Chapter Thirty-one – Softly
Chapter Thirty-one
Beckett
SOFTLY
Performed by Lonestar
ELEVEN YEARS AGO
HIM: Thought you were coming over?
Minutes later.
HIM: Maise?
Minutes later.
HIM: I’m giving you two more minutes, and then I’m coming to find you.
HER: Sorry. I can’t come. I had two escaped chickens to deal with, and the Helmers' dog thought it would be fun to chase them down to the creek. I’m a muddy mess, and once I clean up, I can’t leave Mom alone.
HIM: Chelsea was supposed to be there tonight. She promised.
HER: Randy called, so she went scurrying over to his place.
HIM: Cleaver’s brother? Isn’t he, like, twenty-two or something?
HER: I think. Does it matter?
HIM: She’s underage.
HER: Chelsea knows what she’s doing and what she wants. Believe me.
HIM: So you’re alone. Again. I’m on my way.
PRESENT DAY
The whole time I was making my way back to the barn with Parker, Fallon, and the horses, my anger steadily grew.
It only continued to morph as I drove my SUV through the windy back roads to town.
It wasn’t only directed at the asshole responsible for hurting Maisey’s dad.
It was at Maisey herself. For not trusting me.
For trying to handle this on her own. For putting herself in danger and falling right into the attacker’s plans.
I didn’t know what had led her to the watchtower and her father, but it must have been whoever was doing this telling her how to find him. By doing so, she’d played right into their hands. They could have been there, waiting to hurt her as well as her dad.
She could have died.
It could have been her lying on that stretcher.
My heart didn’t just ache…it bled.
When I pulled into the drive of my house, Sweeney stepped onto the porch.
“Once I heard you found Lewis, I came back here to check on things. The house is clear,” he said.
“Thanks,” I responded, but I couldn’t keep my fury out of my voice. “I’m just here to drop Vader off, change, and grab some dry clothes for Maisey.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything else as I stormed into my house with my rage barely in check. By the time I threw off my drenched clothes, pulled on new ones, and found some things for Maisey, I’d only grown more aggravated. At myself. At her. At the entire screwed-up situation.
But mostly at whoever had done this.
As I came out of the guest room with a duffel over my shoulder, Sweeney stopped me. “You go to the hospital all half-cocked and ready to fight, you’re not going to help our little Maisey.”
Jealousy roared. She wasn’t his little anything.
I was being ridiculous.
And damn him, he was right.
I dragged a hand over my face. My distressed dog whined, pressing his body into mine, sensing my fury and fear. I didn’t know how to calm down.
“Okay to leave him here with you?” I asked, bending low to give my dog the first whole-body rub he’d received since I’d shown up at the ranch.
“We’ll be fine here,” Sweeney said. His hand landed on my shoulder. “She will be too. We’re all on this now, which means the snake won’t be able to stay hidden forever. Not with all of us hunting him.”
He was right, but what else would happen before his identity was uncovered?
I rubbed my dog again and said gruffly, “I’ll be back soon, and I’m bringing our girl with me. We’ll pick up the stupid cat, and we’ll all be together again. Soon, bud. Soon.”
Then, I headed out the door. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let Maisey be hurt again, but the asshole had struck at her through her dad and sliced home anyway. Worse, she’d faced it all alone.
She hadn’t had to do any of it by herself.
She could have trusted me to be at her side.
But Maisey never wanted to put others out.
She was more than willing to help everyone and anyone but hated to be on the receiving end.
But this time was different. In trying to face this alone, she could have been killed.
Damn. My heart couldn’t take this. Couldn’t take the thought of not having her in my life.
But when I reached the hospital and saw her—despair carved into her face, pacing a deserted corner of the ICU, soaked to the bone and shivering under the sterile blast of the air-conditioning—my anger burned itself out in an instant. She was hurting. Scared. Fucking freezing.
She faced the room where the doctors fought for her father’s life, so she didn’t see me coming down the hall.
But Cleaver did. He just stood there, a useless sentry with a frown dug between his brows, doing nothing.
Nothing to ease her panic. Nothing to stop her from trembling in those rain-drenched clothes.
And my rage found a new home—this time at him.
“Maisey!” She turned, and the tortured grief on her face sliced through me more. In two long strides, I dropped the duffel and wrapped her in my arms. She buried her face in my chest and broke. Sobs shuddered through her, wracking her body. A body that was as cold as ice.
I glared at Cleaver over the top of her head. “You’re freezing. You need to change.”
“I can’t leave. I need to know as soon as they walk out what’s going on,” she said as her teeth chattered.
“If you get sick, you won’t be any good to him,” I shot back. “I brought you some clothes.”
I grabbed her hand as I picked up the duffel and then hauled her, protesting, down the hall to the nearest restroom. After dragging her into the single-stalled room, I blocked the door, unzipped the bag, and pulled out clothes.
“Take those off, or I’ll do it for you,” I demanded. Relief flooded me when anger sparked in her expression instead of the tortured grief I’d seen.
She did what I’d ordered, toeing out of the soaked sneakers, ripping off the drenched tee and yoga pants, and letting them drop with a wet slap to the linoleum. She stood there, completely naked but gut-wrenchingly beautiful and full of fiery emotions.
She fisted her hands at her waist and scowled. “Better?”
“Not even close,” I growled.
Stepping toward her, I pulled a sweatshirt over her head. It was an SRFD one I’d grabbed from my go-bag at the last moment. The hem hung down around her thighs, and I found myself inappropriately turned on by the sight of her.
The memories of what she’d tasted like and sounded like and felt like when we’d been wrapped around each other last night flooded me.
Angry with myself now, I reached into the bag for the underwear and jeans I’d grabbed from her room. She yanked them on. “I don’t have time for your overprotective bullshit, Beckett. So save it. I need to get back to my dad.”
“Standing outside the hospital door isn’t going to change whatever is going on beyond it,” I snapped. “Tell me what the hell happened and why you went up there on your own!”
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at her toenails that were painted the same color as the dress she’d worn to the ball.
When she didn’t respond, my heart cracked open a little more.
“Tell me what happened. Why are you shutting me out?” It was a quiet plea, one she didn’t heed.
After several long seconds, when she still wouldn’t look at me, a different fear wound through me. I hadn’t lost her physically. She was there in front of me—stunning and brave and so fucking stubborn—but something had happened to cause her to retreat emotionally.
She trembled. She wasn’t in the wet clothes anymore, but she still had to be cold, her bare feet icy.
I crouched in front of her, tugged one foot onto my knee, causing her to catch her balance by placing a hand on my shoulder.
I rubbed her toes, trying to bring some warmth to them, before dragging a sock on.
I repeated the process with the other foot before I risked looking up at her.
Her fury had disappeared once more, and in its wake, the grief had returned. A sadness so deep I could almost taste it in the air. I’d seen this look on her before, after her mom had died, when I’d found her, holding her dead mother’s hand in her parents’ bedroom.
I’d been there for her back then, just as Fallon had, but I’d pulled away a bit after that.
I hadn’t liked or wanted the feelings she’d raised in me.
I knew now it had been one of the many mistakes I’d made with Maisey over the years, and I wouldn’t ever repeat them.
I wasn’t going to step back and let dead space take up room between us ever again.
I snagged her hand, brought it to my mouth, and kissed the palm. “Don’t disappear on me, my Maisey-girl. I’m here. I won’t let you down. I swear on everything I hold holy, I won’t let you down. Trust me to help you through this.”
The tears came again—slow trails down her cheeks.
“They want me to leave.” She said it so quietly I almost couldn’t hear the words.
“Who? What do you mean?” I asked, standing up and watching every emotion as it flitted across her face. Grief. Fear. Remorse. Resignation.
She finally shook her head, looking down and away before shoving her feet into the slip-on sneakers I’d brought for her. “The person who did this to Dad. They made me promise to leave Swift Rivers. To leave and never come back. It was the only way I could get them to tell me where Dad was.”
“Screw that.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded threatening. Dark.
Wide eyes met mine as she brushed at the tears still littering her cheeks.
Her voice broke as she tried to explain, tried to justify leaving.
“They said they’d hurt everyone I love. You.
Fallon. Lila. They said they’d start another fire and burn down the ranch if I didn’t go.
All I have to do is leave, and everyone is safe. ”
Surprise winged through me. Surprise and hurt and rage.
She was trying to leave.
Like my mom. Like Liza. I’d given her my heart, because I’d sworn she’d never do what they had, she’d never slice me open and leave me bleeding the way they’d done to my father. To me—
No. I cut off all my thoughts.
I wasn’t letting her go. I wasn’t letting the cycle of abandonment repeat.