Cherished: The Mountain Man's Babies(23)

The first chance I get, I load up the van, drive as far as I can toward Montana, about a nine-hour drive. I want to believe that maybe love will lead me to her like it had before when we both arrived at the cabin.

But it isn't fair to the babies to keep them in a car like that, and after one night at a hotel with three infants and one exhausted daddy, I know it isn't realistic to drive aimlessly looking for her with the babies.

Harper and her friends tell me the babies will be fine with them, that they will be well looked after and that I don't need to worry.

As I kiss the heads of those three perfect babies, I swear on my life I will find their mother. Leaving them for the first time hurts like hell... but what choice do I have? Finding Cherish is the only thing that matters.

Jaxon and his buddies Hawk, Buck, and Wilder are all pissed as fuck too. The goddamn cops aren't doing anything besides filing paperwork. But we don't need that—we need vengeance.

We take turns, two at a time, leaving the mountain and the other women and children, and fly to Montana. When we get there, we drive for fucking hours.

We search, city by city, as many towns as we can fucking find, and look for her.

It's hard for everyone. I can't keep asking them to leave their families so I can find mine—but they refuse to stop looking.

The men on this mountain are nothing like the men back in the cult. They understand what it means to love deeply, to love well. To love your woman forever.

I won't stop searching until I have her in my arms.

But as the weeks turn to months, as the summer becomes fall, the leaves on the trees turning all sorts of brilliant colors—we find ourselves exhausted by a chase that is nothing but a dead end. It's hard to keep my head clear. I feel powerless to find Cherish—and I know she needs me.

I try to hold on to hope, but I know it's too much to keep asking my friends who have been here for me throughout all of this to continue at this pace. The rest of the men have growing children back home as well.

It's been five fucking months.

And the babies, they aren't just babies anymore. They are crawling and pulling themselves up. They're big enough to sleep through the night and we've come to understand one another. The four of us have been through it all together. First fevers and first teeth. First foods and first steps—for Jamie at least. Eight months old and that girl is moving—force of nature, that's what she is.

And dammit, it feels like it's all fucking slipping away. A life with Cherish. Five months is a long ass time. And winter is gonna roll in before we know it. Soon as it does, we'll be snowed in for months.

I call Jonah, filling him in. He's been here for me the best he can be, considering the distance between us, and as much as I’m grateful to all of Jaxon's crew for having my back—Jonah understands me better than they do—he's had my back and been with me through thick and thin.

"I'm just so goddamn restless," I explain. "I need to do something besides drive around, leaving the babies all the time. It's been months... and yet nothing. I'm no closer than I was before."

"You need to go find her yourself," Jonah urges. For some reason, his words ring most true—maybe because he is the one who has been through hell and back with me. He understands the power of these old bastards. How scared I am for Cherish's fate. He knows that the men at the compound will beat you with a shovel if they decide they don't like you—those fuckers don't need a gun.

Jonah tells me how he's dating some girl he met at a tattoo parlor—apparently, he's gotten all kinds of badass since I left. I feel like I need to be a little more badass myself.

"That's good, man," I tell him, trying to be happy for him.

"Enough about me," he says. "What's your plan? You can't live without knowing where she is."

"I'm gonna pack the van, just like Cherish did when she came out to the cabin. The babies are older now and can handle traveling with me. And there's no way I can stay put any longer."

The line is quiet for a minute. Then Jonah clears his throat. "I know you love her, James. But you can't pack those kids up and hit the road with winter coming soon. It's not like here in Miami. You aren't thinking straight."

"Fuck that, I have to go, Jonah. Don't you understand? I'm all alone. Trying to keep my shit together, but how the hell am I gonna do this?"

"Let me come and stay for the winter. You need someone to shoot the shit with, and hanging out with all those big, happy families is probably depressing as hell, considering."

"Considering Cherish is gone?"

I can hear Jonah sigh through the phone. "Exactly, man. Exactly right."

"No way, you have a life out there." I shake my head, though he can't see me. I'm mixing formula in a bottle, have Andrew in a carrier on my hip, and throwing animal crackers on the highchair tray for Jamie. Jonah doesn't need to be here for this. This is my life. Not his.