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Five years ago, my brother, Garrett, the baby of the family, had been undercover in the gangs unit for Dallas Police Department when he was stabbed by a rival gang member in the ER. In the process, Val’s husband, Felix, had also been stabbed.
None of the ER staff had wanted to touch Garrett, who’d been so deep under cover that no one knew who he was to the world. And he’d almost died, but Val had chosen to save him. It was only later they found out who he was, and by that time Val had done the life-saving part with the help of a freakin’ NASCAR driver, who of all people, now happened to be married into their family.
Even now, all this time later, my heart was still full when it came to that woman.
I thought about her constantly. Thought about how that scene looked.
As a medical professional myself, I knew damn well and good that the entire scene could’ve played out so much differently. Had she hesitated even a few moments longer, all of this would’ve been so different. I wouldn’t have a brother.
Like I now didn’t have a sister.
My heart shattered inside my chest all over again.
The feeling of dawning emptiness was becoming bigger and bigger inside of me.
“Can we go?” I asked, feeling the urgency to get out and run.
He eyed me for a few long moments, long enough to make me feel even more vulnerable, then he caught me around the waist, placed his coffee mug on the counter, and we left.
“You got a key to this place?” he asked as he carried me like a front backpack.
“No,” I said. “Just press the lock button on the doorknob as we leave.”
He did, and then walked me straight to a truck out of my dreams.
“Wow,” I breathed. “This is nice.”
“It’s a truck,” he chuckled, the vibration rumbling against my chest. “I bought it when we moved here permanently. Well, that’s not exactly true. I bought it two years ago when my sisters kept giving me their kids, and then insisting that they needed to be in something safer than an ’83 Buick.”
“Wow,” I laughed. “A Buick?”
“I didn’t ever leave,” he admitted. “I mean, I did. But Dallas is fuckin’ ridiculous. And if I was going to leave, I’d just get in that beater, because why would I drive something better than that in a town full of fuckin’ psychopaths who treat the road like it’s theirs and only theirs?”
I found myself snickering, despite the hole in my heart.
“I’ve heard Texas highways can be a little much if you haven’t driven on them before,” I teased.
“A little much?” he asked incredulously. “I would say a lot much. This place is a fuckin’ madhouse. If you’re driving the speed limit, you’re driving too slow. If you’re ten miles over the speed limit, that’s slow lane appropriate. If you’re driving fifteen, you can get into the middle two lanes. The fast lane is literally for those crazy mother fuckers who want to drive at least a hundred.”
I was dying. “It’s not that bad!”
“It is that bad,” he disagreed as he got to the door of his truck and opened it.
Before I could blink, he was bending down and catching something that’d started to fall out.
He caught it, then threw it over me and placed both me and the object in the truck.
I blinked at the splotches of light I could see through what I guessed was a blanket now covering my head.
I pulled it off, uncaring about how it messed up my hair, and stared at the luscious blanket.
I was immediately envious.
There were a few minor imperfections, but they gave the entire thing character.
And it was soooo soft.
“This is beautiful,” I said as I ran my hand over the bright purple and pink yarn.
