Lost and Found (26 page)

Kris nodded, refusing to let go. For a moment, it was just the two of us in the room.
And then Drake's voice bellowed out from the floor beneath a pile of struggling bodies.

"Guys! Guys,
stop
, he's with me!" Kris kept her arms wrapped around my waist even while I crossed the
room and leaned over the side of the couch where Jacks, Skip and Winchester fought
to keep Drake pinned to the ground.

"Jesus!"
he yelled as the three men slowly clamored off the couch where he had fallen asleep.

"Sorry, are you okay? Drake?"

"Fucking peachy," he rubbed at his shoulder before standing up, "Your friends here
really know how to introduce themselves. Could have given me a heart attack, jumping
on me in my sleep like that.
Damn
."

Jacks glowered at him with his feet spread wide apart, his hands held stiffly at his
sides. He looked like he wanted to rip Drake limb from limb.

Skip broke the awkward silence first, "It's damn good to see you kiddo." We hugged
tightly before Winchester squirmed between us and lifted me off my feet.

"Riley, I'm so happy you're home!" he said before setting me down and kissing my cheek.
It was so out of character for him that I almost wiped the kiss away like I had seen
him do so many times before.

"Jacks," I said softly, rounding the corner of the couch to put myself between him
and the equaling unimpressed Drake. The two stood close to the same height and though
Jacks had wider shoulders, which made him appear larger, I knew he couldn't compete
with the sheer power of Drake's muscular build. "Jacks, this is Drake. Be nice to
him, he saved my life."

He flinched but only nodded before licking his lips and kissing the top of my head.
I spun around and waved at the room, "This is my family, Drake. Kris, Skip and Win.
Even Jacks over there."

The spot was empty where he'd been standing and as I panned the room Kris made her
strangled cry again. Except the sound wasn't coming from
her
. She stood next to me with her hand hooked into the pocket of my sweats and the cry
I heard was coming from the doorway where Jacks had moved. He bent down toward the
ground and lifted something with care before settling it into the crook of his arm.
At first, it looked like a blanket balled up and ready for the laundry hamper but
then a tiny foot poked out of the bottom.

With a gasp, my hands flew up to my mouth. "Oh my God! Jacks!"

His angry demeanor dissolved as he held the squirming bundle out to me. "Riley, meet
baby Lily."

Gently, and with careful attention spent on making sure I was properly supporting
the baby's head, Jacks transferred her into my arms. At first, she was just a colorful
blurry blob through my tears but eventually my eyes dried. There in my arms, was a
beautiful newborn baby girl with a full head of dark hair and even darker brown doe
eyes that stared sleepily up at me. I counted her fingers; long and slender with carefully
trimmed nails, and counted her toes, just as dainty and expertly groomed. She had
that baby smell that I remembered from my own two children, sweet, fresh and brand-new.
For months I had loathed the day she was born, as if it would remind me o my own lost
babies and wreck my heart, destroying me in the process. But the opposite happened.

"Jacks,"
I whispered,
"Lily's beautiful. She's perfect."
I looked up at him to see his own eyes swimming in tears but he swallowed and blinked
and they never had a chance to spill onto his cheeks.

"She is. She's amazing."

"I love her name. I can't believe you and Ana finally agreed on one," I laughed.

It was something they argued about every time it came up - what to name the baby.
She had a notebook with dozens of names, none of which Jacks liked, of course. I didn't
remember Lily being on the list.

"Um," Winchester cleared his throat but Jacks waved a hand at him and he stopped talking.

"You two did a good job, she's just beautiful. Where's Ana? I need to compare faces
to see whose nose she has," I paused to coo at the baby, "Because she doesn’t have
yours, thank God."

"She's not here, Riley."

"Right. Where did everyone go? The entire lodge was abandoned, you know anyone could
have come in and claimed it," I said everything in a happy voice as I smiled down
at Lily while using my knee to gently push Zoey off my leg. She sniffed at the blanket
like a treat was hidden inside.

"No, Riley. That's
not
what he means," Winchester sighed. One of Kris's arms curled around my waist again
and she buried her face into my shoulder like a small child.

"Did she…leave?" I stared between Winchester and Jacks in shock. Surely Ana wouldn't
abandon a newborn child. The woman was no saint, but she had a heart in there somewhere.
For the first time since riding Foxy, I looked down at my wrist where she tied the
bracelet onto my arm. It was gone, most likely torn off when I rolled through the
bushes and dirt after being shot off the horse.

"She's dead, Riley. She…she died just after delivering Lily," Winchester dropped his
gaze and lowered his voice to a whisper,
"Ana only got to hold the baby for a couple seconds."

Jacks stepped forward as if to take Lily back but I held her to my chest and cried
silently against one of her round, pink cheeks.
"Oh sweet baby, don't you worry, you will be loved more than you could ever dream."
As I rocked her in my arms, Jacks leaned into us with his arms around my shoulders.
We stood like that for a moment until Kris's arms circled us, then Winchester's and
finally Skip's. Huddled around the baby, we cried for what she lost and for what we
found.

A new life to love. Another chance at happiness. A new beginning.

***

"Win delivered her, can you believe that?" Jacks rocked the baby carrier with his
foot and sipped out of the glass of wine I finally poured.

"I wish I could've done more," Winchester said from the couch. His face was ashen
at the mention of the birth. It must have been just as traumatic for him - losing
Ana.

"It wasn't your fault, you know that," Jacks turned to me, the need to explain written
all over his face. "She started bleeding real bad and it all happened so fast. It
doesn't matter how many books you read, you know, there just wasn't enough time. Lily
came so fast we didn't even have the birthing suite ready."

"I-I should have been here. I'm so sorry, Jacks." With my hand on his arm, it was
easy to feel the tension in his muscles.

Something heavy hung in the room and I knew what it was without asking. The others
did too, but no one wanted to discuss it. So I blurted out another question that had
been nagging me all evening.

"Where were you?"

"Shit!" Winchester jumped off the couch so fast I sloshed wine down the front of my
shirt. Drake, also surprised by Winchester's loud outburst sent a dirty look in my
direction.

"Riley, you are
not
going to believe who we found," he said. A buzz of energy began to fill the room
as the topic switched from Ana's death to the mystery surrounding their late night
return to the cabins.

"Calm down, Win,
shit.
She just got back. You look like hell, by the way. What did you do, throw yourself
off another bike?" Jacks teased, nudging me with his elbow.

"No," I rubbed at my face, desperately trying not to scream out the one thing I wanted
to know but was too terrified to ask. "It's a long story. I don't even know where
to start."

"How about with this?" He reached out and touched the stitches that ran along my shoulder.
In my tank top, I forgot how visible my injuries were. Bruises were nothing new, but
stitches always had a story behind them.

I pointed to my arm and then to my hip. "Gunshot. Gunshot." I felt around my neck
where the imprint of Mariah's hands left raised welts and scratches, "And this was
from a brief fight - a minor misunderstanding."

With an involuntary grimace, I remembered the chopped up body parts in the room Mariah
was held. I'd forever wonder if it was she or one of the men that killed the woman
as Drake stormed the building. It was an answer no one would ever know.

"And…you're okay now?" Skip asked. His voice was a bit hoarser than usual and I chalked
it up to having a rather emotional night.

"I'm okay now. Thanks to Drake. Like I said, it's a long story, but he found me, cleaned
me up. Saved my life, really."

"And brought you back here," Kris said. Her eyes were rimmed with red, cried out and
tired.

"Yes." Setting the glass down carefully on the counter, I took her hand into mine
and looked at her collarbone while I said the words everyone seemed to be avoiding.
"Where's Connor, Kris? Is he…did he…
not
make it?"

I couldn't look at her, even after she shook her head. "No! Well," she paused to look
at Jacks, "I don't really know where he is. He tried to go back but there was so much
shooting and Foxy freaked out. Connor and I barely had a chance to climb into the
saddle before she took off. And…we went back that night. We did. But you were gone.
And there was so much blood…so much blood…" she trailed off in sobs. With my arms
wrapped around her, she let me pull her close into my chest. Her sweet pea and pear
washed over me again, choking out the smell of new baby.

"You thought I was dead?"
I whispered. She nodded once against my shoulder. "And Connor. What happened, how
did you get back here?"

"He brought me back. But...but not on Foxy. They shot her in the leg and Connor had
to…you know…he had to…" I nodded that I understood so she wouldn't have to say the
words out loud. Connor had to put her down. "Anyway," she sniffed, "he had to know
what happened to you. So he went back."

"What? When?"

"Weeks ago."

"Weeks? How?"

"He took his motorcycle," she sniffed again.

"Weeks," I repeated.

Where had he been for that long? How did he not find us at the house near the golf
course?
Connor wasn't dead. I sat stunned, leaning against the kitchen bar counter so hard
that the edge dug into the skin of my back. Connor wasn't dead. Connor was alive.
At least he was a few weeks ago.

"He'll come back, right? I mean, if he can't find you, he'll come back home?" Kris
looked up at me with sad eyes and I nodded because that was the right answer to give
her, even if everyone else in the room didn't believe it.

"Of course he'll come back." With a smile, I hugged her slight frame against mine.
Kris was okay. Connor didn't die that day, he didn't abandon me - he
saved
Kris. He did the right thing bringing her back to the mountains where she was safe.
I told my heart he would give up eventually and return. He'd have to. And I'd be waiting
for him.

"So," Drake interrupted, tugging at the collar of his shirt as if it was suddenly
too tight around his neck, "You said you found someone else. Who?"

Winchester blurted out the words before anyone else had a chance to answer, "A pilot."

Drake and I stared at each other, confused and waiting for a further explanation.
Lily stirred in her seat and we all looked down at her as she sighed and flailed a
hand around her face till Jacks moved it close to her mouth. She found her knuckles
with her rosy
Betty Boop
lips and the only sound in the room for a full minute was a soft, repetitive suckling.

Skip smiled at Jacks and Lily and then ran a hand over his jaw. He'd aged a good five
years in the few months I'd been gone. "His name is Lou and yes, he's a pilot. He's
been doing flyovers in the area and spotted our chimney fire a few nights ago. He
landed his plane on the freeway can you believe that? Right down there on the 8. We
heard the plane fly over and turned one of the radios on. Five minutes later, we were
chatting back and forth like old buddies. He came back tonight, brought a few supplies
with him and we all drove down the mountain to say hello."

"Tell her the good part, tell her about Arizona." Winchester all but bounced on the
arm of the couch. He seemed to be the only one that couldn't hear the wooden frame
creaking out a desperate warning - one good bounce and the couch was threatening to
break beneath him.

"Arizona?" Drake and I spoke at the same time.

"Yeah, he's from Arizona, from some secret community with a whole underground bunker
set-up and everything. They've got enough water and supplies to last one hundred people
twenty years," Jacks said.

"Wow."

"Yeah, but there's only thirty or so people there now. Lou's been picking stragglers
up in his plane from all over the country. He scouts once a month."

"Really?"

"Riley, they have all kinds of people - they have a Doctor, a real Doctor and water
tanks and a greenhouse system and everything you could ever need."