he moved, Brodie quickly found the flat rock that crested Lookout Mountain’s timberline. Several sections jutted out to form protrusions, and he now suspected Dylan had used one of those to take cover from the brunt of the storm. Smart kid. “Which one?” he called.

“Right here!” Dylan answered, sticking his head out of one of the shallow caves and looking up toward Brodie. Shielding his eyes from the rain, he asked warily, “Who are you?”

Brodie worked his way down the ledge to enter the small area with the boy. Dylan was taller and thinner than Brodie would’ve thought a thirteen-year-old would be, but Brodie didn’t have a whole lot of experience with kids. Maybe this was the normal size of a boy that age. He’d only recently started mentoring teenagers in the Stockville area, and all of them had been sixteen-to eighteen-year-olds. Most of them were much bigger than this boy. Dylan looked kind of lanky, like a man who hadn’t filled out yet. Which, Brodie realized, was exactly what he was.

“Hey, Dylan,” he said, glad that the flat rock cut the wind so he could talk without yelling. “I’m Brodie Evans. I’m a friend of your mom’s and Savvy’s.”

The kid tilted his head, wet shaggy hair covering one eye before he slung it out of the way. “No, you’re not.” Before Brodie could explain, Dylan took a small step back. But even in the hint of retreat, he puffed his chest out, ready to fight if necessary.

The kid had guts, Brodie had to give him that. Then again, Willow had never been afraid of anything, either. But that was because she’d seen the worst of everything right inside her own home.

“I don’t know you.” That long hair completely covered Dylan’s right eye, but the left one narrowed, plainly sizing up the enemy.

The woods were getting darker by the minute. Brodie needed to get him on the trail quick, while they could still find their way back. He held up his palms and said, “I know you don’t. But your mom, Savvy and I were friends in high school.”

The boy looked skeptical and backed up a little more, putting himself against the curve of the rock but squaring his shoulders with the move. If he thought he could outrun Brodie, he’d be sorely mistaken. However, he didn’t want to get in a footrace with the kid, especially not on the side of a mountain covered with wet leaves and rocky terrain. No doubt, someone would get hurt. He needed to gain the boy’s trust. Then Dylan shivered, and Brodie saw that his denim shirt and jeans were drenched, as were his boots.