Chapter 25
I enjoy long walks on the beach, and that thing you do with your tongue.
— Quinn to Shayne
QUINN
The rush of falling couldn’t compare to anything I’d ever felt before.
Seeing the woman I love falling while I floated up high in the air above her? Now that would be the worst feeling I’d ever experience. Beyond hearing that she’d been hurt. Beyond her leaving me and never giving me another chance. Beyond any other worst case scenario that I could ever, and I do mean ever, imagine.
Because I was watching my soon-to-be wife free falling toward the ground and…
I didn’t think.
Didn’t question my actions.
Didn’t even know how the hell the next two minutes went.
I was on some sort of weird autopilot that I couldn’t quite comprehend.
One second I was watching her spiral, faster and faster toward the ground, and the next I was cutting myself free of the parachute and barreling after her.
The next however many seconds—hell, minutes—were a blur.
Somehow , some way, I caught her up in my arms.
Despite her adamant denials that the parachute wouldn’t hold our combined weight, I held onto her anyway.
I held onto her so tightly that I was probably hurting her—even if she couldn’t tell.
I yanked the parachute, knowing we were way too close to the fucking ground for it to do anything for us, and held on.
I’ll never forget the next moments.
“ I’m so sorry for everything, Quinn ,” I heard Shayne sob despite the howling wind that was rushing past us. “ You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and I wasted so many years without you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Tears were leaking out of my eyes, too.
It had to be the worst feeling in the world, watching the ground come up at me faster and faster.
A roll of haybales at the end of the runway meant to catch any stray planes caught my eye, and I steered us as best as I could toward them. Luckily there were a lot.
When impact was imminent, I curled her deeper into my body, and last words that came out of my mouth before we hit the ground were, “ Just an hour is enough when it comes to you, Shayne . I love you.”
I didn’t know if she heard it or not.
Hell , I didn’t even know if I’d actually gotten the words out.
What I did know was that hitting the ground hurt.
It hurt bad.
And the way I twisted so that I would take most of the impact, in a last-ditch effort to save her in some way, felt an awful lot like I wasn’t going to come back from it.
When I came to, the first thing I saw was the chopper blades.
“ Don’t fuckin’ move them, goddammit!” I heard Hollis yell.
I moved myself, twisting so that I was more fully on my back, and groaned.
My whole body… hurt.
There was no other word for it.
One huge, throbbing hurt.
But I was alive.
“ Holy fuck,” I heard one of my brothers say. “ They’re both alive.”
“ I’m alive,” Shayne said. “ But I can’t breathe.”
Shock had me twisting and all but sitting up as I stared at Shayne .
She had grass, dirt and mud on her face.
And she was missing a front tooth.
There was also dirt and grass in her mouth.
“ Why can’t you breathe?” I gasped.
She spit out the grass, dirt, and her tooth, twisting over onto her side to do it.
“ I really, really hope that’s not a tooth,” Shayne whined.
“ It’s a tooth.” Gable dropped to his knees. “ But if that’s the worst thing that’s wrong after you fell out of the fuckin’ sky…”
I stood up, much to the dismay of Hollis and Ande .
“ Sit the fuck down, right now,” Ande cried just as Hollis said, “ Lay back down!”
I shot them both a look that clearly said what I thought about that. “ Make me.”
“ Stupid , dumb, barbaric…”
I was on the couch in my living room.
My entire body felt like a huge, pulsing bruise.
But I was alive.
I had no broken bones.
I didn’t even have a broken tooth.
I did, however, have bruising.
A lot of bruising.
It felt like I’d been hit by a truck.
But I was alive.
And more importantly, so was my wife.
After leaving the hospital where we both got a clean bill of health, I’d asked Shayne one very important question: Will you marry me right now?
At the time, all I’d been thinking about was how fucking lucky we were.
Now , after both of us had left the courthouse in our dirty, dingy clothes and made it home just in time to collapse onto the couch together, I was realizing that it might’ve been a little hasty.
“ Do you think that people will comment about how I’m missing a front tooth in my wedding photos?” Shayne asked, her head in my lap.
The doctor had given her a clean bill of health, but they were also worried about all the trauma she’d suffered lately.
But her ribs had held up just fine. She had no broken bones, or as of right now, no bruising anywhere but on her face.
She had a scrape on the left side of her face where it had made contact with the ground, and there was the missing tooth.
But other than that…
“ No ,” Ande said as she stared at the two of us. She hadn’t taken a seat yet, and we’d been in my place for twenty minutes. “ I think they’re going to be looking at the bruising on Quinn’s face, the sticks and dirt in your hair, and the way you were both holding yourselves awkwardly. Or , possibly, your lack of wedding dress. I don’t think they’ll notice your missing tooth.” She hesitated. “ But you could’ve smiled without showing your teeth. That would’ve solved it all.”
“ Too bad you couldn’t do the sticking it back into the socket thing,” Hollis said. “ I replaced a tooth like that last month. Just stuck it right back into the socket after they came in. Freaked the mom out. But it worked. I saw that kid at the grocery store last week and he still had it.”
“ I’m just glad I still have a face, let alone most of my teeth.” Shayne sighed and sat up. “ I’ve been wanting veneers, though. I feel like my front teeth make me look like I’m a donkey.”
“ Jesus Christ ,” I scrubbed my face, nearly groaning into my hands at the ache. “ You are beautiful, Shayne . Missing front tooth and all.”
Shayne pressed a kiss to my hand that was still covering my face, and I dropped it to look at her.
“ Are you okay, husband?” she smiled.
And damned if she didn’t look fucking adorable with that missing front tooth. “ I’m fine. I’m just…”
“ Processing ?” she guessed.
“ Processing ,” I confirmed.
“ How about we talk about who sabotaged your chute,” Auden suggested as he came into the room with his hands full of a parachute.
“ That’s not my parachute,” Shayne said as she turned to face Auden , who looked like he was fuming.
“ Actually , you’re right,” Auden confirmed. “ I bought this one after getting a look at the one that the police have in their custody. I wanted to show you where it was cut.”
“ Cut ?” I sat forward, ignoring the pain.
“ Cut ,” he said, then went on and explained.
“ That would certainly cause the chute not to open. I can’t believe I’d miss something like that, though,” Shayne admitted.
Auden turned to survey her. “ You didn’t.”