Chapter 26
Jude
My heart threatensto burst as the terrified golden retriever attempts to twist free from the catchpole. Her devastated cries echo in the small building where she’s been living for the past five years. She bares her teeth, licking her muzzle as white foam leaks from her mouth. Strangely, she reminds me of Frankie when I first found her. Minus the copious amounts of drool. And Frankie didn’t try to run as much as she tried to force me away with her words.
The memory thaws a portion of the icy dread in my veins from earlier.
“Hey, Lee.” I whistle. “Help me with this one.”
He jogs around me to ready the next kennel. We only have two left. They’re both females, and the abuse on their bodies from repeated breeding is evident. Makes me fucking sick to think about how someone could push an animal to such limits for purely selfish motivations. I can’t wait to finish up, take these girls out of here, and get back to my pack, to the dogs that save me as much as I saved them.
And to see her.
It was wrong the way I left this morning. I know that. I knew it the minute I got to the edge of town. The boys were following me in Corjan’s SUV, and after I counted to twenty, twice, I fought against the urge to turn around and continued to follow the highway north. Aiden orchestrated enough of a scene this morning, and I didn’t want to create another.
The way he so casually dropped the L-word felt like a thousand paper cuts across my flesh. Frankie’s beautiful brown eyes held so much weight I thought I would be crushed by the hope in them. It fucking scared me.
It fucking healed me too.
Because that hope is contagious, and for a guy who’s never believed in the concept of love, I trust her enough to take that risk.
I just have to work up the courage to say the words out loud. Even if it takes counting to a million. Frankie’s worth every number that flashes through my head. I’d do anything for her.
Lee sets the kennel close so that I don’t have to coax this girl far, and in minutes, we have her locked and loaded in the van with the others.
I wipe a bead of sweat from my brow with the back of my arm. “One left.”
Lee fixes his baseball cap, the green logo signifying the Little League team he coaches. “She won’t be easy.”
We both look at where Corjan’s crouched next to a hole in the floor. At some point, the wood rotted away, and the dogs made a nest of sorts beneath the floorboards in the crawl space. The owner put up mesh wiring around the outside of the shed so they couldn’t escape but didn’t bother to patch up the hole. Our final catch is a growling, snarling mess down there in the dark. It’s going to take some strategic planning to cut her loose.
“What do you think?” I ask Corjan as I approach.
“She’s too scared for food. The space is only about eighteen inches wide.”
“Do we wait until she crawls out on her own?” Lee asks.
The option tears me down the middle. Helping scared, helpless dogs used to be my entire life’s mission, but the thought of being away from Frankie that long… “Could take hours.”
“Yeah.” Lee crosses his arms. I wouldn’t doubt if both my brothers currently had similar thoughts. This used to be a lot easier when we were all unattached bachelors with nothing better to do.
My phone rings. I dig it out of the back pocket of my jeans. “What do you think about cutting the wire and going from the outside?” I ask before hitting the green button.
“Hello?”
A crackle comes across the line, followed by a distorted voice. The words aren’t clear.
“Someone there?” I ask.
What sounds like a dog bark breaks through the static before I’m met with dead air. “Hello?” I try once more, knowing the line is cut.
I hang up. “That was weird.”
“Who was it?”
“Not sure. There wasn’t a number listed.”
“Anyway, I was saying—”
My phone rings again.
“Christ. Hang on.”
I punch the screen with my finger and bring it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Jude.”
The feminine voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. “Cort?”
The line crackles, cutting off her next words.
“Hang on. I think I have bad service.”
“Where … you?”
“I’m about an hour north with Corjan and Lee. We’re bringing back some sick dogs.”
“… need… back… Frankie…”
“Sorry?” I shove my palm over my free ear and dip my head. “You’re breaking up, Cortney. What about Frankie?”
“I said you… get… bad.”
My pulse spikes at her using Frankie and bad anywhere close to the same sentence. “Dammit, Cort, I can’t fucking hear you.” The slight edge of panic has my brothers stopping their conversation to listen.
I turn my back and move a few paces away as a bead of sweat rolls down my spine.
“Frankie… hospital… been shot.”
Frankie.
Hospital.
Shot.
Bad.
“Cortney, please,” I choke, hoping like fuck I didn’t hear what I think I did.
The frantic edge of her voice is audible just above the static as she screams, “… been shot! Get … the hospital!”
“I’m coming.” I fight back a gag. Saliva fills my mouth, making my tongue feel thick and swollen. I shove the phone back into my pocket and yank out my keys. An empty gum wrapper flutters to the ground.
“What’s going on?” Lee’s at my side, his hand dropping heavily onto my shoulder. I don’t even flinch at the unexpected touch. I use the weight as a tool to ground myself.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
“I need your keys. We need to trade vehicles. I have to go.”
Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.
Corjan’s digging his keys out of his pocket before I finish. “What’s happened?”
Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
“Cortney said Frankie’s been hurt. I need to get to the hospital.” I gag again at the feeling of my heart in my throat.
Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
“We’ll come with you,” Lee declares, squeezing my shoulder.
Eighteen.
I fight against closing my eyes.
“No. You have to get the dogs out of here.”
“One of us can come,” Corjan says.
I shake my head.
Nineteen.
“It’s going to take both of you to get her out. I’ll be fine. Bring the dogs to the Sanctuary and meet us at the hospital. I have to go.”
The bronze and silver keys ring against one another as we swap. I squeeze them tight, feeling the pinch of teeth biting into my flesh.
“Breathe, Jude,” Lee says.
Inhale.
Twenty.
Exhale.
Twenty-one.
Twenty-two.
Twenty-three.
Oh fuck.
I’ve never counted this far in my life. If the numbers don’t stop, I usually just start over again, but this time, the feeling doesn’t abate, and I can’t force myself back to one. My brain and body are left unsatisfied with the usual ritual. My panic kicks up a notch, reaching levels I haven’t felt since I was a kid waiting for my dad to force me to take his belt.
“I’m fine,” I grit out, clenching so hard my jaw aches. “See you back home.”
Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six.
Leaving my brothers in the shed, I run to Corjan’s SUV.
Outside the driver’s door, the numbers race through my head. I reach forty-two by the time I unlock the vehicle, but by seventy, I’m still standing outside.
I wipe a palm over my sweaty face, then clench and unclench my hands. Restless energy rushes through me like a raging river without a dam. My heart pumps so hard I fear I could actually have a heart attack.
Seventy-five.
God, just stop.
Seventy-six. Seventy-seven.
I manage to open the door and sit inside.
Eighty-three.
The key slides into the ignition, and the engine roars to life.
Eighty-nine.
The more I fight the numbers, the more they come. I’m wasting time. Frankie needs me, and I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere in a working vehicle counting like a kindergartener who just learned what number comes after twenty.
I dry-heave, sputtering against the breathlessness. Fighting the compulsion isn’t helping. It’s only slowing me down. My knuckles blanche on the steering wheel. I twist them and hit the gas.
Ninety-nine.
One hundred.
The first hundred feet feel like they might actually kill me. I shake so hard the vehicle jolts and stutters across the grass. Get it together, asshole. Frankie needs you.
Once I hit the highway, it’s pedal to the fucking ground.
One hundred sixty, one hundred sixty-one, one hundred sixty-two.
Was it really just this morning we left our blissful cocoon? We should have stayed in bed. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have—
A guttural sound claws from my throat, settling around me.
I twist my fingers, and sweat beads across my forehead.
“I’m coming, Frankie. Hang on, baby, I’m coming.”
Two hundred forty-seven, two hundred forty-eight, two hundred forty-nine, two hundred fifty.
I didn’t even get to tell her that I love her.
Just this morning, with Aiden joking and my family standing around us, I should have given her the words she so deserves to hear.
And now I might not get that chance.
Two hundred sixty-nine, two hundred seventy, two hundred seventy-one.
Twohundredseventytwotwohundredseventythreetwohundredseventyfourtwohundredseventyfivetwohundredseventysixtwohundredseventyseventwohundredseventyeighttwohundredseventyninetwohundredeighty.