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He rubbed the heels of his hands into his tired eyes and wondered why he still couldn’t let it go and get past it.
His phone rang on the bedside table. He wanted to ignore it. He had no desire to talk to whoever it was,probably one of the many women he’d had a fling with, who wanted to see him tonight.
The phone went quiet, then immediately rang again.
Someone really wanted him to answer. In case it was an emergency, he picked up the phone and checked caller ID.
He swiped the screen and picked up Hunt’s call. “Everything okay?” His police officer brother was nearly always on the job and anything could happen. Max worried about him a lot.
“No. I wanted you to hear this from me.” The urgency in Hunt’s voice scared him.
Max sat up. “Are you hurt?” He immediately went to the worst-case scenario and imagined Hunt shot and bleeding out.
“I’m fine. It’s Kenna.”
His heart dropped and his stomach went tight. The thought of her hurt, or worse, dead, made it hard to breathe. “What’s happened?”
Hunt explained the situation, then said, “I’m on the way to the hospital to see her now. Last I saw her at her place, she was bleeding pretty bad and was disoriented.”
That didn’t sound good at all. “Is she going to be all right?”
“I think so. Best I can piece together, she was thrown up against a wall, hit her head on a picture frame, busted it up, and cut the back of her head severely.”
“Who hurt her?” Max wanted a name. A target.
“No idea. She was too distraught to get anything out of her when I arrived on scene.”
“What the fuck happened?”
“She called 911 but wasn’t able to communicate. The operator heard a commotion and her scream. Two neighbors called in, too, said there was a fight at her place. They thought she got into it with her boyfriend. But one neighbor reported a masked man leaving her place.” Hunt paused. “And then we discovered that her boyfriend is dead. Stabbed three times.”
He felt sorry for the guy, but remained focused on Kenna, fear stirring up an urgency to get as many details as possible. He needed to know that she’d be all right. “Was she stabbed?”
“No. At least, the only injury I saw was to her head. She’s being checked out at the ER right now.”
Max jumped out of bed and grabbed a pair of jeans. “I’ll meet you there.” He hung up on Hunt, got dressed, pulled on his boots, grabbed his wallet, phone, and keys, and rushed out of his room. Once he was down the stairs, he called out to his dad in the kitchen, “Kenna is hurt and in the hospital. I’ll be back later.” He ran out of the ranch house and straight for his truck.
He climbed behind the wheel and headed to town, desperate to see Kenna and make sure she was okay and whoever had hurt her wasn’t a threat anymore.
Because, although they weren’t together, protecting her seemed as natural as loving her.
Chapter Four
Max found Hunt parked right outside the Emergency Department in a space reserved for the police. Hunt was at the back of his car unbuttoning his bloody uniform shirt.
Max surveyed all the blood covering the long sleeve. His stomach pitched and heart sank that the blood belonged to Kenna. That urgency riding him amped up again. “Have you seen her yet?”
Hunt shook his head. “I didn’t want to walk in there looking like this and frighten people.”
The sight of all that blood nearly made him panic. “But she was okay last you saw her?”
Hunt dropped the soiled shirt in the back, pulled out a clean one, and put it on. “She was awake, but not really alert and coherent. In shock from watching her boyfriend being murdered on top of the head injury she suffered. I’m not sure if she had any other injuries or if she had more of an altercation with whoever trashed her place.”
“Let’s go find out.” Max needed Hunt to get him in tosee Kenna. He wasn’t family. He wasn’t anything to her anymore, except a lying, cheating ex.
At least, that’s what she thought. His word hadn’t meant shit. And it still stung.
Hunt tucked in the shirt and wrapped his gun belt around his waist again.
