Karen Young - Sugar Baby

She went to check on him and found his bed empty. For a second, she stared around blankly. His pajamas were discarded beside a chair and his sneakers were gone. How could he have left without her hearing a sound? Her heart stumbled, but she told herself not to panic. Drawing the belt tight on her robe, she hurried into the hall. The house was eerily silent in the way houses are before their occupants rise. There was no sign of Danny or anybody else.

Fighting panic, she went to the banister of the winding staircase and leaned over it. “Danny,” she called, trying to keep her voice under control. “Danny, where are you?”

No answer. She whirled, about to go back to her room and get dressed. She could hardly search the place in her nightgown and robe. Behind her a door opened.

“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” Wyona McMollere came out of a bedroom, her fair hair frizzed around her head and her eyeglasses cocked as though she’d donned them in a hurry.

“I’m looking for my son, Mrs. McMollere,” Claire said. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

“At this hour?” the woman asked, glancing around as though expecting Danny to materialize out of nowhere. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know.” In a nervous gesture, Claire caught up her long hair as she tried to think. “He’s not in his room and his sneakers are gone.”

Angus McMollere shuffled up behind Wyona, leaning on his cane. “What’s all the ruckus?” he demanded, his scowl directed at Claire.

“My son isn’t in his room,” Claire said. “I need to find him.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Wyona said.

“Of course, he’s fine,” Angus snapped. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Then where is he?” Claire cried, her heart starting to pound in panic. “It’s not even six o’clock in the morning!”

“Hear now, girl,” Angus said, shuffling toward her with his cane. “Just hold on. He’s around somewhere. Let’s see what Mack thinks.”

“Danny knows not to go anywhere with strangers,” Claire said.

“What strangers would you be referring to?” Angus demanded, his frown fierce. “There’re no strangers in this house, at least none who’d lure off a five-year-old.”

“Everyone here is a stranger to Danny,” she said tightly, anxiety making her blunt.

“And who’s fault is that!” Angus retorted with a thump of his cane.

“Maybe he’s just exploring the house,” Wyona offered helpfully. “Little boys are like that.”

“Danny wouldn’t explore anything without asking me first.”

“He’s a McMollere,” Angus argued. “They don’t always do what their mamas say.”

Disobedience was hardly something to be proud of, Claire thought with disgust. Before she said something she would regret, she turned to go, then halted at the sound of someone entering the front door downstairs. Wyona released a small relieved sigh. “Oh, oh, thank goodness, Mack’s here.”

Mack? He wasn’t in his bedroom sleeping?

All eyes were on him as he came up the curved staircase. His gaze went first to Claire. “What’s wrong?”

“Have you seen Danny?”

“Danny?” His blank look said everything.

“He’s gone!”

Wyona touched Angus’s arm. “Maybe Michelle—”

Mack walked over to them, frowning. “Gone where? What’s going on here?”

“He’s not in his bed,” Claire said. “I checked on him a few minutes ago. He’s not in the house. I should have let him sleep with me. He wanted to, but I thought—”

“Hey, take it easy.” Mack caught her hand and stopped her, gave it a little squeeze. “Wherever he is, he’s fine. He’s around somewhere. This is a big house.”

She pulled her hand away. “He’s not in the house. He would have heard me calling and said something.”

“Maybe the crop duster woke him up,” Mack suggested. “He probably snuck out to investigate.”

“Not without asking me,” she repeated stubbornly.

“Well, he sure can’t have been kidnapped right under our noses, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” Mack observed.

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Claire said curtly, wrapping her arms around her waist. “With everything that happened yesterday, I should have kept him in the room with me. Until we know why that man was killed, Danny shouldn’t be out of my sight.”

“We don’t know yet that a man was killed,” Mack reminded her.

“ You may not know it, but I do!”

“Okay, have it your way,” Mack said, more to calm her, she guessed, than because he actually agreed with her. “But let’s see if anybody outside the house has seen him before we panic, okay?”

“I was just about to do that,” Claire said. She was trembling, an inch away from falling apart and more relieved to see Mack than she cared to admit.

“I’ll get Cleo to make a thorough search downstairs. She might have seen something.”

“Cleo?”

“The housekeeper,” he said. “You met her last night.”

“Oh. Oh, yes.” Distracted, she pushed her hands through her hair, only then recalling that it was loose and uncombed and that she must look like something the cat dragged in.

“You might want to change into something else.”

Something in his tone intensified her embarrassment. She didn’t reply, but turned and hurried down the hall to do just that.

FOR A BEAT OR TWO, Mack stood watching her go. Fresh out of bed in a panic, she’d not taken time to pull her hair back. It was as he’d remembered—a rich auburn with fiery streaks. He was torn between feeling sympathy for her as a scared mother whose kid was probably off exploring interesting new territory, and losing himself in a sexual fantasy over the look of her, all dewyeyed and sleep-soft. It was no wonder she wore that tight bun and those longish dresses that didn’t touch her anywhere except her shoulders. To leave them off was to allow people to see her as she really was: her breasts rounded and lush, her waist small enough to span with his hands, a soft shape he itched to hold.

Was she simply putting on an act for her visit to Danny’s relatives? Possibly she thought that if she looked prim and proper enough, she would fool them all into thinking she was prim and proper. Not likely, since Miriam Pagett had been taken in, too, according to Wayne. And that was well over two years ago when Claire couldn’t have known she would be compelled to visit Carter’s folks.

Whatever the answer was, he didn’t have time to figure it out now. Claire’s concern for Danny was genuine. And he hadn’t just been blowing smoke when he’d told her the boy was safe so long as he was on Sugarland grounds. So where was he? In the car yesterday, everything Danny saw had fascinated him. Like any child might, he’d probably popped out of bed at the crack of dawn and decided to do a little sight-seeing on his own.

Not that Claire was in any frame of mind to accept that, Mack thought, bumping his Stetson against his thigh as he turned to go back downstairs. The problem with these city folks was that they overreacted to everything. It came from being penned up in climatecontrolled condos, or barricaded behind the locked gates of some planned community where they didn’t know anybody but the manager. They forgot what it was like to live a regular life. Not that things were all that regular around here since yesterday. In all fairness, he had to admit that.

Claire was scared to death. He was surprised to find that he didn’t like the idea of her worrying unnecessarily. She’d already gotten more than she’d bargained for in her visit to Sugarland. Quickly putting on his hat, he headed for the front door.

Claire was right behind him. “Michelle’s not in her room,” she said, tucking in the tails of a plain white shirt. Her hair, he noted, was again slicked back and anchored at her nape with an elastic ring.