Cherished: The Mountain Man's Babies(27)

The woman nods. "I know. Cherish needs you. I hitchhiked here because she needs your help. I left last night and traveled all night. I'm just so tired. And so, so..." She covers her face, heavy sobs escaping her.

"Oh sweetie, let me get you some tea, and some food," Josie says, setting Jamie in a Pack n Play, and heads to the small kitchen and turns on the electric tea kettle.

Jonah and I eye one another anxiously, trying to understand the deal. "Where did you travel from?" I ask again. I can't just sit around here if she knows where my woman is. I need to go get her. Bring her home.

"In eastern Montana. It's about 11 hours from here, way out in the middle of nowhere."

"We've been going to Montana every week for the last five months," I tell her. "Where exactly were you?"

“A few hours east of Circle." She shakes her head as if trying to remember details. "The property is so far out, and I've lived there all my life. I didn't even know where I was on a map until I got in a car last night and asked the couple who picked me up for directions." She takes a crumbled piece of paper from her coat pocket. "This is the closest I could come to an address. The compound is off the grid, but there are a lot of us out here. At least six hundred."

Jonah whistles slowly, and I take the paper from her hand and then head to the hallway where I have a giant map of Montana, red lines drawn over the routes we've taken, the land we've scoured. We never made it to Circle, but we weren't too far off. We were looking in the right state at least.

"I gotta go get her," I tell them.

Jonah stands. "You aren't going alone."

Josie hands the woman a steaming mug of tea, casting a scowl at Jonah and me. I have no fucking clue what we did wrong, but Josie is letting us know there is something we missed.

"Sweetie, what's your name?"

Oh, I guess asking that would be the polite thing here—but I honestly don't have time for polite.

"Grace," she says, then biting her bottom lip, she looks at us worriedly. "Look, I understand you want to go find her, and you need to, but it's very dangerous there. You'll need guns, some sort of protection."

"I don't need anything but my own bare hands," I say as I turn to go to my bedroom and start shoving clothes in a duffel bag. "Can you stay here, Josie, with the babies? Call Harper, ask her to come too."

"Should we call Jax first? He can go with you," she says, walking toward my bedroom, worry stretched across her face. "James, maybe we should hear Grace out."

"I don't have time. And I don't need anyone's help. I know where Cherish is." I turn to Grace. "You said she needed me—is she in trouble? I mean, beyond the ‘kidnapped by a group of psychopaths’ part?"

Grace nods. "She needs a doctor. Soon."

My heart pounds in my chest. I remember when they tried to kill me, left me for fucking dead. If they have laid a finger on my woman—there will be hell to pay. "What's wrong with her?"

Grace bites her bottom lip. "I'll let her tell you that."

I throw the duffel bag over my shoulder, ready to go. Ready to claim what is mine.

"Hell, no," Jonah says. "You can't go alone. That's insanity, James. We know better than anyone how insane those people are."

I slam my fist in my other palm. I don't have time or room in my head for their negativity. I have a singular focus: getting Cherish home. "Dammit, I have to go."

"Jonah," Josie says, reaching for his hand. "Go with him. He's not thinking straight.”

"Maybe I'm not," I shout. "Maybe all I can think about is that I need her and I need her now. I look around my cabin, at my beautiful children, and I remember that when they were brought into this world Cherish thought I was dead—and for the last five months I've feared that she was. Now I know we’re both alive, but that isn't enough. I want more than that for us, for our family. I want to fucking flourish. I want to put down roots, and I want to make this mountain our home."

I can't do any of that without her.

My words hit them hard. Josie wipes tears from her eyes, and dammit, so do I.

Jonah fills a duffel bag, Josie asks again if we will tell Jaxon where we are headed, says we shouldn't go alone.

But I don't have time to wait. I need to go now. While I know I said my bare hands would save me, I think it through and open the gun safe in the back of my closet. We're living in the wilderness and I have two .357 Magnums for protection. I add them to my bag and lock the safe back up.

Grace explains exactly where Jonah and I are to go once we get outside the compound. She tells us what fence to crawl under, what path to walk on—how we need to do this in the dead of night. She says people might be on guard, considering she escaped, but, who knows, maybe no one will have realized she is missing yet.