Page 87 of A Baby for the Firefighter

The note I’d left for Dean wouldn’t keep him from worrying if I was gone all day. I hoped.

But would he think to look for mehere?

He might not. Even if he figured that I’d gone into the woods, he could search all day without finding me. That was the problem with preferring placesoff the beaten path.

Sighing, I rubbed my belly as I felt a small fluttering within. The little one was getting restless, just like me. Probably hungry too. I knew I was.

“Hang in there, baby,” I muttered. “Daddy’s gonna come for us, you know?”

I couldn’t help but think back to that evening I’d crashed Dean’s date and he’d kissed me. I’d told him I was so embarrassed I wanted to hide in the forest.

I would have found you, he’d said.

Please, was all I thought now.

38

Dean

Eliand I decided to split up at the entrance to the forest.

“We’ll cover more ground that way,” he said, and I agreed. I was all for anything that would help me find Griff faster. By this point, I was honestly worried. Before coming here, I’d left a note at Griff’s place, telling him to call me immediately if he came home, but so far, I had gotten nothing. More and more I was starting to fear that he wasn’t going to come home unless Ibroughthim home.

And that was exactly what I was going to do. I didn’t care how long I would have to search the woods for him—if he was here, Iwouldfind him.

First, I decided to head for the spot where we’d gone camping. The hill overlooking the valley where we’d set up our tents had a great view, and I figured maybe he’d gone there to take a couple pictures.

No luck, though. When I got there, the valley as well as the hill were deserted with no signs of anyone having been there.

Gotta press on.

Heart pounding in my ears, I racked my brain for where else he could have gone.

The lake, maybe. It wasn’t warm enough to swim anymore, but we’d had a lot of fun there and maybe he just wanted to reminisce? The scenery probably made for a few good snapshots too.

Mind made up, I made my way to the lake where we’d taken Jake and Conner swimming at the start of summer, shortly before we’d become an item.

There were some teens there, trying to skip stones, but neither of them had seen a man fitting Griff’s description come by. I thanked them anyway, and took a deep breath, adrenaline pumping through me as I started to run out of ideas.

Where are you, Griff?

I checked my cell phone, but I had no missed calls or messages. Of course not. It didn’t look like I was going to wake up from this nightmare any time soon, and what a nightmare it was! Certainly worse than the ones I had at night. They couldn’t even compete, really.

Nothingcould be worse than losing Griff.

But I couldn’t think like that.

Calm down, you’renotlosing him.

If only because I simply refused to let that happen. I was an alpha and I could be damn stubborn if I wanted to.

But I couldn’t just run blindly through the forest, either. I had to think, even if I felt like I was wasting daylight just standing here and breathing in the mountain air.

As soon as I was home, I was going to kill Griff’s mother for upsetting him.

But that was not a productive thought, either.

Think, Dean.