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I nodded. “He said he left the guy last year. He’s been getting calls and texts from him, but I’ve never seen Sawyer answer or respond. But what I just saw… fuck, Maddox, I don’t even know what the hell that was. He was like… like a fucking robot.”
“Yeah,” Maddox said with a sigh. I saw him grab his phone from his pocket and then he was sending a text. When he noticed me watching, he murmured, “Just a little insurance policy.”
I heard his phone beep, but I didn’t ask about the response because I was too focused on keeping Marcus and Sawyer in sight. By the time Maddox and I made it to the main driveway, Sawyer was already leading Marcus up the stairs to the apartment over the garage. Thankfully, Marcus wasn’t holding on to him anymore, but the idea of Sawyer alone for even a few seconds with the man made me crazy.
“Couldn’t have built a fucking elevator for the apartment?” I asked.
Maddox put his hand on my shoulder. “Shut up and come over to the porch with me. We’ll be able to hear them from there if anything happens. I can be up those stairs in five seconds.”
The reminder that I couldn’t get to Sawyer when he was in danger was like having ice injected into my veins. Despite how angry I still was with the man for what had happened after our last sexual encounter, I couldn’t, wouldn’t let anything happen to him.
I followed Maddox to the porch. He sat on one of the steps near the bottom while I parked myself next to the stairs. There was no sound coming from the apartment. What if he couldn’t make a sound? What if, even now, he was silently calling for me and I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it?
I slammed my fist against my thigh and then began rolling my chair in the direction of the apartment. Maddox grabbed my arm before I could get very far. “If he’s not out in two minutes, I’ll go up there and tell him there’s an emergency with one of the animals.”
Two minutes. Didn’t Maddox know how much could happen in two minutes?
I took another look at my watch and then looked at my useless legs. But surprisingly, my first thought had nothing to do with the accident that had taken them. There was no point in the what-ifs. I had right now and God willing, I had tomorrow, but looking back didn’t accomplish anything. It wouldn’t prevent something like this from happening again.
“Maddox,” I said quietly.
“Yeah?”
“Where’s the nearest VA Hospital?”
I could feel Maddox’s eyes on me, but I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t take my eyes off the apartment.
When I next heard Maddox’s voice, he wasn’t talking to me but rather to someone on his phone. I assumed he was calling his so-called insurance policy but when he said, “Hey, Maggie? Maddox Kent here. He’s ready.”
I looked at Maddox. He kept his eyes on me as he said, “Tomorrow morning. We’ll be there.” He shrugged as he hung up and added, “You and I both know how long it takes to get an appointment at the VA. Dr. Lark is the best ortho guy around and he may or may not already have all your medical records.”
I shook my head at him. “Bastard,” I said with a chuckle. “Do you always need to be right?”
Maddox grinned. “Here’s your first relationship lesson. Repeat after me. You are always wrong. He is always right.”
I gave Maddox a shove and then turned my attention back to the apartment. “That’s it,” I said as I began rolling forward again. I’d just reached the bottom of the steps leading to the apartment when I heard a car pulling into the driveway.
A police car, to be exact.
It was the same SUV that had dropped Apollo off a couple weeks earlier. This time, though, only the officer got out. No hunky passenger that Sawyer apparently liked to hug.
“Maddox,” the sheriff said as he put his hat on and made his way to us.
“Cam,” Maddox said as he shook the man’s hand.
“Not sure we’ve been introduced. I’m Cam,” he said as he extended his hand to me.
“Jett,” I acknowledged as I returned the handshake. No grip issues with this guy. He wasn’t interested in figuring out whose dick was bigger. But he didn’t need to. With his height, the way he carried himself, the uniform, and the big-ass pistol on his hip, he was intimidating as hell. “The insurance policy,” I added.
I didn’t watch to see if Cam asked Maddox what I was talking about. I returned my eyes to the apartment door just in time to see it open. I was relieved as fuck to see Sawyer in the doorway, but I couldn’t tell if he was injured in any kind of way. All I saw was him either nodding his head or keeping his eyes down. When Marcus and he finally stepped out of the apartment onto the little landing, I couldn’t hear the words Marcus was saying but his voice was calm and even. He kept touching Sawyer in little, intimate ways and while Sawyer didn’t lean into any of the touches, he didn’t try to move away either. It took me a moment to realize Sawyer was wearing different clothes. He was now wearing long khaki pants that I’d never seen before while he’d swapped out his T-shirt for a button-up one.
