Chapter Seven
Levi
I’m halfway up Tyee Ridge Road when the radio goes off. “Levi, are you there, can you hear me?” I pull over and grab for the handset, surprised to hear Dallas’s voice. She seemed reluctant to take the unit from me at all. My mind goes to places it shouldn’t as to why she’d call so soon.
“Dally, I’m here. Is everything okay, or you just checking out the merchandise?”
“Shut up…” comes her reply, her voice choked with sobs. “Where are you?”
I feel my heart constrict and my chest tighten as I put the truck into park. “I’m on the road. Not quite home yet. What’s wrong.” It’s not even a question. I know with the certainty of a sunrise that something is indeed wrong. Terribly wrong.
“I don’t know who else to call. I can’t go home, I’m pretty sure I’ll be followed.”
“By whom? Where are you now? Are you and Mason alright?” Blood thunders in my ears as I strain to listen to her every word, every breath and whisper.
“We’re fine, but that man, the guy from the farmer’s market, he was waiting for us outside the doctor’s office. He tried to force me and Mason into his van. We got away, ran back into the building. We’re at the police station now, I told them what happened. They say I shouldn’t go home, find somewhere else to stay for the night.”
The police station? Fuck. Not my first choice of places to rendezvous. “Is anyone listening to you right now? Heard you say my name?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m in the bathroom. Mom is in the waiting room with Mason. I called my folks right away, let them know what’s going on. Had her bring me extra clothes and diapers if I’m going to stay elsewhere, but I’d rather it not be the Dew Drop Inn. Someplace farther away. Can you help me?”
Shit. Yes, of course I can, and I will. But it’s complicated. I can’t just show up at the police station. A deep foreboding tingles at the base of my spine and creeps its way up like a rising tide. I got a real bad vibe from that market guy, but couldn’t put my finger on why, other than he had his filthy, bloodshot eyes on my woman and child, stalking them like prey. Again, the propensity for evil in this world never fails to astound me, and there’s no fucking way I’ll let it harm my family again.
My mind is racing to formulate a plan, how to extricate her from this situation and keep everybody else none the wiser about me. “Yeah, listen. I’m going to drive into Beaver and pay for a room at the Hungry Bear Motel, it’s at milepost 206 on the 101. Tell the police you’ve made those arrangements, and ask them to escort you and your vehicle there and see that you check in. I’ll meet you there.”
“I understand.”
“Okay, I’m heading there now.” My mind walks through the potential repercussions of the plan. “Uh, Dally. Does your mom know you’re calling me? Have you said anything?”
“Not yet. I just said I was going to make a call.”
“The fewer people that know about me the better,” I say, a tone of caution in my voice.
A moment of silence passes before the radio crackles to life again. “I get it. The burden of knowledge.” I hear her sigh heavily. “I won’t say anything. I’ll just say I’ve booked a motel outside of town, and that it’s better she doesn’t know my whereabouts for awhile.”
“That’s good. That’s perfect. Hold tight, baby. Radio me when you get inside the room. I’ll see you soon.” I toss the handset aside and pull a U-turn, heading back toward Beaver. I may be overstepping my boundaries in calling her “baby,” but it just slipped out. It felt natural. The burden of knowledge, she said. She’s so right. What you heard, what you saw, you can’t erase it, you can’t “un-know” it. It’s more than a burden. It’s a curse.
While I’m angry and more than a little worried at the reasons behind this apparent attempted kidnapping, the thought of having Dallas and Mason near me fills me with hope and a side helping of something that feels like happiness. It’s been a long while since I could claim that.
***
It’s full dark when I pull slowly onto the Hungry Bear property. It’s a rustic, roadside motel with a popular café, and also an RV park that backs onto the Sol Duc River. It will be easy to blend in and has the advantage of various people moving about that would discourage any would-be troublemakers. I park among the other vehicles in between the motel and the RV area to remain relatively unseen yet still keep an eye out for approaching traffic. Driving a black truck certainly helps in that regard, especially at night. I kill the lights and keep to the shadows as I walk to the office.
A plump lady manager is manning the desk. “Evenin,’ welcome to the Hungry Bear,” she says with a smile and a curt nod. “Lookin’ for a room?”
“Uh-huh. Any vacancy?”
“Sure do, now that the summer crowd has gone. A single? Or a double?”
“Uh, double I guess. Can I pay in advance? Be checking out early.”
“Money’s money,” she says with a shrug. “Better early than late. Let’s see, I think room fifteen is available. You have children with you?”
“Uh, yeah. Why?”
She raises an eyebrow and lets out a little chortle. “They need beds too. The unit has two double beds and a hide-a-bed, but we have portable cots if you need extra. Or a crib?”
I hadn’t thought this far along in the booking process. I’ve always stayed alone in high-end suites where my father’s PA took care of the accommodations. This could be slightly more complicated. “A crib,” I say, thinking fast. This has to look normal. “How much?”
“Low season rates. Ninety-five dollars plus tax.”
I fork over a hundred bucks in cash, and she lays a key on the counter. I stare at it while the wheels in my brain turn. “Listen, I have to run a couple errands, so my wife and kid will be checking in on her own in a bit. Can you just give her the key when she gets here?”
“Sure. What’s the name?”
“Wynter. Mrs. Wynter.”
“Alright, Mr. Wynter. Enjoy your stay.”
“Thanks.” I exit the office casually so as not to appear in a hurry. Mr. Wynter. Ha. That’s a new one; I kinda like it. That’s a thing sometimes, isn’t it? Having the husband take the wife’s name? Not a bad idea. But I can’t think of a single reason Dallas would want to marry me now, other than the baby. Beyond providing the father figure, I’m nothing for her but trouble with a capital T. I can’t help but think this would-be abduction has something to do with me.
I climb into my truck to wait. Soon, I see Dallas’s car along with a police cruiser pull up in front of the office. After a few minutes, her shadowed silhouette with Mason in her arms enters room 15, and the police depart. “Levi, you here?” comes her voice over the radio.
“Yeah, I’m parked outside, out of sight. Everything go okay?”
“More or less. My mom wanted to come with me, but I talked her out of it.”
“Good. It would only endanger her as well.”
“Can you come in? It’s cold in here, and I’m scared. I need to give Mason a bath and get him ready for bed.”
“On my way. Stay by the door so I don’t have to knock.”
“Right.”
I slither like a damn snake from the front seat of my truck and through the breezeway to the door of room 15. It’s an end unit, lucky for us. Dallas opens the door soundlessly to let me slip inside. I close the door and bolt it, then stand with my back to it, taking in the sight of her with our baby in her arms. She looks exhausted; dark shadows ring her eyes. Her long hair fans out over her shoulders, partially covering Mason in a protective shroud of golden locks. Despite the frightening circumstances, a warm wave of gladness passes over me that we’re together. The three of us.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.”
“Dally, I’m so sorry this happened to you. I should have been with you and Mason. Made sure you got to your appointment okay.”
“You offered. I refused. It’s not your fault, Levi. You’re helping us now, that’s what’s important.”
I nod and glance around the room, spotting the AC unit on one wall. I move toward it and crank up the heat. Dallas follows behind. “Should warm up in a few minutes,” I say.
“Thanks. Can you take him while I run the bath?”
I turn and gaze down at the warm bundle of tiny human she offers me. “Sure.” For the second time today, I get to hold my son. I gently take him from her loving embrace and cradle him in the crook of my arm like she showed me as she moves into the bathroom. The drapes are drawn and a single, shaded lamp offers the only light in the room. But it’s enough for me to see every soft curve of his angelic face, every hair on his perfect, round head. I’m in speechless awe of this little miracle of humanity. For all the darkness and cruelty in the world, there is also a blinding, hopeful light—exemplified in the radiant, untouched beauty and innocence of a child.
He wriggles his little body and starts making whimpering noises. Uh-oh. I don’t think I’ll know what to do if he starts full-on crying. “Hey now, it’s just me. Daddy’s got you,” I say softly, reaching out to touch his small hands that are balled into fists. I can’t believe I just said the word “daddy.” His eyes pop wide open, and I’m amazed by their deep blue color. That’s Dallas all the way. One tiny hand re-wraps around my outstretched fingers. I don’t know what he gets from me, unless it’s the iron grip he’s exerting on my index finger right now.
“Damn!” Dallas curses from inside the bathroom. “There’s no tub. Only a shower.” She pops into the main room, one hand indignantly on her hip. “Oh well. Just have to make the best of it, I guess. I could use a shower myself anyway.” She comes toward us and holds out her arms.
I have no idea how to bathe a baby, much less shower with him. “So, how you going to manage that?” I ask, handing Mason over to her. Dallas looks up at me, her twin orbs of cornflower blue flashing in amusement.
“Well, if you want to watch, you’ll find out.” Her hair swings a blonde arc as she scoops up Mason and flounces back into the bathroom. My jaw works back and forth for a second. Was that an invitation, or sarcasm? “Maybe you’d like to help?” her voice echoes from inside the room, just as I hear the shower taps squeal to life. Now that was an invitation.
“Happy to be of service,” I say, taking a few tentative steps forward and peeking around the corner of the open bathroom doorway. She lays Mason down on the vanity and begins unbuttoning her blouse, yanking the tails out of her jeans and peeling the shirt away, revealing a lacy pink bra. My instinct is to look aside, but I don’t. I’ve not seen her in almost two years; hell, I’ve not seen or been with any woman in all that time. As my body reacts to the vision before me, I realize when I said I missed her, I didn’t know the half of it until this moment.
She reaches for the waistband of her jeans and pops the rivet, splits the zipper and quickly shoves the snug-fitting denims off her lovely, round buttocks and onto the floor. She looks up, catching me staring. “Well, now’s not the time to be shy. Come on in, if you’re coming.”
I step farther into the small room, my pulse accelerating as the matching pink panties are cast to the floor along with the bra. Dallas tucks her hair behind her ears and leans over Mason to undress him, her supple, round breasts swaying a little with the motion. I ache to touch them, feel their weight in my hands, brush those brown nipples with my thumbs.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask, my voice catching a little in my throat. I feel like a peeping Tom ogling her this way. She lifts Mason from the countertop and presses him to her nude torso, one hand cupping his head and the other his tiny butt. A nude Madonna and child. I swallow hard, willing my swelling cock to stand down inside my jeans.
“Get undressed and get in,” she gestures to the shower with a tilt of her head. “We’ll take turns holding him while we wash up.” She looks me up and down. “I’m willing to bet you could use a shower yourself.” With that, she draws back the flower-patterned shower curtain and steps in.
While I have my own necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention running water system up at the cabin, it’s definitely not as convenient as turning on a tap; and it has been a day and a half since I availed myself of a bath or shower. The beckoning steam rising from behind the curtain is too much of a siren call to resist. Or is it just raw lust clouding my eyes? Fuck it. I strip off my jacket and the rest of my clothes in record time, just as Mason begins to wail.
“Oh shhh…you love the water,” Dallas coos. “See? Isn’t this nice? Gonna get you all clean.”
I pull the curtain aside enough to peer in. “Is it okay? Is he alright?”
“Get in here, and close the curtain,” she laughs. She doesn’t need to ask me again, but I’m a little concerned what she might think of the unmanicured, unshaven version of me. Not to mention my rather obvious erection. But there’s not much space in the square stall, and Dallas is too busy rubbing shampoo into Mason’s hair to notice much about me as I step close, sandwiching our baby between us.
His cries cease as the warm water cascades over all three of us, and I reach for the little bar of hotel soap on the ledge and tear off the wrapper. “I’ll work on you while you work on him,” I say, reaching around behind her and stroking the creamy suds across her back, reveling in the smooth softness of her skin, the ridges of her spine, and the curve of her ass. The water streams down on our heads, flowing in little rivers over our nude bodies on the way down.
Dallas’s hair clings in wet ringlets around her neck and chest while she holds Mason to her breasts, rinsing his little body with handfuls of water from her cupped hand. It’s as maternal a scene as I can ever imagine, and yet I’ve never seen anything sexier in my life.
“Mmm, that feels good,” she murmurs as I continue massaging her delicate skin with soap.
“I know what would feel even better,” I say before I can stop from verbalizing the thought.
“That would be a bit difficult under the circumstances.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” I reply as I allow my hand to sweep along the curve of her hip and around to her front, slipping a soapy two fingers into the warm, wet triangle between her legs. I stroke gently, forward and back, feeling the velvety bud of her clit brush against my fingertips.
Dallas utters a helpless moan. “Levi, don’t.”
“Why not? It’s the least I can do after the day you’ve had. You deserve some pleasure.”
“That’s not the point,” she gasps, her clit beginning to swell between my fingers.
“It isn’t? Are you sure?” I ask, a smile curving my lips as I feel her excitement grow.
She groans and presses her lips to Mason’s tiny head. “I’m not saying it doesn’t feel good, but this is hardly the time.”
“We’re alone, in private. No one knows we’re here. What more perfect time could there be?”
She reaches down to push my hand away. “Just…wait…please.” Her words echo inside the tiny porcelain enclosure. She looks at me, her breathing heavy, droplets streaming off the tip of her nose and the ends of her hair. As awkward as the situation is, I want her more than anything at this moment. “Here, hold Mason a minute.”
I take the baby into my arms, shielding his face from the falling water. Dallas pries the soap bar out of my hand and begins to wash Mason’s bottom, legs, and feet. He twists and squawks as I try to keep a firm grip on his slippery little body.
“Hold still, you,” I laugh.
As the water rinses him clean, Dallas’s hands move farther afield, around my backside, rubbing the soap in circles over my ass cheeks. “Two can play at this game,” she says, sliding the bar of soap up my back with one hand, while the other slips dangerously over my thigh and around to my crotch, caressing the underside of my still-rigid cock. “How does that feel,” she asks, “knowing you want it but happen to have a squirming child in your arms?”
“I get it,” I say through clenched teeth, her touch seeming to send all the blood in my body rushing south. “Let’s finish here and take this outside.”
“Good boy. You’re catching on.”