Thinking quickly, Iris stuck out one of her now-freed legs and tripped Sue, who huffed, picked herself up, and ran, not even bothering to shut the door behind her.
We both stared after her for a beat, then Iris flung herself at me. “Jackson! I didn’t think you’d come!”
“I’ll always come for you,” I said into her hair, arms crushingly tight around her. I almost couldn’t breathe around the relief rushing through me. My cowardice, my refusal to come clean to Iris, had almost gotten her killed.
I pulled back enough to look her over, wiping a little blood off her chin. More splattered her shirt. She had a split lip and rope burns on her wrists, but those were just the injuries I could see. “Where are you hurt?”
“Just my head.”
I felt around. She had a goose egg on the back of her skull. There better be some paramedics mixed in with the cops. The screech of sirens grew closer by the second, while outside the house an engine coughed and rattled to life.
I grazed a finger over her lip. “They hit you?”
“Joel slapped me when I mouthed off to him. They were going to…” She shuddered. “I was so scared.”
I’d get the details out of her later. Right now, Iris needed to be held, and I needed to hold her, so that’s what I would do.
Behind me, Joel said something, but it was indistinguishable behind his gag. Probably a defense. Probably bullshit. I turned to glare at him, and he shut up again. He must have realized he was cooked no matter what.
“I should have stayed and talked to you instead of running off,” she said into my chest.
“Me too.” I looked down at the strong, brave woman who’d never needed my protection but had it anyway. “You had every right to be mad at me. I shouldn’t have kept it from you, and I did it anyway.”
“Then why did you?”
“Like I said, having Sue in town always messed you up, but I knew you’d never agree to cut her out. You always held on to the hope that she could change, clean up her act, but she never wanted to. Seemed easier to spare you the hurt if I could.”
“So it wasn’t because Travis asked you to keep it from me?”
I winced. “It was a bit because Travis asked me to keep it between us, but not how you’re thinking. I knew you’d be upset with him, too, when you found out. Blowing up our…whatever this could be is one thing, but blowing up your relationship with your brother is a whole other story. How could I do that to you?”
“I can’t be in a relationship with you if my brother is always a silent third.” The orange cat slunk out from whatever shadowy corner he’d been hiding in and trotted right up to Iris, who cuddled him to her chest, depriving me of her warmth.
“I know. He won’t be.” Then her words hit me. “You’d be willing to give me another chance?”
A slow smile broke across her face. “Yeah.”
“I figured we were over before we even started…”
“Because of Sue? She’s not worth losing you over.” She glanced around the flophouse, the chair she’d been tied to, Joel still tied up on the floor. The sirens were almost outside the door now. “Especially not after tonight.”
An intense rush of relief almost brought me to my knees. “Oh, thank god.” I grabbed her face for a kiss, heedless of the cat still in her arms, and kissed her. “I’m never letting anyone else come between us. I love you, Iris. I have for years.”
“I love you, too.”
Just then, the door—already hanging open thanks to my earlier efforts—flew off its hinges as a parade of cops stormed inside.
One of them pointed a gun at us. “Hands where I can see them!”
“I’m the one who called you,” I said, while putting myself between Iris and the idiot with the gun. Behind me, the cat hissed. Unfortunately, I doubted he’d be as effective against an armed cop as he was against an unarmed, high, middle-aged woman.
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll sort you all out at the station,” the idiot cop responded.
I shouldn’t have called these morons.
Fortunately, one of the older cops recognized me and convinced the nitwit pointing a gun at me to back off and arrest Joel instead.
“I don’t care if you think I’m overbearing, you’re getting checked out,” I said as I led Iris to the waiting paramedics.
