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“They are trying to figure out what the bastard gave her. She’s acting like she’s coming out of it soon.”
“Joel’s on his way, with the rest of her family. Dixie back there?” Fletcher asked. Ben just nodded. “Hunter’s bringing Nik. She’s beyond freaked right now.”
“Someone’s going to have to go back to where we found her. Show Joel exactly where she was.”
“I’ll do that,” Fletcher said. “You stay with her, of course.”
Gil put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “She’ll be okay. Dusty’s one of the toughest women I know.”
“She must have hiked through the woods, practically stoned, in the snow.” Ben had seen some dark things in his time with the military police. And he wrote about dark things all the damned time. Some were based in things that he’d researched, or read about actually happening, still others came from the darkest parts of his own soul. “All alone.”
But nothing had hurt him as an adult as badly as the last few hours had. Nothing. The only thing that had even came close was when Dusty and his sister had been attacked before. Or when Morris Preston and his goons had hurt Gil and Sage and Junie the way they had.
Fletcher went outside to wait for the rest of the sheriff’s people. Ben knew how his younger brother operated. Fletcher breathed best outdoors. It was how the other man centered his soul.
A part of him wanted to be out there, finding the person responsible for taking her. The other part wanted to be back in the exam room holding her. Telling her what she meant to him.
But her sister was there with her. She was safe and in good hands.
And it wasn’t his job to go out hunting monsters any longer. He’d made that decision consciously before returning to Masterson County.
Only for Dusty would he ever reconsider. For her, he would do anything.
A hot hand landed on his shoulder. He turned, eyes meeting Gil’s. “Yeah?”
“When this is over and she’s home and safe, just scoop her up and carry her away, Ben. Don’t live with doubts. They’ll destroy you. Go after her. After what—who—you want. I think the two of you would be good together. Just like Mom and Dad were. Just do it. Find a way.”
There was a look in his brother’s eyes that Ben didn’t quite understand. One that said Gil knew something he didn’t. Maybe it was his recent ordeal with the beautiful sheriff’s deputy his brother adored. And what had happened to them. How close Gil had come to losing her just a matter of days after he’d fallen so hard for her.
Ben couldn’t imagine losing Dusty. He just couldn’t.
It would flat out destroy him.
He loved that woman just too much to ever lose her.
When he got the chance, he was going to tell her that. He was going to tell her. She was the other half of his soul. He’d just never realized that before.
44
When Dusty opened her eyes,there was a blue-eyed Tyler holding her hand. Like she had somehow suspected there would be. But instead of the gorgeous man who had found her—like she had known he would—his sister sat next to her. Staring down at her like she was a bug.
“You’re awake. Thank goodness. They said someone gave you a sedative. Some really powerful muscle relaxer or something. We just had to wait until you woke up.”
“Nik…”
“How much do you remember of what happened?” another voice said beside her.
Dusty turned her head. Sage was there, in her sheriff’s department polo. “We sent the rest of your family home, by the way. They’d been up all night. Gerald is sleeping in the lobby, snoring. He refused to leave.”
“Where…Ben? He found me.” She’d known he would. Had clung to that knowledge with every step through that snow. Dusty remembered waking in that shed, remembered feeling out of it, but she’dhadto get up. To get out of that shed. And the door had been unlocked. She had told herself she was getting back toBen.No matter what. Because she wanted to talk to Ben, tokissBen, one more time. To figure this thing between them out. Before she gave up. Dusty had just kept walking. Because she had known Ben was coming for her. “Him and…his brothers. I knew he would.”
She had just known that once people realized she was missing,Benwould come for her. Dusty was trying to put things together, but her mind still felt clouded.
“How? Mind meld?” Nikki asked, but Dusty suspected her friend was just talking. Nikki had that my-bestie-is-in-the-hospital-and-I’m-going-to-totally-freak-at-any-moment look in her eyes again. Nikki panicked every time Dusty had a sneeze.
A holdover from when Dusty had had her heart attack right there in front of Nikki and Fletcher. Fletcher had been twenty or so then. He’d gotten Dusty to the hospital just in time. Nikki was incredibly freaked by hospitals. Especially hospitals plus Dusty.
Well, so was Fletcher, for that matter. Like seriously freaked.
