AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m off-duty.”
“Not anymore.”
He sighs. “Do you know this girl?”
Not really. But Rooney doesn’t need to know that. “I’ll text you the address where she went missing. Call me when you find something.”
He starts to respond, but another voice snatches my attention away.
“You called the police?”
I spin around. Piper is standing on the lowest step of the porch, once again wearing her jeans and sweater. On top, she’s added one of my jackets from the hall closet. The sleeves are rolled at least three times and the bottom hangs down to her knees.
She looks better than any woman has a right to.
I end the call and slide my phone in my pocket. “I called Rooney.”
Her brow wrinkles at the mention of him. “I don’t want him around those kids. Grant has been through enough.”
“It’s your choice.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “It is?”
“Yes. You can decide whether you want to find Olivia or whether you’d prefer to hold a grudge against Rooney for arresting you and let Olivia fade into memory.”
Her shoulders sag. “Finding Olivia is obviously the most important thing.”
“Okay, then. That’s settled.” I hold out her helmet, and she steps forward to let me place it on her head. “He’s going to start a search and let me know as soon as he finds something.”
“She’ll be okay, right?” The helmet is pushing down some hair over her forehead and eyes. I swipe a finger across her face to push the locks out of the way. Her breath hitches, and she looks up at me.
Her green eyes are vibrant in the otherwise gray night. I know we are both remembering the position we were in less than ten minutes ago.
I’m not usually one for false promises, but for some godforsaken reason, I want to tell Piper everything will be fine. I want to assure her and ease the crease between her brows. I want her full lips to curve into a smile, and then I want to be back in my bed with her soft body underneath mine.
But I won’t lie to her.
Instead, I pull out my phone again.
“I’ll text Pavel, too,” I inform her. “He’ll rally the soldiers. There will be fifty men out looking for her within thirty minutes.”
I start tapping out the message, but then I feel her hand curl around my knuckles. Her touch slides down my wrist and squeezes softly. “Thank you, Timofey.”
Once I send Pavel everything he needs to know, I climb onto the bike. Without hesitation, Piper climbs on behind me. She almost seems comfortable there, her arms wrapped around my middle and her chin pressed against my back.
It’s getting hard to remember what it felt like to ride without her curled around me.
61
TIMOFEY
“Someone took her!” Grant insists for the tenth time since we walked through the front door five minutes ago. The kid is a pacing, frantic mess. “Olivia wouldn’t leave. She knows she can’t leave the house without me with her. She wouldn’t go out on her own. The dark scares her.”
I don’t need to look out the window to know it is dark and rainy. Drops splatter against the windows and the roof. Based on the large water spot in the dining room ceiling, rain will be dripping into the bucket below in just a few minutes.
Piper has been flipping through the case file she has on the kids and calling every contact listed to see if anyone has talked to Olivia. Between calls, she keeps reassuring Grant.
“I didn’t take her. That isn’t how my office works,” she tells him. “We wouldn’t come in and take her in the middle of the night.”
