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Until he stared at the girl glaring back at him.
She looked like an older version of his precious Laken.
His baby was only three, and already, her delicate, too fragile body was forced to keep up with the fire that burned in her soul.
“What kind of questions can’t we answer?” Zoey propped her little fists on her hips angrily, demanding that he take her into consideration, that he make a choice and he make it now.
“Zoey, Mr. Mackay and his cousins might have liked a few minutes to process everything,” Timothy chastised her gently as he straightened and stared down at her.
“And what makes you think Momma has time for him to process anything,” she cried out, her voice trembling as the tears that filled her eyes suddenly spilled down her cheeks as fear and anger filled her expression. “He’ll either help us or he won’t. Either way, Momma’s sick again—”
Timothy moved.
Rushing past the little girl, aware Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches were moving quickly to follow behind him, Timothy ran for the Excursion at a run.
Racing to the passenger-side door opposite the office he saw the young Homeland Security agent standing next to Mercedes Mackay, his expression concerned.
“Agent Rickers,” he snapped. “What’s going on?”
“Mr. Cranston. ” Agent Rickers straightened quickly and moved back, his young face pale. “She’s weak again, sir. I was trying to make her more comfortable. ”
The other girls had moved farther back to the third row of seats, watching their mother fearfully as she breathed heavily, her pale face reddened, perspiration pouring from it.
“Timothy, I’ll be fine,” Mercedes promised weakly. “You know how frightened they get. ”
But she wouldn’t be fine, and Timothy knew it. Not if she didn’t get the help she needed.
“My dear, you should have sent one of the girls for me before you became so ill,” he chastised her as he took the damp cloth the other agent had been using to wipe the perspiration from her. It did little to cool her skin. Few things did when such attacks occurred. They came with a suddenness that couldn’t be predicted, and often left just as quickly.
“Timothy, get her in the office; we’ll call for Doc,” Rowdy ordered from the other side of the vehicle.
“Come on, Mercedes. ” The gentleness in the leprechaun’s voice shocked not just Rowdy, but his cousins as well, though the young women in the vehicle didn’t seem surprised at all.
Cranston picked her up as though she weighed nothing, and she had to be three inches taller, at least, than the former agent.
Pick her up he did, though, and carried her quickly into the office, all the girls at his heels.
“What’s wrong with her?” Rowdy questioned the older man as he laid her on the office couch, the girls hovering around her.
Cranston sighed heavily. “The doctors aren’t certain, but she’s refused to see the specialists she’s been referred to. ”
“Why?”
Cranston’s jaw tightened, a muscle ticking at the side furiously. “No insurance and no money, Rowdy. I told you, once Homeland Security found that Cayman account two years ago, they’ve had to live on what she had saved and the money she made working three jobs. She refused to let the girls work. The girls weren’t even aware Mercedes was no longer receiving the money until DHS showed up at the house and threw them out. ”
Rowdy started to say more, but the sight of three concerned women moving quickly across the parking lot had a grimace pulling at his lips before he turned to his cousins. “Shopping trip’s over,” he announced, nodding toward their wives as they moved purposefully for the office.
“Where the hell were they?” Natches rubbed his jaw in confusion.
“My guess, close enough to see why the hell we tried to push them into going shopping this morning. ” Rowdy sighed. “We’re getting out of practice, boys. ”
“I thought someone was calling a doctor. ” The little powerhouse who had interrupted the meeting earlier stood from where she had been kneeling next to her mother.
“Zoey, enough,” Mercedes chastised her. “Where are your manners?”
“They promised, Momma. ” Pleading with her eyes, clearly afraid for her mother’s health.
“I sent the text,” Rowdy promised her. “His nurse just texted back. ”
