my right ear. “I need you to bring Toot here. We have Cannel.”
Without another word, he hung up and looked over to me.
“It’ll be okay,” I promised.
He cracked his neck. “Maybe. Maybe not. But it needs done.”
He looked over at Cannel, who was sitting on the bench inside the surveillance van looking haggard, rocking back and forth.
I didn’t know what she went through these last few months. But I was damn grateful that we were able to get her out. Able to take her out of that living nightmare.
And maybe, just maybe, I could set some of my own nightmares to rest by giving Cannel back to Toot.
CHAPTER 27
Her mouth gets real disrespectful when she’s mad. That’s why she doesn’t like to argue.
-Text from Trouper to Sammy
TROUPER
“I want you to do it.”
I looked at my wife.
“I can’t,” I shook my head.
“I know you think you can’t, but you need to,” she whispered pleadingly.
I looked over at Lynn, who listened to everything with a quietness to him that was disconcerting at times.
“Tell her.”
“The trial will mean that he might go back to prison,” Lynn said. “I have him out right now. I have him living his life. You have him. He has you and his child. Another trial could mean that he could go back. He’d have to do the rest of whatever sentence they saw fit. I wouldn’t have any control over that.”
Her shoulders deflated.
She wanted me to have my life back. She wanted me to have everything that I ever wanted. I knew that.
But she was hoping for a miracle when there wasn’t going to be one.
She wanted me to file for a mistrial, so I could possibly go back to where I’d once been, but there was no going back. Not anymore.
“You need this not hanging over your head anymore,” she whispered.
She was thinking of my Air Force career.
“Baby,” I said softly. “I know you think that that means something to me, but it doesn’t. Not a single thing. I have you and Hiro. That’s all that matters to me anymore.”
Her head thunked down on my chest, right between my pecs.
“It does matter to you,” she whispered brokenly.
She was right.
It did matter to me.
But there was nothing that I could do about it.
There was also no other route that I would take.
Because, no matter what, I wanted to be right where I was, living the life that I’d been given.
“I’m happy,” I told her.
Just as I said that, the thunk-thunk of car doors had us all turning to survey the driveway.
We were all out on the porch where we’d gathered to wait for Kansas and Toot.
The moment I saw Kansas, my heart panged.
Kansas had brought his wife Traci, and they were both looking up at the house in surprise.
It was the man that was driving out of the back of the van that held my attention, though.
Murderous rage once again rolled through me as Toot got out of the car using his motorized wheelchair.
His eyes came to me, and they were narrowed, as if he didn’t like what he saw.
His eyes went wide as he saw what was behind me.
Then he was moving toward her. Thankfully, Cannel got to him before he could get too close to me. Meaning I missed the first part of what was said between them as she threw herself at him.
“What’s going on?” Cannel asked, pulling back from her fiancé while wiping away her tears. “Why are you in a wheelchair, Toot?”
Toot’s glare turned to me.
Beckham’s arms stiffened around me at the accusing glare that Toot sent my way.
“Just get in the car, darling,” Toot urged.
“Not until someone tells me what in the hell is going on.” Cannel stomped her feet. “Seriously, something is going on and I want to know what.”
Well yeah, it was more than obvious that something was going on.
Between Kansas and Toot staying down there, and the tension in the air, it was more than obvious that something bad had happened.
“Please, just get in the car,” Toot urged. “I can’t take you there anymore.”
“What do you mean anymore?” she asked. “This is permanent? What happened?”
She twisted around, her face going from me to Toot and back.
I crossed my arms over my chest, or tried to.
I’d forgotten that Beckham was hanging onto one of my arms.
“Toot went fucking crazy after you were abducted,” Kansas said, startling us all. “One night he decided to take matters into his own hands. It ended up being that Toot decided the best way to