Life Over Love (14 page)

           
She started walking again. He gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Brianna, stop it! Get in, I’m going to follow you home anyways. What are you afraid, that you won’t be able to keep your hands off me long enough to make it to your place?” He said hoping to goad her into getting in and that did the trick.

             
“Ugh
, fine I’ll get in that will get you to shut up, I’ve a terrible headache and you’re just making it worse!”  He was still peeved at what she’d said, but teased anyway. “What?!  You practically rode home in my lap last night. Don’t you remember?” She didn’t answer just kept staring out the window.

           
When they pulled into the apartment entrance he parked, turning towards her he rested his arm against the back of her seat, and started playing with her hair. “I was just kidding about last night. You were too sick to do any talking, you mostly cried all night ok? I only hope you pace yourself better if you do that again, for a minute I thought you might have alcohol poisoning.”

             
She looked at him first then she said “Well you don’t have to worry about me anymore ok? You’re not my dad, or my husband, and I don’t want your help, good grief!” Losing his cool because she’d hurt his feelings Ryker said “Oh, yeah that’s right, you have everything under control, your plan is to go out every night, get wasted, and become the town slut, great idea! Would you have rather I’d left you in those bushes last night, would that have been better?!”

             
He’d hated that he’d lost his temper and deliberately tried to hurt her when he saw in her eyes that he’d succeeded. But nothing could’ve prepared him for her response.

     “
You know what? Yes,
ANYTHING
would have been better than being with
YOU
!”  She jumped out and slammed the door in his face, when he came out after her, she took off his boxer shorts and threw them in his face. Once on her porch, she shed his t shirt and threw that at him too, he fumbled trying to quickly get it off his face.   She yelled “I don’t want anything from you Ryker, Not one single thing, and don’t you forget it!”

    
She presented him with a lovely view of her bare backside as she reached above the door frame to get her spare key, unlocked the door, shut, and locked it right back to prove that she’d meant what she’d said.

             
He looked around to see if anyone else had witnessed the show, and then he heard Mrs. Jenkins laughing on her front porch. He mumbled “shut up old lady.” Ryker picked his clothes up off the ground and went back to his truck. He pouted for the rest of the day.

             
Although she gave up drinking Brianna did start dating regularly. She wasn’t comfortable inviting anyone to her home, nor was she interested enough in any one to go to theirs, but at least she was improving her social life.

             
She was flourishing in other areas of her life as well, she got that promotion she’d been hoping for, and was home every day in time to pick up the kids from school. Her dad had helped her find a roomy blue Nissan Pathfinder, and she used her tax refund to buy it out right.

             
Brianna was feeling pretty great about things and was looking forward to picking up the kids from their primary school. She hopped out of the car and into the school. She planned to pick them up a little early and use the gift certificates that Ryker had given the kids to take them to Joes Bouncy House. She smiled excitedly ready to surprise them.

        
“Hi Mrs. Garcia how can I help you?”  The blonde secretary asked from behind the desk, with a confused expression on her face. Oh, I know I’m early, but it’s sort of a last minute thing, I’ll make sure to send a note next time, ok?” The blonde looked worried and another teacher came to the front, “Mrs. Garcia the kids were picked up around eleven, their grandmother said she was going to take them to lunch.”  Brianna thought a loud “That’s weird she didn’t mention it to me, may I use your phone.” She’d left her cell in the car, the teacher handed her the phone, both women behind the counter exchanged worried looks.

            
With shaky hands Brianna hung up the phone. “My mom doesn’t have them, oh my God who has them, who are they with?” The blonde lady said “I’m sorry, I thought it was fine, there were no restrictions on their paper work and the lady and man said they were their daddy and grandmother, I’m sorry.”

           
Brianna’s mind was racing. “Their daddy is in jail, and when I spoke to his mom not too long ago she said she doubted that he’d get out any time soon.” The secretary started crying. Brianna ran out of the school building. The other teacher was dialing the police. From the moment Ryker pulled into the school parking lot he was in detective mode.

            
He took one look at the crying lady and decided to question the more composed of the two, the brunette. “Excuse me ma’am, I’m officer Danner I just got a call about some missing children. Do you mind if I ask a few questions?” The teacher shook her head. “No I don’t mind, here is the sign out sheet.” He thumbed through the pages on the clipboard seeing several days’ worth of parent student activity.

             
He took out his note pad “what are the children’s names and ages?”  When the teacher answered “Chelsea and Brody” his head snapped up and the both said “Garcia” in unison. “Yes that’s right, how did you know?” He ignored her and asked “where is their mother?” The blonde lady had stopped crying and said “she ran out, we don’t know.”

         
He wanted to run after her, but he needed to check a few things first. “There’s no entry here for time you mentioned.” She looked at the paper. “That’s weird” she said “we always have visitors and parents sign here when picking up the students. They said they were the children’s relatives, the grandmother, and the father. Ryker knew better than that because he’d been keeping tabs on Mike and as of yesterday he was still in jail. They also had instruction at county to call him if anything changed.

             
Ryker looked up from his notes “The children’s parents are divorced, isn’t there a policy or procedure when the non- custodial parent picks them up, to prevent a mix up like this from happening?”  The teacher answered for the blonde who got upset once again by the questions implicating that it had been a failure on her part. “We do have a list of who can and can’t pick up the student’s in each child’s file, Chelsea and Brody don’t have anyone listed on the restricted column, and since the divorce decree that we have doesn’t indicate otherwise, we are legally obligated to turn the child over to parent picking them up, no matter which one it is. Also the kids were happy to them.” 

           
Ryker was relieved to hear that at least the kids were indeed with Mike’s family.  Knowing that the children were with relatives eased his mind enough so that he could concentrate on the task at hand of finding Brianna. He was worried about her running around in a state of panic. “Thank you ladies, I think everything is alright, here’s my card if you need anything, and I’ll be in touch when I have some news.”

            
Ryker went to Brianna’s place, saw that she wasn’t home, and went back to the station to make some calls. Brianna had gone directly to his house, finding him not at home, she went to the police station.

         
She tried calling Mike’s moms house repeatedly with no luck. She could barely see through her tears in her state of panic. She tried one more time to call Mrs. Garcia, when they didn’t pick up she threw the phone in frustration, and it shattered against the dashboard.

           
She bit her lip to stop crying so hard that she tasted blood. She turned sharply into the police station parking lot and parked in the first space she saw. Ryker met her at the door, he put his arms around her. He patted her back and shushed her like a baby, he kissed the top of her head, and held her away from him so that she could look at him.

       
“I don’t know where they are Ryker, I don’t know where they are.” He led her to the bench and sat her down. “Brianna, I’m confident that they are alright. We are still calling, but after speaking to the school I know that they are with Mike’s family.” She was confused and she asked “I don’t understand is Mike out?” He shook his head “No, but his family has hired a really good attorney for him and they are releasing him tomorrow.”

           
“Ok, but the ladies at the school said their grandmother and daddy picked them up.” He didn’t understand that part either, but said “You probably shot out of there before they had the chance to tell you that the kids had been happy to them though.”

              
She did feel better hearing that, but she because no one asked to pick them up, and she just wouldn’t feel any better until they were back with her.” Then she had a terrible thought “Oh my God Ryker what if they’ve taken them to Texas or Mexico?”  Her eyes looked huge. “Brianna you are going to have to calm down and take a deep breath. I don’t think that’s happened, they have established lives here, and that would be too much of a risk, trust me. I have a really good feeling that everything will turn out alright, ok? Can you do that for me, just trust me?”

    
He didn’t wait for her to answer, he just told her that he wanted her to wait there while he made some more calls until he got off his shift, which was only in about half an hour. Then together they could go to Mrs. Garcia’s house and get the kids.   He buzzed himself back into the office and gave his supervisor the rundown of the situation, after leaving several messages for someone to call him back on Mrs., Garcia’s machine, he grabbed his coat to leave.

             
When he reached the lobby he was sad to see Brianna double over crying quietly into her lap. He wrapped her up in his jacket. When he opened the door for her, she looked up at him, and he wiped her cheeks. “You wanna take my car?”  He lifted his brows impressed. “Sure we can, which one is yours?” She pointed to the Pathfinder “That blue one, there.” He smiled walking beside her he put his around her shoulder saying “well there’s some good news, now I can stop being jealous of that lucky SOB who’s been staying nights at your place that drives a dark blue Nissan Pathfinder.”

             
She laughed at him. “No there’s nobody that’s been staying with me, have you been keeping tabs on me officer Danner?” He winked “You bet.”

During the forty minute drive to Atlanta Ryker kept Brianna’s mind off things by making small talk. He made her laugh by telling her how he’d been doing his best to avoid her. “Yeah
I drive different ways to work, which sucks because I’m late all the time. I go different routes when I’m doing my rounds. I even went to the store before work thinking it was too early to run into you, and I almost broke my nose on the drink machine. I saw you coming and when I turned around too fast, Wham! I wacked my face right in front of the door person!” 

            
Brianna hit her knee and covered her mouth because she was laughing so hard. “The door greeter, they’re called door greeters. That explains why I haven’t had to try so hard to avoid you lately! Thanks by the way.”  He glanced at her “for what leaving you alone?” She said “yeah that too, but really for everything else, mostly for being so respectful.”  He felt her looking at him while he drove. “Ah well you don’t really want the likes of me inter fearing with your life, I get it. There’s no way I’d survive in your shoes, and the kids would’ve probably starved long ago with me.”

             
She was still studying his profile when she asked “how do you know so much about me anyhow?” She kept looking at him expectantly, until he asked “Hmm?” She said “Yeah. How’d you know all that stuff about me? Like how I’d read my favorite book over and over, my favorite color, and all that other stuff, after only knowing me for a few days?”

           
“Oh that, well I’m a very observant person I guess. I’m pretty good at reading people, and you’re pretty much an open book.” He cleared his throat and went on. “Some stuff‘s easy like your favorite color, your toe nails are always painted some shade of blue, and your bed spread is that dark blue color. The book you were reading was already dog eared and looked warped like you’d gotten wet like that before. As far as the rest I just noticed and admired those things about you.”

                
He got a little uneasy about the silence, but then she said “I’m sorry Ryker.” He glanced at her “Brianna you’ve got no reason to apologize to me, I was outta line. I had no right to hurt you like I did the last time we talked.” She touched his arm. “Still you were right about me though, before and that day. I had made up my mind not to drink like that again, but I wanted to hurt you back.” She smiled and told him “I thought I was at that guy’s house when I woke up on your couch.”

    
“Oh that’s right, you’d never been inside my place. I should’ve been there when you woke up, not that it would’ve made any difference. How’d you figure out you were at my place anyhow?” “I saw my stuff in your fridge and Chelsea’s drawing hanging on the door. That was sweet that you kept it.”

             
Her hand slipped off his arm and rested on his leg. He in intentionally flexed his jaw, grabbed her hand, and put it back down in her own lap. He said “Sorry, but unless you want me to pull over you better keep your hands to yourself sweet heart.”