26. Ruth
Chapter twenty-six
Ruth
Ruth
F aded asphalt loomed large in a spinning whirl before my body made impact. Pain erupted up my knees first, and then as I was propelled into a roll, my skin lit on fire. It happened so fast, I barely had time to fully register what I’d done. But then I came to a heavy stop in the middle of the street, and the sound of screeching tires and blaring horns filled my senses.
I jumped out of the car, I thought dimly with shock. Pain blossomed from my right knee to my ankle, and my elbows and arms burned. I jumped out of the car. Wait, shit, I jumped into the middle of the road. I’d lost my glasses in the jump, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. I forced myself up and swung a panic-stricken look around me.
I’d aimed for the side of the street, and thankfully, it seemed that my momentum had rolled me far enough that my body had hit the tire of a parked car. That would explain why my shoulder and hip felt bruised. Several cars on the road had stopped behind Vaugn’s, and he had made a hard right turn before stopping only feet from me.
Run, my brain ordered. Get up. Run. Get to Kiss-Met. I struggled to my feet, ignoring the slicing pain in my knee, and staggered hard against the dark blue minivan I’d rolled into. Pounding feet sounded behind me, and my heart leaped into my throat. I lurched forward. Vaughn wouldn’t be crazy enough to shove me back into the car, would he? Not with witnesses. There were people here…
There was Cal. Cal was here. I turned around, intending to find him. But he was already there. Like my wishes had conjured him from thin air, he came into focus. And he was so close, I could see him clearly—dark copper hair windblown and disheveled, handsome features scowling in worry, and gray button-down wrinkled like he’d forgotten to iron it this morning. I took all of him in, and then his arms were around me. A burst of coconut and sunscreen filled my senses, and I melted into him without hesitation. “Cal.”
“Ruth, my God.” His arms tightened around me, pressing against cuts along my ribs and what I could only assume was road rash along my right side. I sucked in a pained breath, but my name slicing through the air distracted me from my physical wounds.
“Ruth!” Vaughn’s voice called for me, closer than I wanted. I stiffened, only adding to the pain radiating from half a dozen places along my right side.
Either Cal hadn’t heard him, or he was ignoring him, because he lowered me to the ground, forcing me to lie back down on the pavement. “On your back, sweetheart.” His voice was shaking. Why was his voice shaking?
“Cal, no.” I gripped his shirt, my eyes skating over the slightly blurry vision of his determined features. “Vaughn is—”
“I’m aware,” Cal snapped.
Oh. He’s angry. I did ditch him… twice. Christ, of course he’s mad at you, you idiot. And you just dramatically jumped out of a car to get to him. “I just need to talk to Janice,” I forced out fast, even as Cal made sure I lay on my back and braced my head firmly between his hands.
“You need to lie right here and not move,” Cal countered tightly.
“Ruth!” Vaughn panted, catching up with us finally and slamming his hand against the side of the blue minivan. I jumped, but Cal’s hands tightened around my head, keeping me still. Vaughn growled, “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Cal glared up at Vaughn from where he knelt beside me. “Take ten steps back. Now.”
“Ruthie,” Vaughn forged on. But I heard the indecision in his voice.
A small crowd had gathered around us, and Cal turned to a person behind me I couldn’t see. “I need you to call 911. Ask for an ambulance and law enforcement.”
The person complied, and I heard them talking to the dispatcher only seconds later.
“Law enforcement?” I repeated with wide eyes.
Vaughn’s feet crunched back a few steps, but I couldn’t see him with Cal holding my head straight. Cal glanced at Vaughn again. Never had I seen such potent rage on Cal’s features before. It pulled his lips together tightly and slashed his brows into an unforgiving line. “You’re lucky my hands are busy. There’s probably no use in telling you not to run, but blackmail is a criminal offense.” A hard glint sharpened his glower. “Either they’ll catch you or I will.”
Vaughn’s feet turned and scuffled, retreating without another word. I heard the slam of a car door, and then the rev of an engine. All the while, I stared at Cal in undisguised confusion. “What—?”
Bright green eyes simmering with rage fell back to me. I almost flinched, but Cal had me in such a vice grip, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. “Do not. Move,” he repeated tersely.
I drew in a breath, wincing at the stab of pain it caused along my right side. “Why?”
“You jumped from a car,” Cal replied, his tone full of censure and incredulity. “You could have damaged… everything. Jesus, Ruth.”
His words scraped over my body like a pain highlighter. My knee throbbed, and the burning sensation along my right arm and side felt like a branding iron to my skin. I held his furious gaze and felt my eyebrows tip up. “Ow.”
Cal huffed, his shoulders sagging and his head falling a fraction. “You scared me shitless, Ruth Coldwell. If I wasn’t immobilizing your spine right now, I’d shake you.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” I bounded a look between his arms. “It’s kind of hurting me.”
“Don’t care,” he replied immediately. “You can’t just jump from moving vehicles. It’s completely irrational.”
A small smile pricked at the corners of my mouth. “Yeah. It is.”
His sober expression wiped away my hesitant smile. His eyes searched mine, and then down my body, like he was looking for mortal wounds, before returning to my round-eyed stare. “I would have found you,” he said softly. His thumbs brushed my cheeks with a gentle caress. “No matter what, I would have found you. You didn’t need to risk your safety.”
“Found me?” I repeated. The phrase looped on repeat in my head. Found me. If he would have found me, then had he been looking for me?
Like he’d heard my thoughts, Cal sighed. “I would have found you because you are mine, Ruth. I’m sorry I let what you said on Saturday make me hesitate even for a second. I know you better than that, and I should have seen the situation for what it was.”
I gaped at him. “What are you saying? You should be furious with me.”
“I am,” he confirmed, but the gentle curve to his lips softened the statement. “But not because you got all heroic and left with that dickface on Saturday. I’m angry because you didn’t trust the people who love you.”
“Who?” I asked incredulously.
“Me, Shortstop. I love you.”
Maybe I did have a head injury. I could have sworn I’d just heard Callum Reed confess that he loved me, but that couldn’t be right. “You,” I repeated dumbly.
The bloop, bloop of an ambulance siren cut through my stupor, and Cal looked up just as red and blue lights washed over his skin. He glanced back down to me. “As much as I want to double down on that right now, you’re about to have some insistent company.”
It dawned on me then that he wanted me to get in the ambulance. “Hang on,” I protested, starting to get up.
Cal held me steady, his features falling into irritation. “Do that again and I’ll make sure they hold you overnight for being obstinate.”
“Can you do that?” I asked dubiously.
As the clatter of the ambulance doors sounded behind me, Cal gave me a darkly amused look. “You want to test it out?”
Not with that look on his face, I didn’t. The sound of a stretcher clattering over asphalt sounded, and then the EMS personnel were there. As they peppered Cal and me with questions, I floated in a calm ocean of disbelief.
I love you.
Part of me wanted to ask him to say it again, to make sure I had heard him right. But the larger, thankfully rational, part of my brain didn’t need him to. Because for once, my head and my heart were in sync. It wasn’t just that I knew I loved him, and that buoyed my sense of realism. It was that I knew for a surety that he did love me.
He’d told me.
He’d showed me.
In every kind gesture, in every moment he’d remembered something small about me, in every reassuring touch, Cal had been telling me the same story with only one ending. He loved me. Maybe that was why I’d made the choice that seemed irrational in the moment, because in truth, it had been the only reasonable option. To make my way to him. To do whatever it took to show him that I trusted him.
Being loved was logical.
As the paramedics loaded me onto a stretcher, securing my neck in a brace on the off chance I had damaged my spine from my bounce across the road, I kept my eyes on Cal. I watched quietly as he spoke with intelligent confidence about the injuries he’d assessed at a glance. I watched as he worked with the EMS personnel and kept a professional distance from what they needed to do. And despite the ignominy of being carted off in a stretcher for launching myself from a moving car, I couldn’t make myself feel anything but relieved. Even when Gemma showed up and nearly ripped everyone’s heads off with her teeth, I floated in a surreal state of tranquility. Because despite the chaos, I’d found solid ground.
No equation could settle more beautifully than the conclusion I’d come to. Closing my eyes briefly, I relished that thought .
“What hurts?” Cal asked as he stepped up into the ambulance with me.
Although the stretcher jostled as they clicked it into place, I lifted one corner of my mouth into a smile and held his gaze. “Nothing,” I said honestly. “Really, I’m…” I hesitated, hardly believing my own words. “I’m good.”
Cal’s features tilted in disbelief. “We’ll get you checked out and back home in no time. You’re safe.”
My smile widened. He didn’t have to say it because I already knew it.
Because I was with him.