“A vanilla ice cream in a cup, please,” she said.

Lily took her credit card from her purse, but Mack had already laid money on the counter. “It’s on me tonight,” he said.

“Thank you. Seems like I keep telling you that all the time,” she told him.

“I like doing things for you and the kids.” He grinned. “Let’s go find a booth and get these starving kids fed.”

The kids rushed ahead to claim the bigger round booth in the corner, but they weren’t arguing, which meant they still weren’t over the fear.

“Don’t let the smile fool you,” Mack said out of the corner of his mouth. “I’m trying to keep my cool, but it’s not easy.”

“I’ll be fuming for a week,” Lily said. “Should I call him or wait and let him go crazy about where they might have gone?”

“That’s your decision. I think the man is already insane for treating those kids like that, but he deserves to know what happened to them. It might wake him up,” Mack said.

When they got home, Holly went straight to the bathroom even though she was supposed to wait for her brother to have the first turn. Braden wanted to go check on the goats, so Mack got a flashlight and took him to the barn. Lily paced the living room floor—around the sofa several times, to the window looking out over the big front yard, and back to circle the sofa again.

After half an hour, Holly yelled down the stairs. “Mama, will you come up here, please?”

Lily took the steps two at a time and found Holly sitting on the side of her bed. Her white bathrobe was belted tightly around her waist, and a towel turban was wrapped around her head.

“Are you okay?” Lily asked.

“No, I’m not, but I’m not scared anymore,” Holly said. “Now I’m pissed—I mean, really angry. How could Daddy do that to us? You moved us here, but you never left us alone in a place like that. And you’ve never put anyone before us, like he does Victoria.” She rolled her blue eyes toward the ceiling. “I wish Mack was my daddy. He came and rescued us and fed us and brought us home. And now he’s out there in the goat pens with Braden, making him feel comfortable and not afraid.”

“Your father was mad because you kids don’t like his wife.” Lily sat down on the edge of the bed beside Holly. “I’m sure that he was thinking that he’d go back to the motel by your bedtime”—she checked her watch—“which is in about an hour. He thought you’d be all repentant and ready to do what he wanted you to do tomorrow.”

“It don’t work that way,” Holly said. “When we’re scared, we call you and now Mack. Y’all don’t throw us in a garbage can like that motel like we’re trash. I felt so sorry for Braden. He was really scared.”

Lily moved over and put her arm around her daughter. “I’m so sorry that this happened.”

Holly snuggled closer to Lily. “Daddy always takes us to a fancy place with no bugs or mice, and he’s never driven off and left us all alone like he did tonight. If I have a nightmare, can I come sleep with you?”

“Of course you can.” Lily hugged her even tighter. “Right now, I’m going to take a quick bath before Braden gets back from the goat pens. But I’ll be right across the hall, and honey, nothing is going to hurt you. He’s never taking you anywhere ever again.”

Holly tucked her chin against her chest. “Promise, Mama? He’s going to be really mad.”

“I promise, and he can get glad in the same britches he got mad in.” Lily managed a weak laugh.

Lily went to the bathroom, ran another tubful of water, and eased down into it. She knew exactly how her daughter felt. Even though Adam had had a sock on his foot when he ran it up her leg and she’d been wearing skinny jeans, her leg felt violated as much as her hands had before she washed them. She scrubbed herself clean, got out, and put on a clean pair of pajama pants and a T-shirt.

Holly had gotten under the covers, and her eyes were closed. Braden stormed up the stairs, and Holly roused for a second, saw that her mother was standing right there, and went right back to sleep.

“Shhhh.” Lily put a finger over her lips. “Your sister is already asleep.”

Braden made a production of tiptoeing to his room and crooking his index finger for his mother to come over there. He’d put up his Harry Potter posters since the last time she’d peeked into his room, and now it looked more like his old room in Austin. He patted the bed, and she sat down beside him.

“Holly was real scared, Mama, and I mean for real scared,” he whispered. “She was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to use the hotel phone to call you. It was so old and had a cord like the one in the kitchen. She read all the directions about how to make a call and punched the right button when they asked for permission to charge it to the room. I guess Daddy told those people to let us do that so we could call him.” Braden hesitated and went on. “I told her to call Daddy—that I’d go to the stupid old dinner with him and Victoria and to the Alamo. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t like seeing her that scared. It’s all right with me if you give her cell back to her before summer. I don’t care if you keep mine, but if we have to go with him again, she needs her phone.”

“You won’t ever be going with him again.” Lily gave him a hug. “Now go take your bath and read for a little while. If your light is still on when I go to bed, I’ll turn it out.”

“Thanks, Mama,” Braden said. “I ain’t never been so glad to see anyone as I was you and Mack.”

“I’ve never been so glad to find my two kids safe.” Lily kissed him on the forehead and left the room. If there was ever a night when she really needed a shot of whiskey, this was it. She tucked her phone into her pocket and headed toward the kitchen.

Mack was already there with a beer in one hand and a shot glass in the other. His broad shoulders and biceps stretched the fabric of a snowy-white T-shirt. Red-and-black flannel pajama pants hung low on his narrow hips, and he was barefoot. What Holly said about wishing he was her daddy came back to her mind. He’d make a wonderful father because he always put other folks before himself.

“You read my mind,” she said as she reached for the glass and Mack poured for her. “This has been a double-shot night.”

“Or a triple,” Mack suggested. “I got to admit, that terrified the hell out of me. I kept thinking what if someone kidnapped the kids? What if they weren’t there when we arrived? Did you call Wyatt?”

Lily threw back the first shot. The heat from it traveled from her throat all the way to her stomach, warming her all the way—maybe not in the same way as much as seeing Mack in that shirt and pants did—but it calmed her frayed nerves. She held out the glass, and he filled it again. Then he took her by the hand and led her to the living room.

Lily sipped on the whiskey that time, enjoying the sweet, smoky flavor. Mack sat down on the sofa, pulled her down beside him, and hugged her to his side. Having him simply hold her meant more to her than words could ever describe.

She’d snuggled up even closer to him when her phone rang. She took it out of her hip pocket, saw that it was from Wyatt, and let it go to voice mail.