Ten #3
I wasn’t sure what to do. After several minutes of looking up at the slowly lightening sky, I sat up and looked around.
Wherever I was seemed completely deserted at this time of the night, or early morning, which made sense.
The thieves would have driven somewhere without anyone around to see them while they went through the car they’d stolen.
The only reason they hadn’t stuck to the plan was that they’d found me in the trunk.
Since I needed to know where I was, I took a short walk to get my bearings, and a block down there was a closed liquor store.
Clearly, I was somewhere downtown, and because my surroundings weren’t completely alien, I started to calm down.
I finally found a street sign and realized I was on the 400 block of South Clark Street.
As I returned to the car, I tried to figure out what my best course of action was.
I had no cell phone, no wallet, no money, the nearest hospital was God knows where from me, and finding a police officer in a deserted part of downtown first thing in the morning would be a miracle.
When I walked back and noticed the keys dangling from the ignition, I started laughing.
It was just absurd. Between the kidnappers and the carjackers, it was a toss-up over who were the bigger morons.
I was hopeful that, because Caleb was a smart guy, he too had been able to escape.
I got in, closed the door, and decided to drive to Sam at work.
Even if he wasn’t there, someone else who could help would be.
It worked out great since, driving the kidnapper’s car, I could take all the evidence with me.
I drove to the First District, where Sam worked, down on South State Street, and parked in front of the police station.
It was a noisy, crowded zoo, but I stood in line and waited my turn.
When I finally made it to the desk sergeant, I asked him to call Detective Sam Kage for me as I had just escaped my kidnappers.
“Are you Jory Harcourt?” he asked me.
I nodded and smiled at him, realizing right then that I was a bit out of it.
“Come over here, kid,” he directed me, coming around the desk, buzzing me in and walking me into the bullpen. He sat me down in a chair, told me not to move, and that Sam was out, but his partner, Detective Stazzi, would be right down.
I was surprised when Chloe showed up minutes later.
Normally “right down” was never that fast. But the elevator door opened and she came flying across the room to me.
She was yelling at people to get out of her way, and the two men beside her—big guys, big like Sam—parted the crowd for her.
When she knelt in front of me, hands on my face, I smiled at her.
“Hi.”
“Jesus Christ, Jory,” she breathed, her eyes all over me. “Where did you come from?”
So I told her about the kidnapper’s car I had parked out front and all about Caleb and me and how worried I was about him.
She nodded and smiled, used a very soft voice when she talked to me, and had several blankets brought for me. She was very concerned about my body temperature and how big my pupils were and the fact that I was talking a mile a minute.
“I am?” I asked her.
“You are,” she assured me.
When she suggested that I go to the hospital with her, I agreed, since I wanted to make her happy. I told her I was only doing it for her.
“Thank you, love.” She smiled at me, then looked at the other two men with her, moving me toward the door, her cell phone in her hand.
“Are you calling Sam?”
“Yes, honey.”
I nodded. “Will you call Dane and tell him to meet me at the hospital?”
“I’ll have Sam do that for me.”
That seemed reasonable. “Is Aja okay? I saw her running, but I just—”
“Aja’s just fine. You’re the one we were worried about.”
“I was worried about her and Caleb. I tried to—”
“Jory, everybody’s been looking for you. You’re the one we were worried about as Caleb was recovered earlier. We weren’t sure if you were hurt or—”
“I’m a little scraped up but…will you tell Sam I’m sorry?”
She nodded, steering me toward the door. “Of course. Now stay with me, okay? Open your eyes for me.”
I was closing my eyes?
“Jory…sweetie…”
But my legs went out from under me, and even her calling my name didn’t help. I couldn’t see anything at all.
I woke up at the hospital, and even though Chloe wanted me to go in on a gurney, I wouldn’t. The wheelchair was out of the question as well. I shuffled along beside her, unsure of my feet, and when I looked up and saw him at the emergency room entrance, I smiled.
I saw his chest constrict, heard his sharp intake of breath as he stood there, frozen, taking me in, absorbing me with his gaze. His eyes were ravaged, and I felt terrible, standing there knowing that I was the cause.
“I didn’t mean to get kidnapped,” I said when I was close enough for Sam to hear me.
He charged across the remaining few feet that separated us, and I got my arms up in time to receive him as he crushed me to him, his face buried in my shoulder. He took deep breaths as he clutched me tight.
“Jory.” He shivered hard.
“Sam,” I sighed, listening to his heart hammering in his chest, drawing the heat from his body and pulling it into mine. He was so solid and strong, I just wanted to lean and be held. “Say something good.”
“I love you.” He kissed the side of my neck, my shoulder, slipped his hands up under the back of my sweater to caress my bare skin.
The warmth of his voice, the tenderness of his touch sent heat racing through my body. The man didn’t just love me—I was his home. He couldn’t do without me.
Once we were inside the hospital, Sam insisted I ride in a wheelchair or be carried. I opted to be pushed.
“Why didn’t you fuckin’ call me?” he growled as he followed a nurse through the maze that was the emergency room.
“I didn’t have a phone,” I said by way of an explanation. “I went where I thought you’d be. That was smart, wasn’t it?”
“Loving you is gonna fuckin’ kill me,” he rumbled.
I turned my head to look up at him and smiled into his beautiful eyes.
“God, Jory, I was so scared. Nobody knew where you were and… you can’t just—”
“It’s okay. Everything’s okay now.”
“You scared the shit outta me.”
I put a hand on his left, which was wrapped around the handle of the wheelchair. “You know I would never do that on purpose.”
“We gotta get you checked out and—”
“I’m okay.” I soothed him. “I just need to sleep.”
“Baby—”
“Is Caleb okay? I was so scared when—”
“He’s really out of it,” Chloe said from beside him. “Do you see his pupils?”
The nurse directed us into a room and Sam lifted me from the wheelchair up onto the bed.
“I’ll be right back with a doctor,” she promised, directing her words to Sam, giving me a smile and then closing the door as she left.
“Jesus, J, your pupils are huge,” he told me.
“Oh yeah?”
“Did somebody hit—”
“I got hit in the back of the head,” I told him before I sighed just looking at him. “I really missed you.”
“I missed you too,” he said softly as his hand went to my hair and he leaned my forehead into his chest. “Oh shit, J, there’s a huge bump back here.”
“I’m okay.” I tipped my head back and kissed his chin. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“J,” he said sharply, shaking me a little. “Baby, open your eyes.”
I realized suddenly that I was looking down a long tunnel at him. “Sam, I love you.”
“Jory! Baby!” he yelled at me, and it felt like there was a dip, like I was riding a roller coaster—that drop in your stomach just before you start down. And then there was nothing at all.
I groaned as I opened my eyes. “Crap.”
“J?”
I rolled my head to the left, and there were Sam and Dane and Aja.
“Hey, baby.” Sam smiled at me, his voice soft, gentle, reaching out to put his hand on my cheek. It was so warm, and I leaned into it. “How ya feel?”
I grunted. “I feel like shit. What’s wrong with me?”
“You got a mild case of hypothermia, a concussion, and you’re really dehydrated. They’ve given you three IV bags already.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes, honey. You were really out of it before.”
I nodded and looked at Dane. “Sorry. I’m really sorry I worried you.”
He walked around the bed, leaned over, and took me in his arms. I breathed him in and he held me tight, his face in my hair.
“Dane, please—”
“You saved Aja, and you’re home safe. I couldn’t ask any more of you.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
“Oh, I’m furious with you.” He exhaled, rubbing my back. “After Sam told us what’s been happening, you go nowhere without him going forward.”
“I—”
“But I’m thankful for your quick thinking. Truly.”
“You sure?”
“Jory, you’re amazing. The only reason I yell at you and worry about you is because you’re my brother. If you… If anything ever… I…”
I relaxed in his arms, and my eyes drifted closed. The lips that touched my cheek were featherlight and soft, like the petals of a rose. I smiled slowly. “Aja,” I sighed, opening my eyes with great effort, her lovely face my reward. “Hi.”
“Jory.” She smiled even though her eyes were filling fast, her bottom lip trembling. “Oh, baby, I was so scared.”
“Don’t cry.”
But she couldn’t speak because the tears had drowned her voice.
“Dane, lemme hold your wife.”
He threw his arm around her, pulling her in close so we were both in the circle of his arms, holding us so tight.
“I can’t lose either of you.” He barely got the words out.
“You won’t,” Sam assured him, his hand rubbing circles on the small of my back. “But I think you need to put J back down before he passes out.”
And I didn’t hear what Dane said in reply because the room did a sharp tilt to the left and I was dumped into a black pit.
A hand was slowly smoothing the hair back from my face, over and over, gently, lovingly. It felt really good.
“Are you awake?”
I made a noise.
“Open your eyes, then.”
I opened them just barely and saw Sam sitting there, looking at me.
“How do you feel?”
“My whole body hurts.”
He nodded. “I bet.”