AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You are my love, but you’re also my best friend,” she mumbled as she climbed up onto the bed and stretched out.
He tucked her in, then leaned over and brushed a kiss across her forehead.
“Sleep, sweetheart. I’ll be in later.”
“I’m fine,” she mumbled.
Cameron sat on the side of the bed for a few moments, looking at every nuance of her face, touching the tumble of curls lying on the pillow beneath her head, waiting for her breathing to shift. Waiting for her body to relax.
And when he was certain that she was okay, he left the room.
Ghost was lying in the hall, waiting.
“She’s okay, boy. Wanna go outside?”
Ghost jumped up and trotted to the back door. Cameron turned on the porch light as they walked out, and then he sat down in a chair beneath the light as Ghost began to make his rounds, sniffing bushes, sniffing the woodpile, trotting in circles as he traced the tracks of random animals that had crossed into his territory.
Cameron didn’t know he was crying until the tears turned cold on his cheeks. He swiped them away with the heels of his hands and drew a deep, shuddering breath. He’d never loved this hard before. Not in this way. And she’d dodged death twice today…both times at the hands of brothers.
God, please…this has to be enough.
He needed her in his life like he needed to breathe.
As he was sitting, his cell phone rang. It was Howard.
“I’m checking in to make sure she’s okay,” he said.
“No concussion. No broken bones. But she has the headache from hell and staggers when she walks. I just put her to bed.”
There was a long moment of silence, and then Howard sighed. “I didn’t think it was going to get that bad that quick.”
“You can’t predict stuff like this,” Cameron said. “But having this happen on the heels of still healing from the other case she was on has really taken it out of her.”
“Thank you for stepping up,” Howard said.
“I’ll never regret that. It brought her back to me,” Cameron said.
“Is the agency losing her?” Howard asked.
“You’ll have to ask her that,” Cameron said.
“Understood. I’ll send details later. We’ve found records that might help us locate some of the women who were sold. That would be the icing on the cake, but that’s all on us. We think we’ve located the money trail. Oh, and tell her that Danny Biggers’s autopsy was inconclusive. There is no reason for why he died, other than the doctor at the prison said Biggers wanted to. We’re sending our best wishes for her to get well soon.”
“I will tell her,” Cameron said.
The call ended, and so did Ghost’s sortie into the wilderness behind the house. Cameron whistled, and Ghost came running. Cameron leaned down and hugged him.
“Thank you for saving our girl,” he said softly, and buried his face in the fur on Ghost’s neck.
***
The house was quiet.
Rusty’s sleep was restless, likely from the pain, but Cameron wasn’t sleeping at all. He was on alert with every uneven breath she took, every tear that rolled down her cheek, and every moan that came from between her lips.
She woke up with a jerk, mumbled something about “hitting the deck,” and then fell back to sleep.
Cameron got up, stirred the embers in the fireplace, and added another log. Ghost opened one eye long enough to see what was happening and huffed softly as if he was acknowledging his master’s presence, then snuggled deeper into his bed.
