Twisted Up (Taking Chances #1) - Erin Nicholas Page 0,105

drive, and the tires squealed as they tried to grip the wet pavement.

Avery supported her injured arm with her other hand under the elbow and worked to keep her eyes open. They were definitely open for the stop sign Jake tore through.

“Hey! What the hell, Jake?” She wasn’t out of it enough to not notice him breaking every traffic law in the book.

“What the hell?” he asked. “What the hell? I’ll tell you what the hell! For more than an hour I stood there behaving, staying out of the way, almost going out of my mind but letting you do your job, just watching. I did good. I didn’t ask anyone how things were or where you were. I didn’t go stomping into the building. I did nothing. Do you know how fucking hard that is for me?”

He gave her a scowl, and Avery tried to make her mouth work. But honestly, it was impossible. She did, actually, know how hard it was for Jake to do nothing. She was trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Jake had been only a bystander when there was a crisis going on.

“You just stood by?”

“Yes. Then you came walking out, and you took off your helmet, and I knew you were fine. I handled it. I was there and didn’t do a damned thing. I was proud of myself.”

She had to admit she was proud of him, too. Not doing a damned thing for Jake was like . . . Well, she was blanking on a perfect example, but it was amazing. Jake couldn’t even do nothing when there were Boy Scouts camping in the town square. Even then he had to jump in and get involved. He couldn’t just be sure they had sandwiches and water. No, he turned the whole thing into a party with music, dancing, and s’mores.

“Wow, Jake, that’s—”

“Then you get hit by a tree branch. A fucking tree branch. You made it out of a tornado and a fire, but then a tree branch comes down and you just have to be the one standing under it, don’t you?”

She started to respond but he wasn’t done.

“Do you know the statistical probability of you being underneath a tree when it gets struck by lightning?”

She shook her head, her eyes wide. “No. Do you?” Was there a statistic for that in one of his manuals?

“A gazillion to one!” he roared.

One look at his face told her that pointing out that those numbers were not an exact statistic would be a very, very bad idea.

They pulled up in front of city hall, and Jake slammed the truck into park. Avery gasped against the pain the jerking of the truck caused.

Jake must have heard the gasp, because he looked over at her and his scowl intensified. He shoved a hand through his hair. “Jesus, Avery, my heart almost stopped when I saw that branch fall on you.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. Her shoulder hurt like a mother, and she was probably on light duty now for a while, but she was alive and, more important, Sami, Rachel, and the rest of their family were, too.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’ll live.” She managed a smile.

“I might not,” he muttered.

Wes was at her door a minute later, swinging it open and pulling her from the seat, as if he’d been waiting for them. “You okay?”

Avery rubbed her arm. “Nothing a bag of ice and some ibuprofen won’t fix.”

His gaze followed her hand. “You’re hurt.”

“I’ll be okay.”

Wes’s big arm went around her. “I’ve got you. Lean on me,” he said in the deep, firm, but gentle voice she’d always associated with him. It wasn’t unlike Jake’s commanding voice. Though Jake tended to get louder.

Avery did as she was told. And it felt wonderful. Wes was solid and strong, and she knew he’d take care of her. She felt her throat tighten and concentrated on walking toward city hall and not blubbering all over him.

It was her shoulder. She didn’t need help to walk. But she’d take it.

Somehow she sensed that meant a lot to both of the men with her.

They made it only as far as inside the front doors.

“I’ve got this, Dad.” Jake bent and swung Avery up into his arms again, careful not to bump her shoulder.

There was no way he was not going to touch her at this point. As he’d told her, he’d behaved, he’d watched for an hour as she and the crew battled the fire. He’d controlled himself while she’d