When I get down to the station, they start questioning me. As if I might be involved, and the reason Cherish is missing. As they survey the crime scene, the babies need to stay at Harper and Jax’s for a few nights, and I crash there too. The whole time I can’t sleep. I’m all torn up. Having the woman I want given to me and then taken from me more than once is more than I can fucking take.
And now I have our children. I look at our three babies, crying all the time because all they want their mama, but she isn't here. I try to rock them to sleep, but I don't have that touch that Cherish does.
I hate to say it, but I feel slightly better knowing that Harper and her cronies, like Rosie and Honor and Stella, can't do anything to calm the babies either. It's not just me. It's anyone who isn't mom.
But a few days later, I’m cleared by the police. My alibi was airtight, the footage at the hardware store proves I was there when Harper showed up at the house to find her gone. It doesn't change anything, though, Cherish is gone and there are no leads. I explain to the officers that Cherish told me the cult was headed to Montana to restart the compound. But Montana is a big fucking state. And it's not like I have anything else to go by. Of course, they promise to investigate, to follow any leads they may have. But I'm not holding my breath.
If I want to see my woman again then I have to find her myself.
Jaxon tries to talk me out of it: "You can’t go looking for her when you have her babies," he says.
But they aren’t just Cherish’s children. “They are my children too, and they need their mother.”
“They also need their father. And what are you going to do?” Jaxon asks. "Load those babies up in a van, driving up and down the interstate? It's a wild goose chase and you don’t know where you're going."
"Isn't that what love is?" I shake my head, furious. I'm sitting out on Jaxon's porch—the last place I want be. I want to be in my cabin, with my children and my woman. Not here. I'm ready for my life to begin, but one thing after another keeps happening. I'm tired of not having what I've wanted forever.
What I’m so fucking close to having.
"You can't load the babies up in a van," Jaxon says, softer now. “I know you know that, but sometimes it sounds like you're getting some harebrained idea in your mind."
“She is half of my heart."
"Are you sure you're not following your cock?" Jaxon asks.
I push Jax back because he doesn’t seem to understand what Cherish means to me. “No, I'm not following my fucking cock. How dare you to insinuate that?"
Jaxon raises his hands in the air. “Brother, I got your back, but you've only been here three days and already the mountain has lost its fucking cool.”
"You're missing the point," I tell Jaxon. “It's not about what drama has been happening, it's that injustice has been happening. It's about where Cherish actually went and finding her. She's the mother of my children, what don't you understand?"
"I understand perfectly," Jaxon steps back. "But I also know that the cult is dangerous. If you find them, it doesn’t mean you’ll come out of it alive. Maybe you should—"
"Hell, no," I tell him. "No way in hell do I think you'd leave Harper for dead."
"The last thing your children need is both of their parents gone," Jaxon says, his voice low and gravelly.
Those are some words that hit fucking close to home. "I don't want that either," I tell him. "But I love her, Jaxon. And I have to find her."
Jaxon doesn’t answer because he knows if he were in my position he’d do the exact same fucking thing. Anything to get her back.
“So, what's your plan?" he asks.
"I don't fucking know that yet," I tell him. “But I need to figure it out pretty damn fast."
Turns out my plan is one dead end after another.
The cops try to convince me that Cherish left of her own free will. They fucking suggest that maybe since she’s already married to someone else, perhaps she needed to leave me with the babies to let go of those choices.
"But she isn't actually married to anyone," I tell him. "The cult is practicing polygamy."
"I understand you keep saying that, but there's no documented polygamy in the state of Idaho. So, if she's practicing, it's under the radar, and we can’t do anything to prove it."
“But she isn't practicing," I yell. "She's forced into it."
"If we had a lead we could help you. The best thing you can do right now is move on. You know, sometimes, people don't want to be found."
His words sting, and I pray to God they aren't true. The idea of Cherish not wanting me hurts more than I expected, even knowing it simply isn't true.