attract a small herd when a scream—shrill and high—cuts through the heavy summer air.
Ignoring the pain in my gut since I have yet to start jogging, I run to the barn where I sent Abbott mere moments ago. If something happens to her on my watch, I’ll never forgive myself.
Another scream, this one even more pained, mixed with desperation.
“Abbott!” I yell for them. “Where are you?”
“Bella!”
I follow her voice to the back of the barn where Crew keeps his old truck and tools. I stop in my tracks when I come around the hood and find Abbott on the ground next to Red.
“No,” I breathe and rush to them.
Red has collapsed. He’s lying face-down on the barn floor and Abbott is shaking his large frame, calling for him with tears streaming down her face.
“Grandpa!”
“Move away, love.” I have to physically drag her away so I can roll him to his back. I press my fingers at his neck. “No, no, no, Red.”
I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial nine-one-one, putting it on speaker and start chest compressions. I’m no medical professional but I couldn’t find a blip of a pulse.
When a dispatcher answers, I can barely hear for Abbott’s cries. I manage to explain where we are and what little I know about Red. She offers to stay on the line with me until EMS arrives but it’s hard to pay attention to her.
Abbott is clutching Red’s bicep, her beautiful eyes that were so innocent only minutes ago are now anything but. Replaced with terror and fear as one of the only humans she’s ever been able to count on during her short time on this earth is lying before her lifeless.
Pump.
Pump.
Pump.
I continue with compressions, looking between Cole’s father and his child. The redder her face gets, the grayer his turns.
And Cole—I can’t bear to think of him at this moment.
Chapter 34
Dog Years
Cole
It’s been a fucking day.
No, it’s been a fucking month, even though I haven’t reached the end of my thirty-day bet with Bella. It feels like a year.
Dog years.
When shit started going down in the forest, it went fast. Sometimes my cases overlap with another agency, but this one ended with the biggest bang.
It’s also not the first time I’ve been shot or caught a knife or had my bell rung. But today has been the most annoying of them all.
“Where is my stuff?” I demand.
I’m at some community hospital in the middle of a maple syrup forest in Vermont. I had to empty my pockets in the back of the rig since they cut my damn jeans off to work on me. The asshole didn’t catch an artery or bone, but my calf will now have a bite out of it for the rest of my days.
It doesn’t matter as long as I can walk out of here and go home to Bella, Abbott, and Red. I’ll do it with one more scar. Bella and I will be quite the pair.
“My phone and wallet?” I ask again. I cannot lose my credentials.
“Your friend went out to the ambulance to look for them,” the nurse says. “You’re almost done. I think I found a pair of scrubs long enough for those legs of yours. You can’t walk out of here in those boxers, as much as I do like plaid.”
I look back from where I’m lying on my stomach on the gurney so they can stitch me up. “Are you almost done?”
The doc doesn’t look up at me and mumbles, “Almost. You can’t hurry perfection.”
A curtain barely offers any privacy, so there’s no stopping three DEA agents from stalking into my bay while I’m in my underwear.
The one in the middle lifts his chin, and like the frown set on his face, his words are not flowery at all. “Glad you’re not dead.”
I frown back at Mr. Congeniality. “Thanks. Me too.”
He can barely cross his arms over his vest. “Cruz. Brax Cruz, DEA out of New York City. Who knew, yeah?”
“Yeah, who knew,” I agree, assuming he’s talking about our run-in. And he still hasn’t introduced his friends.
“No big deal, it happens,” he keeps going, as if I’m worried about stepping on anyone’s toes, which I’m fucking not. “But it’s never happened with the CIA. First time for everything.”
I feel a tug on my calf and look back over my own ass at the doctor who’s wincing as he mutters, “Sorry.”
I roll my eyes and turn back to the tactical army in black standing over