Chapter 28 #2
“Junie!” he screamed even as Dodger launched through the doorway after her, snarling.
Tanner dug his heels into Halo’s flanks.
“Come on, boy, come on!” Halo found the strength to leap forward, eating up the distance.
Tanner leaped from the bay’s back before the horse had fully stopped.
His boots hit the dirt hard. He didn’t even bother tying the gelding off.
Halo stood panting, sides heaving, but Tanner was already moving.
Tanner charged through the door, heart in his throat. He had no idea what he would find, but the last thing he expected was to see his Junie—his Cupcake, his precious Little girl—lying on the floor with Preston on top of her.
Her eyes were closed. Angry red finger marks circled her throat, and her lips had turned a terrifying shade of blue. Most terrifying of all, her chest wasn’t moving.
Please God, let her be breathing.
Dodger had his teeth clamped firmly on one of Preston’s sleeves, trying to drag the man off her while Preston beat at the wolfdog’s head with his free fist.
A blinding, all-consuming rage exploded through Tanner.
He didn’t think. He didn’t hesitate. He simply charged across the room and tackled Preston with every ounce of strength he possessed. The impact sent them both crashing into the wall hard enough to punch a hole in the drywall. Tanner’s fist connected with Preston’s face in a sickening crunch.
“You piece of shit!” Tanner roared, swinging again. “Keep your fucking hands off her!”
Preston fought back with the strength of a man who had completely lost his mind. He managed to throw Tanner off, and the two of them rolled across the floor, fists flying and knocking over dining chairs.
“You can’t have her!” Preston screamed, voice raw and broken as he swung wildly.
“Juniper belongs to me! She’s mine!” Tanner’s fist landed again, but Preston kept fighting, spitting blood.
“You can’t take her from me! She was supposed to be mine!
” His eyes were wild with fury as he continued to rage.
“I’d rather see her dead than with you! Do you hear me? Dead!”
Tanner barely heard any of it. All his attention was focused on ending this threat so he could get back to his girl. He landed another heavy punch, then another, until blood sprayed from Preston’s nose and mouth.
Even after the man went unconscious, Tanner kept swinging. He probably would have killed him if he hadn’t been yanked backward. Dodger’s teeth had closed on the back of Tanner’s shirt, pulling him away with surprising strength. The wolfdog snarled and refused to let go.
Boone, Chance, and Trace burst through the broken doorway at the same moment, guns drawn.
Boone took one look at the scene and grabbed Tanner around the chest, hauling him off Preston with raw power. “Take care of your girl!” he barked, shoving Tanner toward Junie.
Tanner dropped to his knees beside her, heart shattering at what he saw.
Junie lay lifeless on the floor. Her face was far too pale, her lips tinged blue.
“Trace!” Tanner’s voice cracked with desperation. “Help her! She’s not breathing!”
Trace was already moving, dropping down beside her with the calm, focused demeanor of someone who had done this before. “Move over, Tanner. I’ve got her.”
Turning Junie over to Trace was the single hardest thing Tanner had ever done.
Every instinct screamed at him to keep holding her, to never let go.
But her life mattered more than his need to be the one to help her.
With reluctance, he shifted back just enough for Trace to work, though he stayed right there on the floor beside her, one hand gripping her cold, limp fingers like a lifeline.
Trace placed his fingertips on her neck. “She’s got a pulse, thready and weak, but it’s there.” He then bent closer, his face close to her mouth. “Fuck!”
Before Tanner could ask any questions, he got the answer when his brother tilted Junie’s head back and started CPR—strong, steady compressions followed by rescue breaths. Whatever pulse she might have had must have disappeared when she stopped breathing.
The room around them was chaos. Pup had been freed from captivity in the closet.
His barks had turned into whines as he ran between Belle and Junie as if wanting to help both women.
Boone was on the phone with Sam with one foot on Preston’s chest. Chance was helping Belle, who was crying and asking after the woman she’d raised as her own.
Tanner only had eyes for Junie.
“Come on, babygirl,” he whispered, voice breaking. “Breathe for me. You promised you wouldn’t leave me. You promised. Someone call an ambulance!”
Boone’s voice carried from somewhere behind him. “It’s already on its way. You had me call for one, remember?”
Trace kept working without pause, counting compressions under his breath. Tanner’s whole world narrowed to the sight of his woman lying so still.
The thought of losing her after he’d finally found the courage to make her his, after he had finally let himself love her the way she deserved, was unbearable. He’d just started building a life with her. He couldn’t lose her now.
Then Junie suddenly jerked. Her body arched as she dragged in a ragged, gasping breath. A harsh, wet cough tore from her throat. Trace immediately turned her on her side so she could vomit onto the carpet. She lay back, breathing on her own now, eyelids fluttering.
Tanner let out a broken sound and carefully pulled her closer, using his lap as a pillow for her to rest her head. “That’s it, babygirl. Breathe. I’ve got you. Daddy’s here.”
She was breathing. She was alive.
“Pulse is weak but steady at eighty-six. Respirations twenty-two and shallow. Possible airway trauma from strangulation,” Trace reported clearly to the lead EMT as they rushed through the doorway with the stretcher.
He helped lift Junie onto it with careful, practiced hands, keeping her neck stable.
“She’s breathing on her own now, but she was down for a while. We did two rounds of CPR.”
The EMT nodded, securing the oxygen mask over her face. “Got it. Let’s get her loaded.”
Tanner stayed right beside the stretcher, one hand never leaving Junie’s limp fingers. As they wheeled her toward the ambulance, the lead paramedic turned to him.
“Sorry, sir, but you can’t ride in the back with her. Family can follow in a separate vehicle—”
Tanner stared the man dead in the eye, voice low and deadly calm. “Try to stop me and see what happens.”
The paramedic took one look at his face, swallowed hard, and wisely stepped aside. “Uh… yeah. Okay. But there are no seat belts back there, so if you get injured, that’s on you.”
The ride to the hospital was the longest twenty minutes of Tanner’s life. He held Junie’s hand the entire way, whispering to her, telling her how much he loved her, promising her she was safe now.
She drifted in and out of consciousness, squeezing his fingers weakly when she could. The oxygen mask kept her from speaking, but that was fine. She was here. She was fighting.
When they finally reached the ER, doctors and nurses swarmed her. They rushed her back for triage, checking first for damage to her throat and airway. Tanner fumed when they took her without him.
Belle was brought in next, the woman as pale as a ghost as she asked about her girl.
“They’re taking care of her, Nanabelle. You raised our girl to be quite the fighter. Now let them take care of you too,” Tanner said, squeezing the woman’s fingers gently before releasing them and watching as she too disappeared down the hallway.
When they rolled Preston in, it took Boone, Trace, and two security guards to keep Tanner from ending the man right there in the hallway.
It felt like forever, but only ten minutes later, the doctor came out. “We took an X-ray. The airway didn’t suffer any significant damage. We’ve put her in one of the triage rooms, so you can go back and be with her.”
The doctor put a steadying hand on Tanner’s shoulder. “Besides a sore throat for a while, she’s going to be okay. You’ll find her in room three.”
They were the sweetest words Tanner had ever heard.