Chapter Twenty-three – Without You In It
Chapter Twenty-three
Beckett
WITHOUT YOU IN IT
Performed by Kelsey Hart
TEN YEARS AGO
HIM: I’m going to strangle Carter.
HER: You can’t strangle him for telling the truth. I just need to be done with boys until the braces are gone and the surgery is behind me. It’s fine.
HIM: That’s bullshit.
HER: Why? It’s not like it’s going to be the end of the world if I don’t date in high school. And maybe you’re right, Beckett. Maybe all relationships are doomed. Maybe people are always destined to hurt the ones they say they love.
HIM: It’s okay for me to think like that, but not you. I won’t let my Maisey-girl’s dreams be ripped away. You WILL have your forever after.
PRESENT DAY
I wasn’t supposed to use the lights on the captain’s truck for personal reasons. But screw that. I had the lights and siren blaring as I sped from the firehouse toward home.
Something had happened.
She’d been attacked.
My stomach lurched, and rage filled me.
I should have fucking called off. I shouldn’t have left her alone.
The call from Fallon had terrified me. I hadn’t even been able to fully listen to what she was saying after she’d told me Maisey had been assaulted in my yard. I’d hung up, grabbed the keys, and headed out, with my crew demanding to know what had happened.
I’d been such an idiot for so long. Holding her at arm’s length. Blaming my heart and my childhood wounds. Even now, even realizing I wanted her, wanted something more, something permanent, I’d held back, telling myself I needed time to figure my shit out.
But really, it had been the last dregs of fear that had stopped me from taking what was mine.
Fear of ending up like my dad, fear of getting burned, figuratively or literally. Fear of wanting everything and ending up with nothing.
But Maisey, my sweet, gorgeous, kindhearted friend, would never set my house on fire with me in it or take off for South America, abandoning our family.
Instead, she’d always considered me worthy of her time, her effort, her touch.
She was certainly worthy of my time and effort and adoration. She deserved for someone to put her up on a pedestal, fall to their knees and give her the pleasure and love she desired.
I’d promised myself I’d give us both a happily ever after, and now, it might be too late.
Fuck. Fuck that. It wasn’t too late.
Please, I begged to the universe, to any higher power that might truly be out there. Please, let Maisey be okay. I’ll do anything. Anything to get another chance to give her everything she’s ever dreamed.
When I screeched around the corner onto our street, it was to find the sheriff’s SUV and an ambulance parked in front of my house. Spotlights were set up in the driveway, and people were crawling all over my yard.
I slammed the brakes and barely waited for the wheels to stop before I flung myself out of the truck and ran toward the ambulance. Lewis stood at the back, staring inside, looking decidedly frail, my dog’s leash in his hand. Worry furrowed his brows, and fear slashed through me all over again.
My mind filled with a million horrible images. Bloody ones.
Ones I’d lived in vivid color.
As I rounded the ambulance door, my eyes immediately landed on Maisey, sitting on the edge of the box rather than on a gurney.
Her eyelids were closed, her ponytail askew, and her chin bloodied.
Seeing her upright and cognizant enough to be holding an ice pack to the back of her head unclenched my heart, until the deathly pallor of her face and the dirt on the front of her scrubs registered.
Goddamnit…she’d been on the ground…
All breath left my body as more nightmare images spun through me. Ones that had bile singeing my throat.
What exactly had he done to her?
“Maisey.” My voice was hoarse. Raw. Full of regret.
At the sound of her name, her eyes popped open. Unshed tears welled, spilling down her cheeks. Bugsy was picking at Maisey’s free hand with tweezers, but I pushed her aside and tugged Maisey into my arms. A sob escaped her. She fisted the back of my uniform shirt, clinging to me.
Vader shoved between us, pressing his body into our legs.
I looked over Maisey’s head at Lewis and demanded, “What the hell happened?”
To his credit, her dad looked angrier than I’d ever seen him.
“She came back from taking Mikey and Letty home, and someone hit her on the back of the head as she got out of the car.”
In my arms, Maisey shifted. I could actively feel her pulling herself back together, forcing the tears to stop and straightening her shoulders, all so she could appear calm and strong and brave. And she was those things, but she didn’t have to be. She could let go here, with me, and I’d catch her.
Another vehicle squealed to a halt on the street behind us. Two car doors slammed, and Fallon and Parker rushed over. Fallon’s expression held the same fury the rest of us were feeling.
Once Maisey saw her friend, she started to step away from me, and I hated it.
I didn’t want to let her go. Not until I’d gotten the entire story.
Not until I was sure that a knock to her head was the worst thing that had happened.
But Fallon gave me no choice, yanking Maisey to her and squeezing tight.
Maisey hugged her back, burying her face in Fallon’s shoulder.
Ridiculous jealousy bloomed, but I couldn’t help wanting to be the one caring for Maisey.
Parker’s hands were in his pockets as he rocked back on his heels. “What happened?”
“That’s exactly what I want to know,” I snapped, looking at Lewis and then Bugsy.
It was Cleaver who answered, leaving his search to join us at the back of the ambulance.
“Someone hit her twice.” He held up a crowbar with gloved hands that looked just like the one I’d left in Lewis’s backyard while working on the porch.
“Don’t know if Fallon’s voice on the phone or Lewis letting Vader out the door scared them into leaving it behind, but they did. They also left this.”
He handed me a clear bag. Inside was another note. As my fury grew, the words blurred, and I had to force myself to focus to read it.
Last warning. Stay away, or you’ll both end up dead.
Fucking hell.
Fallon ripped the bag away, read the note, paled, and then gave it to her husband with a hand that shook. Parker’s face darkened before he gave the note back to Cleaver.
“This has gone far enough,” I growled at the deputy sheriff. “Do something about this, or I will.”
Cleaver frowned. “If you have actual proof of who did this, hand it over, Romero, and I’ll happily arrest them.” I grunted an objection he ignored. “If you think I’d let anyone hurt Maisey and get away with it unpunished, then you don’t know me at all.”
“Maybe I don’t know you. Maybe none of us do.
Maybe you’re the one pissed she’s here, living with me, getting married to me, and trying to scare her off.
” I didn’t think it. I knew he was jealous and unhappy about her being mine, but I didn’t think he’d actually hurt her to get her to leave me, and yet rage still had me spewing things I couldn’t seem to stop.
Cleaver reacted, stepping toward me with anger radiating off him. “Screw you.”
“Stop!” Maisey’s quiet voice, raised in frustration, had me swallowing my retort. She looked from me to Cleaver and back.
Bugsy cleared her throat. “Can we all just take it down a notch? Maisey, sit down so I can finish cleaning those scrapes, or I’m going to insist you go to the hospital.”
The full force of my gaze landed back on the woman I loved.
Loved.
I loved her. Wildly. Completely. Ferally.
Proving once and for all, my heart wasn’t a dead block of petrified wood.
I didn’t just love her. It was so much more than that.
It was as if she were the reason I breathed.
The reason I existed at all. I’d been put here to be of service to her.
I’d done a decent job of it as kids, distracting her from her sister and the stupid headgear.
I’d even been there when her mom died, but I’d utterly failed once we’d reached adulthood.
No more.
I narrowed my gaze on Bugsy.
“She’s absolutely going to the hospital.”
“I agree,” her dad said.
Maisey shook her head and winced. “No. I’m really not. There’s no need to take up a bed in the ER for someone to tell me what I already know. I have some bumps and scrapes. Nothing more.”
One look at my face had her gentling her response, soothing me, when she should be the one receiving comfort. “Seriously, Beckett. I doubt I even have a concussion, so there’s no reason to freak out over nothing.”
The EMT put her hand on Maisey’s elbow and guided her back to the ambulance.
“Let me finish cleaning the pebbles out of these scrapes at least.” As she worked, Bugsy said, “Beckett and Maisey both know what to look for if she does have a concussion. Her eyes are clear and steady. That knot will hurt like a bitch, but I think it’s fine for her to stay here if she wants. ”
“No one should be staying here,” Parker stated dryly.
I had twelve hours left on my shift, but I’d call Stoney and have him cover for me. I wasn’t leaving Maisey. Not now. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to leave her again.
And that did cause a moment of alarm. A twinge in my chest. I loved my job.
Maisey loved hers. We wouldn’t be able to be tied at the hip for the rest of our lives.
But those were all things to think of later.
After we’d figured out who was doing this and stopped them from hurting her worse than they had tonight.
“Parker is right,” Fallon said. “You should all come to the resort and stay with us for a few days.”
Maisey shook her head and paled once again. She was hurting and trying to hide it. Big fucking surprise. She didn’t want to be any trouble. Didn’t want anyone to have to take care of her.
“Fallon, it’s the Fourth of July weekend,” she said softly. “The ranch is packed. You don’t have room for three more guests.”