Chapter Seventeen #2
Surprise must have shown on my face, because Ma's expression softened further.
"Knox and Ransom will stay with your father until we get there," she added.
"He's stable. And you..." Her eyes flickered to my burns, to the soot coating my skin, to the raw redness around my eyes from the smoke. "You need medical attention too."
"Ma," I started, not even sure what I wanted to say, but overwhelmed by this unexpected gift she was giving me—the freedom to choose Dan without guilt or resistance.
"Don't argue with your mother, Harlow," she said, a ghost of her usual firmness returning. Then, more gently: "Go. Be with him."
The paramedics were lifting Dan's stretcher now, preparing to load him into the ambulance. I stood, swaying slightly as exhaustion and pain threatened to topple me.
"Sir, we need to treat those burns," said the paramedic who'd been hovering nearby. "You'll need to come with us anyway."
I nodded, too drained to form words. As they guided me toward the ambulance behind Dan's stretcher, I caught sight of Knox and Ransom kneeling beside Pa, who was now secured on his own stretcher.
Knox looked up, catching my eye across the distance, and gave me a single nod of understanding and approval.
Inside the ambulance, they settled me on the bench beside Dan's stretcher, immediately beginning to clean and dress the burns across my back.
The pain was sharp and immediate as they worked, but I barely registered it.
All my focus remained on Dan, on the steady rise and fall of his chest, on his hand that reached for mine again as soon as I was settled.
"Sorry about your shirt," he said, voice weak but eyes alert enough to attempt humor. "Pretty sure it's a lost cause."
A laugh escaped me, surprising in its genuine warmth despite the circumstances. "Got plenty more just like it."
"Flannel for days," he agreed with a small smile that faded quickly as the ambulance lurched into motion, sirens wailing as we pulled away from the property.
The paramedic finished applying some kind of cooling gel to my burns, the relief immediate and startling. "Smoke inhalation is our bigger concern," she explained, slipping an oxygen mask over my face. "Try to take deep breaths."
I complied, the cool oxygen soothing my scorched lungs.
Dan watched me with concern despite being the one with a bullet wound, his eyes never leaving my face.
Even now, with both of us wounded and headed to the hospital in the back of an ambulance, he was worrying about me.
The realization made my chest ache with a feeling too big to name.
As we bumped along the country roads toward Eugene, I found myself reflecting on everything that had happened in the span of a single evening.
Collins had tried to destroy my family, burn down our legacy, and tear apart what Dan and I were building.
He'd attacked the things we held most dear—Pa, our home, our safety.
But something unexpected had happened instead. The very fire meant to destroy us had forged something stronger. Ma had seen me—really seen me—as a man capable of courage and action. Pa was alive because I'd trusted my own abilities rather than waiting for someone else to save him. And Dan and I...
I looked down at our joined hands, his smaller one gripped firmly in mine as the ambulance raced through the night.
The crisis hadn't driven us apart as Collins might have hoped.
Instead, it had revealed the truth of what we were to each other.
Partners. Equals. Each willing to risk everything for the other's safety.
The realization settled in me with a certainty that felt unshakable. Whatever happened next—recovery, rebuilding, moving forward—we would face it together.
"We're going to be okay," I told Dan, surprising myself with the conviction in my voice despite the oxygen mask muffling the words.
Dan's eyes, though clouded with pain from the bullet wound and the ambulance's jostling, held mine with equal conviction. "More than okay," he promised, his thumb tracing small circles against my palm. "We're going to be extraordinary."
Something warm unfurled in my chest at his words—hope, maybe, or faith in a future I couldn't yet see but somehow knew was waiting for us.
Collins had tried to burn down everything I loved, but he'd failed to understand the most basic truth about fire: it doesn't just destroy.
It also purifies. Strengthens. Transforms.
The old barn was gone, true. But the family it had sheltered for generations remained, tempered by crisis into something perhaps even stronger than before.
Ma had taken the first step toward seeing me as the man I truly was rather than the boy she feared I'd remain.
Pa would recover and rebuild, as McKenzies always had.
And Dan... Dan had seen me clearly from the beginning.
Not despite my differences, but because of them.
He'd recognized strength where others saw limitation, courage where others saw naivety, passion where others saw simplicity.
The ambulance rounded a curve, the motion sending a shaft of pain through my burned back. I grimaced behind the oxygen mask, but kept my eyes on Dan's face, drawing strength from his steady gaze.
"Almost there," the paramedic said, checking Dan's vitals again with practiced efficiency.
The lights of Eugene appeared on the horizon, the hospital waiting to receive us.
Soon we'd be separated into different treatment rooms, surrounded by doctors and nurses focused on our individual injuries.
But for now, in the confined space of the ambulance, it was just us—two men who had walked through fire, literally and figuratively, and emerged on the other side still holding onto each other.
"I'm not letting go," I said, the words half-promise, half-declaration.
Dan's fingers tightened around mine, his smile tired but real beneath the pain. "Good," he replied simply. "Because neither am I."
As the ambulance pulled up to the emergency entrance, its sirens falling silent at last, I held onto that promise.
Whatever came next—recovery, rebuilding, the long road back to normal—we would face it together.
Not as protector and protected, but as equals.
As partners. As two men who had found in each other exactly what they needed , exactly when they needed it most.
And not even fire could burn that away.