Chapter 37 Parker
PARKER
Even with the fire crackling in the corner, my teeth still chattered profusely.
From the cold or the fear, I wasn’t sure.
My fingers were very slowly regaining feeling as the warmth from the fire thawed my bones, but my clothes were still soaked.
I didn’t have much faith they’d dry anytime soon, but at least for now, I was out of the worst of the storm.
“You’re so desperate that you’re okay with hurting your own family?” I asked Rob from where I sat on the floor, as close to the fire as I felt comfortable with him tending to it every few minutes.
Rob scoffed. “I barely touched you.”
“You didn’t have to. I’m going to freeze to death regardless of how you treat me.”
He stood from his seat by the door, walking over to the fire and grabbing the poker.
He moved a log, causing embers to fly every which way.
He’d done this so many times, I lost count.
Nerves seemed to be getting the best of him, and he couldn’t seem to sit still because of it.
“You have a perfectly good fire right here.”
“The storm will only get worse, and temperatures will drop even more as night passes. If your genius plan is to hold me here until I deliver my son, you’re a fucking idiot. A fire won’t do shit once it hits the negatives.”
He abandoned the fire poker in the flames, taking two large steps until he was directly in front of me. He grabbed my chin before I could move away, squeezing until pain bloomed.
“You think you can call me an idiot?” he bellowed, spit flying from his lips and spraying my skin.
My stiff fingers wrapped around his wrist, but he was unmovable. Tears welled in my eyes as he only tightened his grip on me. “Rob, you’re hurting me.”
“Maybe you need to be fucking hurt. Teach you a fucking lesson.”
The door to the cabin slammed open right as he finished his sentence. In one swift movement, Rob had my back to his chest and his arm around my neck.
Beckham stood in the doorway, snow swirling around his bulky form, his shotgun aimed at Rob. With the position we were in, I knew he wouldn’t take the shot. He’d never risk me.
Which meant we were screwed.
“Let her go,” Beckham gritted out, eyes quickly darting to me before refocusing on Rob. The howl of wind behind him had me shivering.
“This your fucking boyfriend?” Rob seethed in my ear.
My frantic breathing puffed clouds of white before me, my limbs a shaking mess. All I wanted was to fall to my knees and sob. My baby didn’t deserve any of this stress, yet here I was, in danger and unable to protect him.
I was failing already.
“Beckham, please.” My voice broke, tears building so heavily in my eyes that it felt like I was looking through a glass bowl. “I don’t want him to hurt you.”
He held the gun a little tighter, eyes narrowing on Rob. “Let her go, or I’ll put a bullet through your fucking head.”
Rob’s brusque chuckle had me flinching. “You won’t risk it.”
Beckham took a step to the left, his gaze darting down my body for a split second. Rob moved in the opposite direction, keeping me tight in his hold.
“You think I won’t?” Beckham questioned.
“I know you won’t.”
They both moved a few more feet, rotating us in a circle. But now we were farther from the fire, which meant the cold only became worse with the door wide open.
“Lower your gun and I won’t hurt her,” Rob instructed, and it was then that I noticed he held a knife to my side.
I hadn’t felt the sharp bite of the blade with my focus on Beckham and making sure he wouldn’t get hurt, but now I realized why Beckham had briefly looked down.
“He won’t hurt me, Beckham. He needs m—”
Rob tightened his arm around my neck, and I arched onto aching toes to force in a breath.
Beckham’s entire body went rigid, his jacket looking like it was about to tear from the size of his muscles. He needed to fight, to get me to safety, and he was quickly finding that he might be losing.
A tear rolled down my cheek as I dug my nails into Rob’s arm, but it was no use through the thick fabric of his coat.
Beckham noted my struggle, pain etching into the depths of his eyes, and it almost hurt me worse to see the helplessness in his gaze.
He slowly bent at the knees, lowering the shotgun until it was lying on the ground. When he stood, hands clenched at his sides, he toed the gun a few inches away. “Alright. It’s down.”
Rob subtly bobbed side to side on his feet, swaying me with him as if his nerves were eating him alive now. “Now walk outside, go back to that shitty fucking town, and forget all about her.”
Beckham’s eyes met mine, a determination there I’d never seen before. “Not happening.” He took one more step until his back was to the fire.
Rob shook with his rage. “It’s not a fucking option.”
“You and I agree, then.” Beckham’s gaze held mine, and I wanted nothing more than to be in his arms, warm and with all of this behind us. “There’s no option when it comes to her safety.”
One second, Beckham’s hand was moving, and the next, the fire poker was swinging our way.
Rob screamed, his hold on me dropping, and I nearly fell to the floor. I caught myself, tripping across the small space until Beckham grabbed my arms and pulled me behind him.
The moment Beckham’s hands were on me and I clutched the jacket covering his back, thousands of pounds of fear physically lifted off my chest.
Shouted curses filled the room as Beckham aimed a second gun at Rob, who was clutching his neck. The fire poker lay on the floor by his feet, something wet stuck on the end. When his hands shifted, I noticed a gruesome burn sliced across his flesh.
“You do this, you’re ruining a man’s life!” Rob shouted as a last resort to save himself.
“Better you than my family,” Beckham ground out.
Rob’s glare deepened, his promise of vengeance practically wafting off him like a cologne. Then his gaze fell to the floor, directly where the shotgun lay between us. Panic overtook every sense in my body. If Rob grabbed it—
“Cover your ears,” Beckham commanded, his bicep flexing under his jacket as he adjusted his grip on the pistol.
As soon as I did as he said, a shot rang out.
My body threatened to curl in on itself, my forehead resting on Beckham’s shoulder blade as I squeezed my eyes shut.
I was scared to check if he’d killed him, but even more scared that I’d imagined us getting out of this unscathed.
What if Rob had shot Beckham and then got his grips back on me?
I jumped when something landed on my waist, but when the comforting warmth and size of Beckham’s hand registered, a bit of the tension in my body eased.
His muscles shifted as he tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans, then he turned and pulled me into his arms, blocking my view of Rob.
“Is he…” I whispered into his chest.
I felt him nod as he held me tighter. He didn’t need to explain why he’d chosen to go that far rather than injure him.
Rob wouldn’t have stopped, and though Beckham might not know his entire history, he could tell as much.
No one abducted someone—especially a family member—if they didn’t intend to get what they wanted out of it.
Beckham didn’t release me as he pulled out his phone and made a call.
My focus narrowed to the crackling of the flames and the embers it spit out. How the fire swallowed the branches and sizzled as the heat met the moisture from the snow that once clung to them. I couldn’t see—couldn’t hear—anything other than that.
“Parker.”
I looked up to find Beckham staring at me with a crease between his brows. He was no longer on the phone.
“Did he hurt you?”
I shook my head, then remembered how Rob had kicked me back at the house. How he’d grabbed my chin and squeezed. My fingers moved on their own accord, brushing against my sore jaw.
Beckham tilted my chin up slightly, angling my head to the side to get a better look. The lethal look in his eyes only turned more severe. “He touched you.”
My hands fisted in the front of his coat and tugged on the material. I opened my mouth to reassure him, but after all I’d endured, I really wasn’t sure if I could say I was okay.
A single look at my clothes had him moving. One second, his jacket was zipped. The next, he was shucking it off, wrapping it around my shoulders, and tugging it closed at the front. He held me tighter, inching us closer to the fire.
His gaze moved around the room like he was searching for something, then he briefly let me go to close the door to the cabin.
He peeked out the small window. “Was there anyone with him?”
My arms wrapped around my torso, missing Beckham’s warmth. “No.”
He turned, eyes looking crazed and worried. He crossed back to me, instantly folding me back into his embrace. “Who was he? I heard you two talking, and he sounded like family, but I thought…”
“He’s Axel’s father. My uncle. I never met him growing up, and I guess that was for good reason.” I forced myself not to glance over at the body lying on the ground mere feet from us. “Axel had briefly told me he wasn’t good news, but I never would have expected him to come after me for money.”
“Money?”
I explained what Rob had told me he wanted out of this. “But it was no secret my dad was poor,” I added. “Even if they weren’t part of each other’s lives, they didn’t exactly have the best upbringing, and that seemed to carry over into both their adult lives.”
“Maybe he thought you got money out of the land.” His hands rubbed up and down my back. “He was desperate. But all I know for certain is that he wasn’t getting out of this alive.”
“I just… I don’t—” I shook my head, nuzzling into his chest. The man had never met me, and suddenly he wanted to steal my inheritance? Take my baby? All for some cash? None of it made sense.
“Shh,” Beckham hushed. “Don’t waste any more energy on him right now, okay? Focus on me.”
I hadn’t even realized I was shivering until I forced every thought of Rob into a locked box in my mind.
“Feel the fire?” Beckham asked quietly. His strained biceps seemed to be fighting a tremble of their own.
“Your jacket—”
“Keep it, baby. I want you warm.”
My lips rolled together in a tight line in an attempt to hold in the choked sob climbing my throat. My adrenaline was waning, and with it came the biting cold and the realization of everything that had happened.
“He wanted our baby, Beckham.”
His entire body turned to stone, and I swore I heard his jaw crack over the popping of the fire.
“He was going to hold me here until I delivered.” I trailed off, thinking of every worst-case scenario if that had happened. “Is he okay?”
Beckham knew I meant the baby.
“He’s okay,” he murmured into my hair. “He has to be.”
Because it wasn’t only me who loved this baby anymore. It was Beckham, his family, Ellis. Even Wyatt. I’d dreamed of having other people caring for him and loving him as much as I did, and now it was true. I just needed him to be okay so he could see it every day of his life.
I nodded against Beckham, repeating his words over and over again in my head.
At some point, he had lowered me to the floor, and I’d shut my eyes in his lap. I wasn’t sure how long I was asleep, but the sound of a distant motor had me shooting up, panic slicing through me like a knife.
I gasped for air, my heart a blistering thump in my chest as I blinked my eyes into focus, willing the heavy sleep out of my mind.
Where was he? Would he hurt me this time? Try to take my baby again?
Beckham’s hand found mine, and I jumped, swiveling my head to face him.
“Parker, it’s me. He can’t hurt you. You’re okay.”
His reassuring tone and the concern in his eyes had me releasing a heavy breath. My head hung while my heart feebly tried to calm itself.
The revving outside turned louder, like whoever it was was getting closer. Beckham stood, bringing me with him, and I stayed behind his back as he crossed to the window to peek out.
“It’s the police,” he muttered, breath fogging up the glass.
That must’ve been who he’d called. I hadn’t had the right mind to wonder or even ask.
Beckham opened the door, and the gust of frigid air that came with it had me wrapping my free arm around myself. I wasn’t ready to be cold again. All I wanted was Beckham’s bed and his arms wrapped around me, his sweet kisses and reassuring murmurs lulling me into a deep sleep.
I didn’t want to be out here, frozen and scared and unsure what our outcome was.
If I lost my baby—
As if the prospect of help had my strength slipping through my control, I broke. I held Beckham’s hand tighter, pressing my forehead to his shoulder blade as a sob wracked through me.
He spun at the sound, his arms wrapping me in a safe cocoon.
“Does something hurt? Is it the baby?” Beckham attempted to calm his frantic tone, but even with all his willpower, the panic at the thought of me or this baby not being okay was too much to contain.
I shook my head because that was all I could do.
Of all the times I thought I could do everything on my own, this wasn’t one of them.
Help was here, and I was so damn relieved.