Beautiful Broken Promises(15)
A look of confusion crossed my face as I tried to figure out what she had just said. “Who is bubba, little one?”
With one arm wrapped tightly around my neck, as if I would actually try and escape her, she swiveled around and faced the crowd surrounding us. I finally took in all of the faces that were staring at us. The crowd had lessened, but the ones who remained had all been watching our reunion very closely. Women were wiping their faces dry while the men were clearing their throats and avoiding my glassy eyes as they tried to give me at least the appearance of privacy.
“Braden is bubba!” she excitedly told me, pointing through the bodies at a little boy who appeared to be about the same age as Kate.
But it wasn’t Braden that stopped the blood flow throughout my body once again. It was the woman sitting next to him. She was the one person, besides Flores, who could stir up intense anger inside of me. The one person I had suspected of aiding my daughter’s kidnappers. Raegan Hayes.
RAEGAN -
We had been sitting in that dark and dingy police station for hours. Not that we had anywhere to go anyway. Braden and Kate’s bedtime had long since come and gone, even with the time difference. Where did they expect us to sleep tonight, because it sure as hell wouldn’t be here on the cold floor?
I knew he would be coming, but I just didn’t know when to expect him. I’d heard Officer Charlie talking with him on the phone while we were flying out to New York, even though he thought I was sleeping along with the others.
When Lane Parker’s huge body filled the door of the hallway we were all congregating in, my breath was stolen straight from my chest. Lane had always been every woman’s fantasy, but over these last four years he had become impossibly more beautiful. Even through his polo shirt, I could see the stretch of tight muscles and everything else on him looked incredibly hard. Four years ago, he was not built like that at all. He had been lean, but I wouldn’t have called him muscular. Now I could see that the gym had been his friend.
My eyes welled up with tears when he heard Kate’s sweet voice for the first time. His entire face zoned in on her, even if he couldn’t see her yet, and when his knees hit the ground we all felt it shake beneath us. I couldn’t have been happier for Kate right then, but the selfish side of me wondered what that meant for us.
No one in the station could look away from the heart-wrenching father-daughter reunion. Kate, in her true boisterous and outgoing nature, ran to the only man she’s ever known to be her father—even though she never really knew him. I couldn’t begin to keep track of the amount of times she had asked me when she could see him again over the last four years.
Braden, ever the silent, stoic protector, inched closer just a smidge so he could keep an eye on her at all times. Lane wouldn’t get very far with Kate, not without a small, male, four-year-old tagalong. Braden took a long look at him holding Kate and eyed me nervously, and I knew he was silently wondering if she was about to be taken away from us. I wiped the moisture from my face and averted my gaze from his inaudible questions because I didn’t know the answers. And I was too afraid to ask.
My legs ached from sitting all day. I’d sat on a plane for five hours and then came here and alternated between the floor and hard, wooden chairs. I couldn’t go on for much longer. If I had any money at all, I would have just told them we would be at a hotel, but now I wondered if I had any control over what Kate did. She was technically not mine; well at least they wouldn’t see it that way.
It seemed as though no one around here really knew the protocol for having missing persons return after four years. I guessed after a year or so they just assumed you wouldn’t be coming back. It made me wonder if anyone had actually been out there looking for us. I had always hoped they were out there at least trying. Then again, could I have really expected them to search for us for four years?
Every time I’d asked Officer Charlie what it was we were waiting on, he told me a different person each time. First, we were waiting on some Sergeant, and then it was an attorney. I had heard him speak of the Police Chief and finally he said a psychologist. It was obvious that he had no idea and was giving me the run-around.
“Braden is Bubba!” I heard Kate excitedly tell Mr. Parker, whose face had this unease and complete confusion on it. He looked straight to where her finger was pointing and took a second to glance at Braden, but his eyes didn’t linger. They quickly found mine, and though I had wondered how seeing each other again would go, never did I imagine the immense anger and even hatred I saw in his eyes.