AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I put it on speaker phone… I wasn’t thinking,” Isaac blurted.
“Baby, calm down, what happened? What did she say?” Maddox asked.
“A bad man hurt him, Mad,” Newt whispered as he tucked his face against his brother’s neck. He had his hand wrapped around the dog tags Isaac wore around his neck.
Maddox’s dog tags.
Maddox immediately began looking over Isaac’s body. “Who?” he demanded. “Who hurt you?”
The rage in his voice had me flinching.
“No, not me,” Isaac said as he put his hand on Maddox’s arm. “I’m fine. It’s Cam.”
My stomach dropped out at the mention of Cam. “What?” I whispered. “Cam’s hurt?”
Isaac looked at me with pity. “I’m sorry, Ford. I don’t know much. Just what Brenda told me. I tried calling the station but the receptionist kept putting me on hold and Alex isn’t answering his phone either—”
“What happened to him?” I practically yelled, not caring that Isaac seemed to know about Cam and me.
It was Newt who spoke up before Isaac could and the little boy’s softly spoken words might as well have stopped my heart.
“He got shot.”
Chapter Fifteen
Cam
“You okay, Sheriff?”
I sighed and reached for the radio on the passenger seat. I’d long since taken the shoulder radio off, but since it was the only way for Sally-Ann to get a hold of me for the time being, I’d left it turned on.
“Yep, I just pulled into my driveway. You can tell Alex he can stop following me.”
There was a long beat of silence. “Um, yes sir,” Sally-Ann responded sheepishly.
Alex’s voice followed a moment later. “Sorry, sir.”
I chuckled into the radio. “Apology accepted but remind me to give you some pointers in tailing someone.”
Alex sounded a little less nervous when he said, “Yes sir. Take care of yourself. See you Monday morning.”
“Call me if you need anything… well, radio me, I guess,” I said as I glanced at my broken cell phone sitting in the cupholder. “I’ll get a new phone tomorrow.”
“You’re supposed to take it easy this weekend, Sheriff,” Sally-Ann interjected.
I sighed and then responded, “Okay, will do. Night, you two.” I clicked off the radio and mentally reminded myself that someone getting grazed by a bullet in small-town Minnesota was very, very different than it happening in a big city like Detroit. No doubt I was the talk of Pelican Bay. Half the residents probably already had me dead and buried in their version of events.
I felt a measure of relief when my house came into view. It’d been a shitty day and a shittier week and I was ready to crash. The pain in my arm hurt quite a bit, but I’d refused the pain medication the doctor at the ER had offered me. As someone who’d seen firsthand what prescription painkillers could lead to, I’d avoided them like the plague whenever possible. I wasn’t sure if the theories that some people were predisposed to addiction because it was in their genes was true or not, but I wasn’t going to chance it. It was bad enough that I’d indulged in alcohol in the days following my encounter with Ford in his studio. I’d been tempted to drown my sorrows in more cheap whiskey these past few days as I tried to mentally erase all images of Ford that were seemingly etched into my brain, but I’d decided to put my frustration and disappointment to good use and had taken all my energy out on my house. I’d knocked down walls and cabinets, fixed plumbing, and cleaned up years and years’ worth of dust from every surface in the house. Only when my body had burned and I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes open any longer had I let myself pass out in bed.
Working on the house was probably out for tonight, but I was tired enough from the day to just drop into bed and maybe watch the football game I’d recorded earlier in the week. I already knew who won since at least ten people had excitedly blurted out some version of, “You see the game last night, Sheriff? Can you believe the Vikings pulled it back like that and won in overtime?” the very next morning, but maybe the game could still be a decent distraction.
It wasn’t until I reached the bend where the driveway led to the back of my house that I knew a distraction wasn’t in the cards for me. My stomach plummeted at the sight of Ford’s car sitting in the spot next to my pickup truck.
Fuck, I just couldn’t do this with him tonight.
I was too damn weak.
And I’d missed him far too much.
I shook my head because that didn’t even make any sense. How could I miss someone I’d never truly had? Yes, we’d fucked, but it wasn’t like I’d never had a one-night stand before. I’d been interested enough in some of the guys to want to try a real date but when they’d blown me off, I hadn’t really cared either way. With Ford, I just wanted that time to get to know him better… to figure out what made him tick.
