Food was passed around and Chace took in the flowers he bought that Sondra had put in the middle, a silent but thoughtful indication of her gratitude. Liza looked after Robbie who was at her side. Faye kept an eye on Jarot who was at hers. Sondra kept an eye on both her grandsons as they flanked her.

Surprisingly, even Robbie minded his manners at the table. Clearly, it was a free for all the rest of the time but when he was at his meal, he was to be quiet and behaved and he was.

The food was delicious and it was also familiar since Sondra obviously taught her daughter how to cook.

This made him feel comfortable too.

The conversation was light, easy and flowed naturally. Chace was pulled in from the start, Silas and Boyd talking sports and in an experienced way, Sondra, Liza and Faye remained silent but not removed while they did it.

Chace participated in a discussion about the Avalanche with the men while listening to Faye remind her mother that spring was nearly on the Rockies and asking her if she’d help again that year with flowers at the library.

So that answered that. Faye planted those flowers with her mother.

There was something about that, knowing daughter and mother worked side by side to create beauty for a building that didn’t belong to them, but instead the town that also made him feel strangely comfortable.

Conversation naturally turned and again this turn was affectionately heated as it became political and the politics at the table quickly outed themselves, those being strictly segregated by gender. Men, staunchly conservative. Women, resolutely liberal.

Through this, Chace remained neutral by keeping his mouth shut until Boyd threw up his hands, looked right at him and begged, “Man, help us out here. Even out the friggin’ numbers.”

“Boyd, don’t say frig!” Liza snapped.

“Why?” Boyd clipped back.

“The boys!” she hissed.

Boyd looked to Jarot.

“Jarot, buddy, what does frig mean?” he asked.

“Boyd!” Liza kept hissing.

“Uh…” Jarot looked mystified then, game and clearly unaffected by his parents’ heated words, he tried, “Frig means, um… frig?” he asked in answer.

“See?” Boyd bit off to Liza.

Liza glared at him and then looked at Jarot. “You’re right, honey. Frig just means frig. Now, please don’t say that at school or, well… ever.”

“For goodness sakes, it’s just frig,” Silas entered the conversation at this point.

“Dad!” Now Liza was snapping at her father.

“Oh my God, Dad,” Faye whispered, also to her father.

“He’s a boy,” Silas shrugged. “Boys, you gotta give on some things.”

“Here we go,” Faye muttered to her plate and Chace looked at her to see her chin tucked in her neck and her eyes focused with keen attention on her food.

“Um… I’m sorry?”

This came from Sondra and he’d been at this table once, the dinner wasn’t entirely consumed, the birthday cake to come was deep into the horizon, therefore he didn’t know Sondra but for less than an hour and still, Chace read her tone was dangerous.

“Now –” Silas started but Sondra cut him off.

“Don’t even go there.”

“Sondra –” Silas tried again.

“No,” Sondra interrupted again. “There are not different rules for girls and boys, Silas. You tried that with Jude and I didn’t like it then. You can’t try it again with Jarot and Robbie.”

“No offense, Sondra, but, personally, I don’t give a frig if my kid says frig and he’s my kid,” Boyd interjected.

“Well, personally, I do,” Liza retorted. “And he’s my kid too.”

“You girls don’t like it, never did,” Silas started as if it was all the same to him. “But no matter, things are just different between boys and girls, men and women. That’s the way it is, that’s the way it’ll always be.”

“Oh frak,” Faye muttered to her plate again.

“It is not!” Liza said in a near shout.

“Love you, Liza darlin’, but it is,” Silas replied.

Liza’s eyes sliced to her sister. “Please, God, tell me this one,” she jerked her head at Chace, “is enlightened since these two,” she jerked her head at Boyd and Silas’s end of the table, “are not.”

“Well, uh… Chace is a little old-fashioned,” unfortunately Faye shared. “He won’t let me pay for anything and he never lets me pour my own drink.”

“Good man,” Silas muttered on a nod to Chace.

“Right on,” Boyd muttered, grinning at Chace.

“Gentlemanly behavior will never be old-fashioned,” Sondra chimed in, her eyes on Chace. “I’m pleased to know you’re a gentleman, Chace. But, no pressure, if things should progress and your children someday sit at this table, I hope you will not be okay with them saying frig.”

Chace didn’t get a chance to reply which was good since he didn’t intend to do so. This was primarily because, if he and Faye had boys, he didn’t care if they said frig but if they had girls, no way in hell. He knew by the conversation half the inhabitants of that table of legal drinking age would not take to that very well.

But he didn’t get the chance to reply because Sondra’s eyes cut to Faye and she concluded, “Or frak.”

“I like frak!” Robbie shared at this point then unfortunately for his aunt, went on, “It’s fraking great!”

“Frak,” Faye whispered and Chace put some effort into not doing what he had an overwhelming desire to do, burst out laughing not only at Faye’s whisper and Robbie’s comment but also at Liza and Sondra turning infuriated eyes her way.

Boyd was feeling what Chace was feeling and Chace knew this because he didn’t bite back his laugher. He just roared with it.

Silas grinned at his grandson.

Liza and Sondra opened their mouths to say something but it was then that Chace’s phone rang and every eye at the table came to him.

“On call, need to take this,” he muttered, pulling it out of his back pocket. “My apologies. I’ll take it in the other room.”

He saw a couple of understanding nods before he got out of his chair and looked at the display on his phone. He hid his confusion at what he read as he hit the button to take the call.

Then he walked with swift, long strides around the table toward the kitchen and put the phone to his ear, saying, “Keaton.”

“Man, shit, f**k, man,” Deck said in his ear and Chace’s gut clenched as he walked faster to get to the living room.

“What?” he demanded low.

Hesitation then, “Fuck, man.”

“Deck,” he clipped quietly and stopped in the living room. “Give it to me. What?”

“Found your kid,” Deck said, his tone was not good and Chace’s clenched gut twisted.

“Talk,” he ordered.

“Talked to the old guy in the alley.”

“Outlaw Al?” Chace asked.

“Yup, if that’s the old guy in the alley lives behind the coffee place. Talked to him before. Man was three sheets. Talked to him tonight, he was only two and made some sense. Sees the kid around. Followed him once. Told me where to go. There’s a reason why I couldn’t catch wind of him, so off the beaten track, there is no track. Found him in a shed, east side of town, up in the hills a fair ways. Shed’s gotta be about two hundred years old by the look of it. Long forgotten. Definitely not in repair. It provides some protection against weather but that’s it. Got a roof on it, holes in it, snow inside, but it’s somethin’.”

“Cut to it, Deck,” Chace growled.

“There’s also a reason he didn’t come to you and your woman,” Deck said quietly.

“Say it.”

“Kid’s f**ked up, brother. Face f**ked up, arm f**ked up, look of it, broken and his leg looks like it was caught in a trap. Saw the blood trail in the snow. Drug himself back home to this shed from wherever he got nailed. Had to pry himself loose with his hands, means they’re f**ked up too, still got his gloves on, mangled, brother, and a dried, bloody mess. But, a week of him in that shed alone, injured with no medicine…” He pulled in an audible breath. “Got a pulse on him, weak but it was there. Called an ambulance. He was lucky he had that sleeping bag or he’d be gone, hypothermia on top of trauma and maybe shock. Other than that, he was f**ked. Dragged shit close to him to eat, get water but I suspect he gave up on that days ago. Not eatin’, not drinkin’, leg, arm, hands and face f**ked up, he was unconscious, Chace. Couldn’t wake him so maybe even comatose. They’re takin’ him to the hospital now. I’m in my truck, followin’ them. County.”

“Faye and me’ll be there in twenty,” Chace told him immediately.

“Right,” Deck replied.

“Do me another favor. Call the Station. Get someone up to that shed. Follow that blood trail. I wanna know where he was comin’ from, he got caught in that trap. I want them to follow his footprints in the show. We haven’t had snow since last week. They’ll show where he went and where he came from. Leads to anything of interest, they don’t approach. They tell me. Once I get Faye in my truck, I’ll call myself to confirm your communication. But I want them on the move now.”

“Right,” Deck repeated.

Chace started moving back to the dining room while he muttered, “Thanks, Deck.”

“No thanks, brother. Shoulda gone back to the homeless guy days ago.”

Chace stopped in the kitchen and said firmly, “You didn’t. But you found him. Now, he’s getting help.”

Deck was silent a moment then, “Yeah.”

“See you in twenty,” Chace stated.

“Later, brother,” Deck murmured.

“Later,” Chace replied then disconnected.

He sucked in breath.

Then he moved to the wide opening that led to the dining room and all eyes came to him.

He only had eyes for Faye.

“Faye, baby, I need to talk to you a second,” he called gently.

She only had eyes for him too and hers were wide and scared.

He watched her face pale and her lips form the silent word, “Malachi.”

But it was Silas who spoke out loud.

“Everything okay, son?”

Chace tore his gaze from Faye and looked to her father.

“No.”

At his word, Faye shoved back her chair and rushed around the table.

When she got close, he caught her hand and moved with her to the family room. He heard murmurings from the other room but he was focused.

When they stopped in the family room, Silas, Boyd and Sondra were with them.

He ignored that and moved into Faye. Lifting a hand to slide the hair off her shoulder, he then curled it around her neck and dipped his face close.