Page 145 of Weight of Guilt

She hurried with him toward Nash’s truck, and they climbed inside. The two of them huddled together, and she stared at the house.

Nash . . . was he okay? She hated to be here when he could use her help. But she couldn’t leave Mason.

God, please! Please!

She had no other words.

She pulled Mason tighter, so grateful that they’d found him.

A moment later, someone lumbered onto the porch.

Wren held her breath.

Nash.

Relief hit her so hard she pressed a hand against the dash. He braced one arm on the porch post, and even from here she could tell he was favoring the injured knee.

But he was upright. He was moving.

Every part of her wanted to be out of this truck. But Mason’s fingers were still knotted in her sleeve.

So she stayed where she was.

Nash turned toward the truck and found her through the windshield. Then he raised one hand, palm out, and held it there.

Stay.

She waved back so he’d know she’d understood.

Then he turned and went back through the broken door.

The doorway swallowed him. From here it was nothing but a dark rectangle in a gray house, and whatever was happening on the other side of it, she couldn’t see one thing.

“Is he getting the bad man?” Mason whispered.

“I don’t know, Bug.”

She didn’t. That was the whole of it. Somebody had fired a gun in that house, and Nash had walked out of it and gone straight back in.

There were only two reasons a man did that. Either Jacob was still a threat. Or he was bleeding.

Wren pulled Mason against her and watched that empty doorway and tried not to think in worst-case scenarios.

Jacob had the answers. All of them.

He knew about Christian. How Roy had been part of it. He knew why Mason had been taken. Who else was out there.

She wanted to know what he’d meant by a “greater purpose.”

She hated that she was thinking about it. She thought about it anyway.

A moment later, tires tore over gravel behind her. A vehicle came up the drive fast, another one on its bumper.

Doors slammed.

Somebody was already shouting for a medic.

Two paramedics went past the truck at a run with a bag between them.