Nina knocked on Jules’ bedroom door which stood part way open. The twins, along with Rosa and Eli, were playing a game with Jules, toys scattered all around them. Terri and Jenny watched with amusement. Well, Terri watched while Jenny sat quietly hugging her doll and stroking its hair. Nina wondered if the young girl would ever fully come back to them.

“Nina.” Terri looked up.

Entering the room, Nina walked over and sat on the end of Jules’ bed. The little boy grinned up at her. “Wanna play with us?”

Nina smiled and ruffled his hair. “Maybe later, sweetie.” She turned her focus to the twins. “Samson. Susie.” The children glanced up from the toys. “Guess what?”

“What?” they replied in unison, eyes bright.

“You’re going home.”

The two kids squealed and jumped up and flung their arms around Nina. “We’re going home!”

The other kids watched them with smiles on their faces and a shadow of envy in their eyes; they had no home and no parents to go back to. Nina was “hopeful” about Emmy, but there was no guarantee the woman would actually take her in. Maybe she’d gone home and thought about it and decided she didn’t want the responsibility…or maybe her husband didn’t. I was a lot easier to believe the negative things than the positive. Disappointments hurt less when you didn’t really expect the good things to happen.

That was why Nina hadn’t immediately asked the men about Kelly; she was too scared to find out that Kelly and Raimi hadn’t been there at the orphanage. Or that they were…dead.

“Gather up your new toys,” Nina told the twins. “And I’ll get your new clothes. You’re going to be leaving for home real soon.”

The twins were exuberant and eagerly began collecting the toys Emmy and the others had brought them.

Jules looked at Nina. “Will they still get to come and play sometimes?” The boy had quickly bonded with the twins, who were closest to his age, as well as Rosa and Eli.

“I don’t know, hon,” she admitted. “I’m sure their mom and dad will want to keep them close to home for a while, after all this.”

“I want them to meet Reuben.”

“Who’s Reuben?” Nina asked.

Jules smiled big. “My boyfriend.”

Nina blinked, suppressing a grin. His boyfriend? The boy couldn’t be more than four-years-old. He already knew he liked boys? Nina found that incredibly adorable and thought it surely debunked some people’s belief that being gay was a choice. What four-year-old consciously decides he’s going to be gay?

“I’m sure they’d like to meet him,” Nina said. “But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens, okay?”

The boy nodded then asked a bit forlornly, “Are all of you going to leave?”

A small lump formed in Nina’s throat. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us, or where we’ll go.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“Any of us?” Nina smiled, blinking back tears.

“Nope. It’s fun with you here.”

“After a while, though, you might get tired of having so many kids around.”

Jules shook his head. “No, I won’t.”

With Jules, Nina thought that might be true. The boy was certainly a “people person” and seemed to thrive on the presence of other kids. “Well, like I said, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

Axel appeared in the door and Jules raced over to him and was scooped up in his arms. “Where’s Clint?”

Cocking an eyebrow, Axel shook his head. “That’s all I get? Where’s Clint? I see how I rate. Everyone loves the cowboy. Nobody loves me.” He pouted, and Jules giggled.

“Huh-uh! I love you!” Jules planted a huge kiss on his face.

“Well…all right, then,” Axel smirked and kissed his cheek. “You better.”

The cowboy stepped into the doorway and Jules squealed and scrambled into his arms.

“I’m not sure I believe your professions of love,” Axel scowled at the boy.

Jules giggled again and flattened his hands on the cowboy’s face. “Where were you?”

Nina noted the anguish in the man’s eyes and it scared her.

“Been busy,” was all he offered the boy. Axel’s face took on a strain as he looked at the cowboy. Without being told the men were gay, it would have been evident to her how much Axel loved this man.

Axel’s cell phone buzzed, and he answered the call. With the phone pressed to his ear, he looked at Nina then walked over to the bed. “It’s for you,” he smiled and handed her the phone.

“Me…?” Nina was dumbfounded. She hesitated then took the phone. “Hello…”

Silence hovered on the line then a soft, trembling voice came through—a familiar voice that instantly brought tears to Nina’s eyes. “Nina?”

Nina swallowed thickly and looked up at Axel through a wall of tears. “Kelly…?” All the pieces of her broken heart came back together so suddenly she could hardly breathe. “Kelly,” she cried softly. “Raimi…?”

“He’s okay…now,” Kelly sobbed quietly. “They saved us, Nina…because of them, Raimi’s alive.”

Nina covered her eyes, her sobs strengthening. She stood up suddenly and hugged Axel. “Thank you,” she cried and looked over his shoulder at the cowboy. “Thank you, both.”

 

•♦•

 

It took a few moments for Clint to let go of Jules. He finally set him down and left Axel with the kids as he returned to the lounge. Cochise was there with Cruz, Sanchez, Anthony, and Angelo. The looks on the two older men’s faces alerted Clint that the others had filled them in on the events at the orphanage. All of it.

Clint didn’t want to talk about it. “I told detective Jordan I’d give him the names of the kids we have here,” he said, deflecting any potential questions about the orphanage. “He’ll do a search and see if any of them have families out there. Jacob mentioned that David spoke of a dad.”

“Most of the kids don’t have anyone,” Angelo said. “They’re either orphans, or they were intentionally abandoned by a parent.”

Clint nodded. “I figured. But I told him I’d get him their names anyway.”

“You really trust this cop?” Anthony asked.

“Yes,” Clint replied without a moment of hesitation.

“We met him,” Cruz told Anthony. “For a cop, he seems trustworthy enough.”

Addressing the Egyptian, Clint asked, “What happened at the warehouse?”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Cochise said.

Clint looked at the other two men for clarification.

“The detective was in pursuit of one of the buyers,” Cruz said. “The guy got the jump on him and was about to put a bullet in his brain when our Egyptian friend here intervened.”

“You killed him?” Clint asked Cochise. “In front of the detective?”

Cochise nodded.

The detective had thanked Cochise and left it at that. He had no intentions of charging him with murder. “That was a risky move. But I’m glad you took it. He’s a single father with a small child.” Clint walked around behind the bar and poured himself a shot of whiskey. “God knows, we don’t need any more orphans.”

 

•♦•

 

Axel found Cory in the kitchen pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Hey.”

Cory looked up. “Axel. You’re back.” Concernshowed on his face. “How’s Uncle Clint? What happened out there?” When tears filled Axel’s eyes, Cory came to him and wrapped Axel in his arms. “Hey, babe,” he whispered as Axel hugged him hard. “What is it?”

Cory was Axel’s go-to rock. He’d been a constant player in Axel’s life since Axel had met Clint, and was his very first “best friend”. Next to Clint, Axel felt safer with Cory than anyone else. After a couple tries, Axel managed to tell Cory about the little girl out at the orphanage and the after-effects it was having on Clint.

“I’m worried about him, Cory,” Axel admitted. “It’s like…something inside him broke. What if I can’t fix it?” Until this moment, he hadn’t realized how real that fear was. “It’s killing me. I can see it in his eyes how much he’s hurting, and it scares the hell out of me. We’ve been talking about one day adopting, but what if this experience makes him change his mind? Makes him afraid to have children of his own for fear of losing them? What happened at the park could strengthen that fear.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Cory murmured. “It might take him a while to recover, but he will. I believe that. And having you by his side will help him a lot. I don’t think you fully understand the impact you have on him. that’s all you can do. But it will be enough. You’ll see. He’s a tough one; he’ll come back from this.”

Axel prayed he was right. But Clint had yet to “recover” from nearly losing Axel months ago. Axel feared that rather than dig out the pain and deal with it, Clint might just shove it down deep…as he had, to some extent, done with the pain of watching Axel get beat half to death. That stuff tended to fester and could slowly destroy a person. He didn’t intend to let that happen to Clint. But he wasn’t positive how to stop it.

You’ll find a way. Clint will do anything for you. He’ll listen to you.

“Trust me.” Cory hugged him again. “And remember, you’re not in this alone. That big boy means a hell of a lot to a lot of people. None of us are willing to lose him.” He squeezed Axel tight. “We got your back, brother.”

 

•♦•

 

Doris Morgan had come to fear the ringing of the telephone a little more with each passing day. For the first week of her babies’ disappearance, she’d practically lunged for the phone when it rang, desperate for news that they’d been found. Once the first week ran out and still no news on their whereabouts, the fear had set in. She knew the statistics. The crucial time frame was twenty-four to forty-eight hours. If an abducted child wasn’t located within that window, the odds of getting them back turned against them drastically. Doris had held out for seven days before the reality of possibly never seeing her babies again crippled her.

She sat at the kitchen table on this bitterly cold afternoon and listened to the wall phone ring. She stared at the cordless receiver nestled in the wall base and imagined it jiggling like in the cartoons her babies used to watch. The ringing echoed throughout the house which felt cold and empty like a tomb, though the thermostat was set to a comfortable temperature. She hadn’t felt warm since her babies had been stolen away.

During that first week, all she could think about was what was happening to them; Were they warm? Were they being fed? Was someone hurting them? Why had they been taken? The last two questions terrified her the most and had shoved her to the brink of insanity when she’d soon learned that the authorities suspected child sex traffickers may have abducted them. She couldn’t handle that reality. Couldn’t handle the images that tormented her. It was too much. Her dreams had become haunted with the cries of her babies being mistreated…abused in the worst way.

At the beginning of the second week, her mind shut down out pure survival instinct. She stopped talking about them to Jeffrey, stopped wondering what was happening to them. And she stopped answering the phone, convinced that whatever news they received now would be bad news. Horrifying news.

So, she sat unmoving on this bitterly cold afternoon while the phone shrieked for someone to answer it. Doris finally stood, but she didn’t go to the phone. She walked right past it and out of the kitchen, into the living room, and sat down in the chair she rarely vacated these days; the cushioned rocking chair positioned next to the Christmas tree where her babies’ gifts had been intricately stacked.

Two more rings and the phone went silent.

It started up again ten minutes later, about time Jeffrey’s car pulled into the driveway. When he came through the door, he didn’t ask her why she wasn’t answering the phone; he knew why. Her husband walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone. Doris went deathly still when she heard him speak the detective’s name. He’s calling to tell you your babies are never coming home.

That wasn’t necessarily true; detective Jordan remained in close contact with them, even when he had nothing to report. But something felt different about this call. Doris’ mind began to “wake up” and that terrified her. She didn’t realize she was clutching the arms of the chair until her hands began to ache. Even then, she couldn’t loosen her grip.

Jeffrey quietly hung up the phone, stood for a moment, then walked into the living room. His expression was undecipherable. Doris couldn’t tell if it was one of fear or hope. “That was detective Jordan,” he murmured but didn’t immediately add anything more.

Doris waited, her knuckles whitening as she gripped the chair.

“He’s on his way over.” Her husband met her fearful stare. “He didn’t say what it was about.”

Tears filled her eyes. “You know what it’s about.”

Jeffrey shook his head, his throat working. “You don’t know that, Doris,” he whispered, his own terror peeking through. He was a tall man with a sculpted, athletic physique that emanated strength. He was the strongest man she’d ever met, in every aspect. But when it came to his babies…his strength had been tested. He was barely holding up, but still somehow on his feet. Doris had fallen beneath the crushing weight days ago, but he refused to surrender…refused to give up hope. But it was coming now; the wrecking ball that would crash through his final precarious defense. Once the detective spoke those fateful words, her husband would fall, and he would not rise again.

When a car pulled up out front fifteen minutes later, Doris felt her heart quiver and stop. A car door closed, and Doris stood up. She walked past her husband toward the hallway.

“Doris…” He touched her arm, his words thick, a plea in his voice. Though he denied it, a part of him knew what was coming as well, and he didn’t want to face it alone.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as all resolve broke. “I can’t…I can’t hear him say it. I can’t hear him tell us our babies are…” It was wrong to leave Jeffrey standing there on his own, to force him to bear the brunt of this massive grief, and she would hate herself for it later. She hated herself now. But she couldn’t stay. She couldn’t.

The doorbell rang, and her footsteps quickened. She went to her babies’ bedroom and closed the door then sat down one of the small beds. She hung her head and slid her hands up over her ears when she heard voices down the hall. Her eyes closed as if that simple act could block out more sound. It couldn’t. When she heard Jeffrey break down sobbing, she broke down, too. Her hands covered her face and she cried—for real—for the time in days. Hard, heartbreaking sobs that threatened the stability of the mind.

Footsteps came down the hall.

“No,” she whispered brokenly. “No…don’t come any closer…I don’t want to know…I don’t want to know…please don’t tell me…”

The door opened slowly.

No-no-no! Please!

Fingers…light as a feather…touched her hands and she cried harder, pressing her face deeper into her hands. “No…”

“Momma…”

Doris froze as hands—tiny hands—stroked her hair. She began to shake as she slowly raised her head, her eyes opening fearfully. Her babies’ faces swam before.

“We’re home, momma,” Samson blinked and smiled. “Did you miss us?”

“My babies…” Doris cried and swept them into her arms, crushing their small bodies against her as she breathed in their sweet angelic scent and buried her face in their silky-soft hair. Small arms encircled her neck and clung to her. “My babies…my sweet babies…”