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“Hey Theo, can you take a breath for me?” Maddox said even as he and I rushed toward the door. To Dallas, Isaac, and Nolan, Maddox said, “Stay here with Newt.”
I didn’t wait to see what the response was. I could still hear Theo speaking softly as Maddox and I hurried to his truck. My insides felt numb as the first few words Theo had said played on a loop in my head.
He’s got a gun and Sawyer’s in there with him…
“Please, God,” I whispered to myself as I dragged my body into Maddox’s truck and then snatched my chair up, collapsed it and threw it into the back seat.
I only half listened as Theo explained that a man had shown up at the house that morning after everyone else in the family had left. The man had held a gun on them and forced Riley to call Sawyer and tell him there was an emergency with Puddles.
Nearly all my focus was on the fact that Sawyer was still in the room with Marcus. Even knowing an armed Linc was in the room as well didn’t help because a million things could go wrong.
I slammed my fist against the car door. “Fuck!” I shouted.
“He’s smart, Jett. And strong. He’ll get through this,” Maddox said, though he didn’t sound completely certain. At some point he’d hung up his phone. “We’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Theo already called Cam, so he’s on his way too.”
A couple of minutes.
One hundred and twenty seconds of not knowing if Sawyer was alive or not. If he was calling out for me. If he was waiting for me… needing me.
I’d been pinned under the Humvee that had crushed my legs for longer than two minutes, not knowing if I was going to live or die, and yet this was a thousand times worse.
“Maddox,” I whispered.
“I know, brother,” he responded and then he was pressing the gas pedal until it was flush with the floor of the truck.
It still felt like we were barely moving.
By the time the truck veered dangerously onto the gravel driveway that led to Ford and Cam’s house, I already had my chair on my lap. I couldn’t really move or see with the thing where it was, but I didn’t care.
I was out of the truck within a few seconds after Maddox slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop behind Cam’s SUV.
“Sawyer!” I shouted as I rolled over the gravel toward the paved walkway that led up to the house. There were people everywhere.
Walter and Lenny were holding on to each other with Puddles cuddled in Walter’s arms. Ford had his arms wrapped around a weeping Riley.
But no Sawyer.
“Sawyer!” I screamed as pure terror consumed me.
“Here!” I heard a voice call. I let out an ugly sob when I saw Sawyer exiting the house. “I’m okay,” he added as he hurried toward me. I could see Linc just behind him talking to Cam who was leading a handcuffed Marcus from the house.
It felt like it took hours to get to Sawyer. As soon as he reached me, he dropped to his knees in front of me. At the same time, I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around him.
“Thank you, thank you,” I whispered to the man above as Sawyer clung to me. I held him for several long seconds and then put just enough distance between us that I could cover his mouth with mine. Sawyer let out a little whimper and then his hands were clasping my face.
“Tell me you’re okay,” I managed to choke out between kisses. I’d already seen the blood on his temple and the heavy bruising forming around his eye, but I didn’t know if those were his only injuries.
“I’m okay, Jett. I promise.”
I started pulling in one deep breath after another as my body began to crash. “I thought I’d lost you,” I whispered against Sawyer’s mouth. I could taste a hint of blood on my tongue but all it did was make me hang on even tighter to the man in my arms.
“Never,” Sawyer said with a shake of his head and then he kissed me again.
The next several hours went by in a rush as an ambulance arrived and Sawyer was treated for his injuries. He refused the paramedics’ advice that he go to the hospital for observation. I’d been about to insist that he do it when he’d sent me an unspoken message that had made it clear what he wanted.
And needed.
So I took him home and much like he’d done for me the night before, I’d taken care of him. I’d carefully washed the blood from his face despite his insistence that he could do it himself. I hadn’t bothered to tell him that the nausea from the smell and sight of his blood had nothing on the way my stomach roiled at the idea of how close I’d come to losing him.
