I swallow the panic that rises in my chest as I sit up and scan the room. My babygirl is a naturally early riser, so it’s possible she went to her nursery to play for a bit.
Rolling out of bed, I make my way to the door that connects our two rooms. “Tabby?” I call out as I open the door.
But I’m greeted with silence, and a completely empty nursery.
Now the panic is harder to fight, but I do my best to keep a level head as I yank on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and hurry out to the hall. I knock loudly on Bram’s door, and a moment later I’m greeted by my harried-looking twin. “You better have a good goddamn reason for waking me up this early.”
“Tabby’s missing.” Despite my attempts to remain calm, my voice cracks as the panic begins to seep in. “She’s not in my room or her nursery. I can’t find her, Bram.”
“Okay. Just breathe.” My brother’s calm washes over me, easing some of the panic gripping me by the throat. “Let me get dressed and we’ll go look for her. She’s probably in the house somewhere, getting into some kind of mischief. You go wake the others.”
“Right. Yeah. You’re right.” He is. He has to be. Odds are we’ll go downstairs and find her climbing on the countertops again.
I swear if I find her doing something that dangerous one more time, I’m going to follow through on my promise to fuck her bottom every day for a week.
Bram disappears back into his bedroom and I make my way down our side of the house, waking Axel and Dane and before hurrying to the other side of the stairs to get Eli and Ford and Gray. Leaving my family to search the upstairs rooms, I race downstairs.
She’s not in the kitchen, or the living room, or my office. By the time the others join me, my heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of my chest with worry.
“Where the hell could she be?” Raking my hands through my hair, I pace the living room. “It’s a big house but it’s not big enough for her to hide from all of us.”
Gray’s gaze darts toward the window and a frown tugs at her lips. “Do you think she might have gone outside?”
“She knows better.” But even as I say the words, uncertainty settles like a lead weight in my gut.
Eli snorts. “She knows better than to climb on my damn countertops, but that didn’t stop her.”
Goddammit, he has a point. Without bothering to respond, I turn on my heel and race for the front door, pausing only to unlock it before throwing it open and hurrying outside.
“Tabitha!” I pause, listening for a response. A shout, a whimper, anything from my babygirl.
But all I’m met with is silence.
“Here.” Bram shoves a pair of boots into my hands as he strides forward, his eyes scanning the forest. “You’re no good to her if you slice your fucking feet to ribbons in the woods.”
Because he has a point, I take the time to pull the boots on while the rest of our family streams out of the house, with the exception of Eli and the Littles. Gray stands beside me onthe porch, her hands fisted on her hips as she scans the wide expanse of land surrounding our house.
“We give it ten minutes. If we haven’t found her by then, we call Donnelly.”
Everyone freezes at that, turning to stare at our sister in stunned surprise.
Axel recovers first. “You want us to call the sheriff?”
Lip pulled back in a snarl, Gray all but growls at him. “I don’twantto. But if it means finding Tabby before something happens to her, then I’m not going to let my feelings for Reese Donnelly get in the way.”
Rising from the chair I’d sat in to put my boots on, I clap Gray on the shoulder. “Thank you.”
When she turns her head to meet my gaze, her eyes are blazing with determination. “If you really want to thank me, you’ll let me have a turn paddling her ass red once we find her.”
“Deal.”
Tabitha
I should have brought a blanket. Maybe a pillow. At the very least a coat. While it’s notfreezingup here on the roof, it’s not exactly warm, either.
Despite the cold, I find myself nearly dozing off in the little nook I’ve found up on the roof. It’s not the most comfortable spot, but it’s got a place for me to lean against one of the dormers so I don’t have to worry about falling even if I do fall asleep.
My biggest worry right now is the fact that the sun has been up for what feels like an hour and nobody has come looking for me. I don’t have any way to tell the time, so it might not actually be an hour but either way, my family is usually up with the sunrise, even on weekends. The fact that nobody seems to have noticed I’m gone is?—
