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She wasn’t fast enough, couldn’t make herself move, couldn’t see through the pain and fuzziness in her head.
“You know my number. Text me when you have the money.” Chalmer laughed, then walked toward the door. “And, if I see the police, I’m going to tell them you wouldn’t let me see my children, so I had to come get one myself.”
With a last laugh, he put a hand on the doorknob and walked out.
Chapter 23
“You need to come back to the house right away. Someone took the baby.”
Ezra adjusted the phone to his ear, because surely, he hadn’t heard right. “What?” He asked Phoebe, even though he was already starting to stride toward the ATV. He didn’t even bother to pick up any of his things.
“Is Alaska okay?” he asked before Phoebe could answer his first question.
“He shoved her, and she fell and hit her head. I think that’s the only way he got the baby, but other than a huge headache, and being petrified, she’s fine.”
“I’m on my way.”
He started the ATV, and had driven about ten feet before he heard Caleb shout. “Hey! Hold up!”
Ezra slowed but didn’t stop as Caleb jumped in the other side, slamming the door shut.
“Did you call the police?” he asked.
“Yes. They said they would watch for him on the road, maybe try to intercept him on his way back to Sweet Water. They had an officer on duty near there.”
“All right.”
His hands shook and it seemed like the ATV was crawling while time flew by. He also felt like a failure. Alaska had married him for the purpose of keeping herself and her children safe. And this was the second time that someone had gotten onto the ranch.
“He was driving the same color car as Ellen was, and we assume that when Ellen drove away from the ranch, he drove in the gates before they closed. Ellen wouldn’t have known to try to keep anyone out.”
“Yeah. All right.” Well that answered that question. But still, he felt guilty and responsible.
He punched off, and threw his phone down on the seat beside him. What more could he do? How many people were going to be after his wife? And their children? Although Chalmer was technically the likely father. It sounded like Ezra was going to need to get a lawyer and get on it. Figure out what rights Chalmer might have, and possibly see if he would give up those rights. Ezra was fairly certain he didn’t care about the kids, he just wanted money. Unfortunately, that was something that Ezra didn’t have a lot of at the moment.
They would be getting the money for the calves they just sold, but there were bills that needed to be paid, and he could hardly take money from the ranch to pay for his personal problems. Although, he was pretty sure that his siblings would rally around him, and would want to make sure his wife was safe.
Still, he’d feel selfish taking money they didn’t have to buy off someone whose problems he brought on himself when he insisted on marrying Alaska.
Lord, I don’t know what to do.
There were lots of times where he had prayed a prayer like that to God. So many times in his life where he didn’t know what to do, but this felt so much more... Dangerous.
Scary even. But that was mostly because short of tying Alaska to him, and carrying their kids around everywhere they went, he couldn’t have her with him twenty-five, seven, and he felt like she should be safe in his home on his ranch. The fact that she wasn’t, made him feel like he needed to adjust everything he had been thinking.
Caleb didn’t say anything else, and Ezra didn’t really pay attention to him anyway. He careened into the yard, jerked to a stop in front of his house, and grabbed his phone before jumping out of the side-by-side, running in the house, needing to see for himself that Alaska was okay.
Phoebe had said she was. He knew there was nothing he could do by rushing to her side, but he felt like he needed to. She was probably beside herself because Alice was missing, and Ezra couldn’t even think about that. Did the man take a car seat? Was their baby safe? Had he thrown her somewhere? Someone like that... He didn’t think that Chalmer had much of a criminal record, and he wasn’t sure whether drugs were involved, but he didn’t really think that he’d throw his own child out of the car window, but, all sorts of crazy ideas were going through Ezra’s head at the moment, and that seemed just as likely as anything else.
“Alaska,” he said, slowing as he came up on her, sitting at the kitchen table with an ice pack held to her head, Priscilla on one side of her with her arm slung protectively over her shoulder, and Phoebe on the other, while Ada played with Eugene at the sink trying to keep him occupied so that he wasn’t asking for his mother.
Alaska probably would have been happier holding him in her lap, but Ezra didn’t say that, he simply walked across the kitchen floor, and knelt on one knee beside her, taking both her hands in his and looking up into her face. He winced as she lifted the ice pack off, and he saw a big knot on the side of her temple.
“Sorry,” he said, knowing that everything that had happened was his fault. He should have stayed home. Should have taken the danger more seriously. Realized that it wasn’t just going to be Rex. But that Chalmer would want to try to extort money from Alaska as well. It made him mad the men who had used her.
“It’s not your fault,” she said, and her voice sounded wobbly, but there was no doubt of the relief that was on her face and he assumed that it was because he was there.
She put one hand on either side of his face and smiled.
