Chapter 35 Caleb
Caleb
I’d run a quick perimeter check around the manor, and the only thing I had was a really bad feeling. The hair on the back of my neck was still standing straight up, and everything in my gut told me that I wasn’t the only one out here.
I moved quickly across the property out back and found the gate to the river wide open, near fresh truck tracks.
I ran to the barn. Two windows smashed in, and the barn doors were open wide. I’d have to explore that later because my five minutes had been up five minutes ago, and everything in me was urging me to get back to the truck.
To Emma.
I turned and moved as quickly as I could in the dark on the rough terrain. I’d waited my whole life to meet my match, and Emma was certainly that. She questioned me, she pushed me, she never backed down, and I loved all that about her.
And right about now, she was probably planning my murder.
Hell, maybe she’d taken my truck and driven off.
She’d tried to leave me back at my house.
Something had spooked her. We’d gotten too close, and old fears had gripped her.
I got it. I really did. But I believed in how close we’d come, and how we seemed drawn to each other like jelly on peanut butter, believed I’d have time to soothe her worries, to make her promises.
To let her know she made me whole and real and worthy and…
everything. She made me feel everything.
And what had I done? I’d promised her she wasn’t alone, that we were a team, and when the call had come, my first chance to prove I meant what I’d said, I’d left her behind.
The kicker was, I couldn’t, didn’t, regret it. I would always, always, err on the side of caution when it came to keeping her safe.
And now I knew what it would cost me.
I was almost back to my truck when I plowed into someone who swore viciously in a voice I knew as well as my own. “Shit, Tucker.”
My brother lifted his hands in surrender. “You okay?”
“No.” I kept moving. “Where did you come from? You see anyone?”
“I parked at the back gate, which was open. Saw the fresh tracks. Then I saw someone moving quickly toward the front and came running.”
“Me.”
“You,” he agreed. “I didn’t get a chance to check out the barn.”
I would’ve told him what I’d seen, but we were at my truck. My empty truck. I yanked open the passenger door and stilled. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“It’s empty.”
“Uh, yeah, because you’re not in it,” Tucker said.
“I left Emma here.”
“You left her alone in your truck?”
“She had the dogs.”
“You mean the most passive boxers in the entire world, who’d sell you for a bite of anything even halfway edible?”
“Not helping.” I craned my neck and took in the dark all around us. “Where would she have—”
A scream cut through the night, and my heart stopped. Emma.
Tucker and I flat-out hauled ass, following the echo of her scream.
“Did it come from the east or south?” Tucker asked as we passed the front porch of the manor.
“I don’t fucking know.” It had reverberated off my brain, sending a chilled horror through my bones.
“You take the south; I’ll go east.” I didn’t slow to see if he agreed with the plan, just kept running.
“Emma!” I yelled. I could hear Tucker calling for her as well.
I took the corner of the manor at full speed, then nearly tripped over someone hovering over a body on the ground.
Hazel.
And that was Emma on the ground, Calvin and Klein standing guard over them both. With my heart thundering in my chest, I dropped to my knees. “Emma.” I pushed the hair from her face, and my hand came away wet with her blood. Fuck. “Emma, open your eyes.”
“Okay,” she slurred.
But she didn’t open her eyes.
“She keeps going in and out,” Hazel said, voice thick with tears.
“You hurt?” I asked her.
She shook her head and swiped at her wet eyes.
Calvin whined and nudged my hand. “It’s okay, buddy.
” But it wasn’t. I felt out of control, ruled by senses I hadn’t even known I had, on edge and ready to tear out anyone’s throat if they got too close.
Never taking my eyes off Emma, I yanked out my phone and called 9-1-1.
I was informed police officers were already en route, though they’d been delayed by a train stuck on the tracks, and they’d dispatch EMS as well.
I dropped my phone and ran my hands over Emma carefully, looking for any other injuries. “Emma. Can you hear me?”
One eye slitted open, but she moaned and immediately shut it again.
“Caleb,” Hazel said softly, her eyes filled with regret and guilt. “I pushed her. I thought she was the trespasser.”
I realized there was a baseball bat on the ground next to her. Catching the path of my gaze, Hazel paled. “I didn’t hit her with the bat, I swear—” On a sob, she rose to her feet and backed up a step, right into—
“What the fuck?” Tucker asked, panting for breath, hands coming up to steady Hazel.
“Emma’s hurt,” I said.
Tucker immediately dropped to his knees at Emma’s other side. “Hey, Em,” he said softly. “How you doing?”
“She’s not hurt anywhere else. I already checked,” Hazel said as Tucker checked Emma over.
“I saw the barn, the broken glass, and knew something bad was happening. I was trying to get out of here when I heard running footsteps in front of me. But when I called out, they didn’t stop, and then they slowed in front of me.
I thought it was whoever’d broken into the barn, so I shoved them.
” A sob broke loose, and she covered her mouth.
“Only, it was Emma, and she hit the corner of the stucco wall. I didn’t mean to hurt her—” She lifted her wet gaze to me. “Caleb, you know I wouldn’t.”
“I do.”
Hazel looked at Tucker. He didn’t say anything, and more tears fell down Hazel’s face.
Sirens sounded in the distance as I turned to my brother. “Does she need a C-collar, or can I carry her to the front to meet EMS?”
“C-collar to be safe. Stay with her; I’ll go get them.”
“Hurry.”
“My middle name,” Tucker said, then took a beat to squeeze Emma’s hand. “We’ve got you, just a few minutes longer.” And then he was gone.
Hazel watched him go, a grim tightness to her mouth.
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked her.
She drew a shaky breath and, hugging herself, nodded.
Emma was shivering now, and since I couldn’t scoop her into my arms like I wanted, couldn’t bury my face in her hair or neck and beg for forgiveness for hurting her feelings when all I’d wanted was to keep her protected, I lowered myself to the dirt and lay as close as I could get, sharing my body heat, my arm across her middle while I ran my hand up and down her chilled arm.
“No,” she moaned, trying to roll away. “I’ll throw up on you.”
“It’s okay. Slow breaths, Em. With me. In…”
Shakily, she inhaled. “I’m fine.”
“I know. Out…”
She mirrored my breathing, her eyes tightly shut, a pained grimace on her face.
“It’s going to be okay.”
In answer, she threw up.
“Second time,” Hazel murmured to me quietly, crouched low, holding back Emma’s hair while I kept her propped on her side so she didn’t aspirate.
Things got a little crazy after that.
The EMS team knew and respected Tucker, so he took over, getting Emma stable before leading the way around the manor to the front and into the waiting ambulance.
They blocked me from climbing in as well. I opened my mouth to argue, but the police arrived, lighting the place up with their red and blue lights. We were told in no certain terms to back the fuck up. I opened my mouth to argue, but Tucker dragged me clear.
I twisted to get a view of Emma in the ambulance. She was talking. That had to be a good sign. “Let me go.”
“Take a minute,” Tucker said. “Heads bleed a lot. You know this from personal experience.”
What I knew was I’d earned a gold medal in making bad choices tonight. “She dumped me.”
Tucker turned his head to mine, disbelief in his gaze. “No way. That girl’s crazy about you, man. None of us can figure out why, but she is.”
“I think she was afraid I’d walk first, something that’s happened too many times in her life.”
“Were you going to?”
“No, but my track record’s there. Everyone knows it.”
Tucker shook his head. “The past is the past. You can fix this.”
“How?”
“Hell, you think I know? Tell her…” He searched for words. “Tell her it only takes one. One person in your whole life to make you stay. And she’s that person for you. All those others, none of them made it into your heart. Nothing compares to what you feel for her.”
I stared at him. “You get that from a book? A movie? Google?”
“Fuck you.” He gave me a shove. “Fight for her like you used to fight for the puck. Like you used to fight Ryder for being a know-it-all dick. Like you fought Dad that one time you thought he was going to kill me. Fight like this is the biggest fight of your life.”
I turned to the ambulance, but two officers stepped between us and the rig, looking apologetic but firm. “We need to speak to you both. Separately.”
We were questioned about the events of the evening, while I champed at the bit to get back to Emma.
Tucker and a cop were talking a few feet away. They clearly knew each other, my brother’s body language relaxed and calm—at least on the surface, which told me he was cleared too. Beneath that demeanor, though, I could tell he was seriously pissed off.
“Going to the hospital,” I said.
Tucker had his gaze locked on Hazel, who was sitting on the sidewalk, looking up at the two cops questioning her.
“They want her to go to the station for questioning,” Tucker said.
“What? No.”
“That’s what I said.” He moved closer to Hazel and the cops. “She isn’t the one who broke in.”
Hazel’s mouth fell open in shock.
“It’s policy,” the male cop said.
“It’s fine.” Hazel rose. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” She looked at me, not Tucker. “It’s just a formality. There’s a surveillance tape of me running from the barn.”
“Were you here working?” I asked.
“I was…” She seemed to struggle oddly, tripping over her words. “I was looking for my dad.”