What did I do next?
I started to cry.
I was such a loser.
CHAPTER 21
Crockett: you better watch out. I’m a lioness.
Zach: I think you mispronounced lyin’ ass.
-Text from Zach to Crockett
CROCKETT
“Can you watch Baby Bark for me?” I smiled at Zach.
Baby Bark, according to a friend of Lynn’s that was a veterinarian, was healthy, disease-free, and safe to bring inside with me. Within reason. She was, apparently, still a wild animal.
But apparently, she was my wild animal.
Not Zach’s, definitely not Cleo’s, and for sure not the vet’s.
Because, oh my God, had my girl gone nutso when he’d tried to handle her.
And Baby Bark really wasn’t her name. I hadn’t come up with one yet. Baby Bark had just been what Cleo had called her and it’d kind of stuck for now until I could come up with something cute.
But last night, my brain just hadn’t been into it.
There’d just been too much to process.
“Why?” Zach asked me suspiciously.
I held up my running shoes and showed them to him. “I’m going to go run. I don’t think I’ll be able to get my training in at the track today, so I thought that I’d get a short fast run in, get a shower, then we can head back up to the hospital.”
Zach looked at me, at Baby Bark, then at me. “She doesn’t do well with you gone. Just take her with you. I’m sure she’s used to running.”
I rolled my eyes. “I…”
The door that I’d partially held open was knocked out of my hand, and then Baby Bark was outside ready to run with me.
“Shit,” I grumbled.
I’d never get her inside. She really liked it better outside, but if I was inside, she’d go inside. It was just a struggle to get her there.
“Fine,” I said. “But, just stay by your phone. I may need you to come get her if this doesn’t go well.”
He held up his thumb, then went back to tying a knot in some rope.
I wasn’t sure what he was doing with said rope, but when I’d asked him, he’d said ‘practicing.’ So I’d left it at that.
This morning we’d both woken up early, curled in each other’s arms, the day and subsequent night before heavy on our minds.
We’d both gotten up around four, him to do whatever he did with his spare time, and me to call Murphy and see if he needed any help.
Only, I’d been told in no uncertain terms that my time off wasn’t finished yet. No, he didn’t need any help, and to top it off, he was thinking about closing down the convenience part of the store and leaving it as a restaurant for me to do with what I would.
After that, he’d promptly hung up, giving me more than a few things to think about on my run this morning.
I sat down to tie my shoes on the front steps, and then when I was ready, I looked at the coyote pup next to me. “You ready?”
The puppy didn’t answer me, but when I started to run, she dove off into the woods that I was running near and kept up with me. Easily, I might add.
While I ran, I kept an eye on her but kept my mind on what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
I was a highly trained chef. I’d spent quite a bit of my time as a chef in a popular restaurant in Nashville. I knew my way around a kitchen.
I just… didn’t want to do that anymore.
I didn’t know if it was because of the burnout that I’d felt from doing the chef thing in Nashville, or because I was forced to do the things I didn’t want to do here at home.
Whatever the reason, I wanted to cook for fun, not for a job.
Which then translated to me needing to find something that I did want to do. Hopefully something that would accommodate my running, because that was something I for sure knew that I wanted to do.
I wasn’t paying attention.
I was running, again looking at my watch to check my pace, when out of nowhere something hit me hard.
So hard, in fact, that I was flung, end over end, into the ditch that was beside the road.
I spent my last thoughts thinking about how awful this would be for Zach to find before I felt stars dancing in my vision.
I had just enough energy to turn and see the back of my father’s car speeding away toward home before I passed out.
• • •
My eyes peeked open, and all I saw was blue sky.
I’d passed out.
After my father had left, I’d fully expected to die right there in the ditch.
But I hadn’t.
“Crockett!” I heard someone yell.
I frowned, my face hurting almost immediately from the action, and tried to turn my head.
My brain exploded in pain.
I’m talking, eyes closing, watering, and feeling like they were about to pop right out of my head pain.
Then the howling started.
The howling hurt my head, too.
But what it also did was draw the attention of whoever was calling my name.
The voice sounded familiar, but also sounded like one that I didn’t hear all that often.
I knew why a few seconds later when the bright sun was blotted out as something leaned over me. I looked up to find Bruno staring at me with horror on his face.
“Oh, fuck, doll.” He dropped down to the ground beside me, started to reach for me, but thought better of it. “Oh, fuck.”
I knew it was bad.
But seeing the horror on his face? That cemented it for me.
This was bad.
Really, really bad.
CHAPTER 22
Woke up fat again.
-Text from Ford to Zach
ZACH
“She has a concussion,” the doctor, one I hadn’t worked with before, said. “A very bad one. We’re going to monitor her brain for swelling. She has a cut on her head that’s the cause of the horror show that she was when she was brought in. I closed it with two stitches. Overall, everything else is fine. No broken bones or anything. She was very lucky.”
She was hit by a car. Yes, that made her very lucky.
“I’m having her moved up to the first floor where she can stay a night or two. I’ll remain her doctor, though, since that’s my area. The brain,” Dr. Lout murmured.
I nodded, thankful that I had a good one looking after my girl.
After he left, I looked at Bruno.
“What happened?” I asked, rubbing my face.
He’d already told me what he’d seen—a white sedan hitting Crockett—but that’d been in the thick of panic.
Now, knowing she would be okay, I was able to listen a little bit better.
“It was her father,” he said. “I got the license plate number as he was driving off. Laric and Trouper are bringing in the father as we speak.”
I knew what ‘bringing in’ meant, and I wanted no part of it. If I saw that bastard, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
I gritted my teeth. “Tell them to take him to the police station. Let them handle him.”
I didn’t want him on my conscience.
As much as I’d like that motherfucker to die, I didn’t want to be the one to pull the trigger.
Because, eventually, Crockett would want to know details. And I didn’t think she’d like it if she knew that I was the one to murder her father.
Bruno sighed as if I’d just taken away his puppy.
“I can’t believe you don’t want to bring him in,” he grumbled, pouting like a teenage girl instead of the grown man I knew him to be.
I turned then, my eyes going to Bruno. “As long as I have no part in it, I don’t care what you do. Take him to the police station. Take him to the fuckin’ pig farm you think nobody knows about. I don’t give a flying fuck. Just make sure that asshole doesn’t get anywhere near me. I’m finding that I like being on the outside.”
“I can do that.” Bruno grinned then. “I can def
initely do that.”
“Um, Zach?”
I jolted, my eyes going to the nurse that had called my name softly.
Pru, Cheyenne’s daughter, was staring at me with a small smile on her face. “She’s asking for you.”
I gave Bruno a pointed glance, making sure that my position on the matter of her father was clear. At receiving the nod, I headed in the direction of the room where they’d put her for the time being until she could be transferred up to one of the overnight beds on the first floor.
When I passed the glass doors, it was to find her eyes barely open and staring at me.
I tried to grin, but I could tell by the look on her face that I didn’t quite accomplish it.
“I’m okay.”
I shook my head and walked right up to her, my hand catching hers.
“I don’t know about that,” I admitted.
She brought her hand up, and I could tell that even that had pained her.
I dropped down until I was in the seat beside her bed and then pressed her hand to my face.
“Don’t ever make me do that again,” I rasped, my lips brushing against her hand as I spoke.
She lifted her hand up and cupped the back of my head.
“I’ve already made a vow,” she promised. “I won’t ever run with headphones again. Next time, I’ll hear the cars and I won’t be surprised.”
I blew out a breath.
I knew that this entire thing was a fluke.
I also knew that I couldn’t hold this against her. She was a runner. She wouldn’t be happy running on a treadmill or around the track just so I could know she was safe.
Fuck.
“At least this way I won’t go through another pair of headphones that suck,” she tried to tease.
The joke fell flat, but I appreciated her trying to cheer me up anyway.
I also knew something else.
I wanted her. Forever.
If there was one thing that could scare me into forever, it was almost losing her.
When this happened with my girlfriend, I’d been freaked out. I’d been scared for her. I’d been mad.
With Crockett, she was in much better shape. I knew that she was going to be just fine. I knew that, no matter what, she would be walking out of here.
In all honesty, there was nothing to freak out about.
Yet, I felt like my world had just stopped turning.
When I’d gotten the call from Bruno, I’d stopped taking deep breaths. My chest still fucking hurt.
Crockett and Juniper were like night and day when it came to what they made my heart feel.
Crockett was, undoubtedly, my reason to breathe.
Juniper, although I’d cared for her, hadn’t torn me to shreds at the thought that she could possibly be taken from me.
Just the thought when it came to Crockett felt like someone had shoved their hands straight into my chest, grabbed my heart with two hands and squeezed.
“Marry me,” I ordered.
It was not a request, and she knew it.
“When?” she rasped, a small smile gracing those perfect lips.
No, ‘yes!’ no ‘oh my God!’ Just cool, calm, and collected Crockett. Even after everything that she’d just gone through.
“Tomorrow.” I paused. “Or, if you’re not out of here yet, then the moment you’re well enough to walk out these doors.”
Tomorrow was wishful thinking on my part. There was no way in hell after what she’d just endured that she would be walking anywhere tomorrow. Even if I wished for it.
“The moment I can walk out of here and stand for a good twenty minutes,” she agreed. “But you should probably go apply for a marriage license. I hear those take forty-eight hours to acquire.”
I pulled back so I could see her eyes.
They were shining with mirth.
“What?” I asked, feeling my heart start to swell at the look in her eyes.
She bit her lip and shook her head, seemingly refusing to answer.
“What?” I repeated, poking her in the side and causing her to giggle.
Then groan.
“Tell me,” I pleaded.
She bit her lip, then leaned forward so that she was close to my ear.
“I was thinking, ‘yay! The same penis forever!’” she whispered.
At that I burst out laughing.
“It’s not that it’s the same penis forever,” I teased. “It’s that it’s my penis forever.”
We were married forty-eight hours later, on the dot.
My parents were there. So was her coyote. As well as all of the family and friends we could fit into the room.
Her father wasn’t there.
I didn’t ask Bruno where he was. I didn’t want to have to lie to my wife later.
Instead, we all just blissfully pretended that he was in police custody, even though I knew that he probably was not.
Crockett’s siblings, however, were another story.
She hadn’t wanted to invite them.
Then again, even if we’d wanted to invite Rockett, she wouldn’t have been able to come. Not after shooting a man in cold blood.
She did, however, have a very good lawyer, Swayze.
I made sure of that.
The only real thing that was missing now was Zakelina. Though she hadn’t made it out of the hospital—yet—she would. And when she came home, she’d be coming to the home that Crockett and I now shared.
EPILOGUE
On December 29th, 1845, Texas allowed America to join it.
You’re welcome.
-Text from Crockett to Zach
ZACH
“Run, baby, run!” I cupped my hands around my mouth.
Even though it was likely nearly impossible for her to hear my bellow, I still yelled anyway.
A year and a half ago, when I urged her to follow her dreams of becoming a runner, I’d known that she would be a star.
I didn’t know that she would be quite this big of a star.
She was currently ranked fourth of all females in the United States. After her first marathon win, she qualified for the Boston Marathon. After her Boston Marathon second-place finish, she was officially sponsored by the shoe brand that she wore. A few weeks after that, she had to give up that sponsorship because she qualified for the Olympics.
And right now, we were officially running in the Olympics.
She was having a very good run.
I’m talking, the best that she’d ever had.
I grinned wickedly.
She was on her last half a mile, and I knew that she was about to take bronze at least.
That meant that she was third out of four hundred and eighty women.
Fucking. Third.
But she didn’t have it clenched yet.
She had a half a mile, now about one and a quarter laps, to go.
And there were about thirty women at her back running just as fast as she was now.
My heart was in my throat, and I felt vomit creeping up there right along with it.
My hands were shaking, and I was freaking the fuck out.
“She’s going to make it,” my dad promised.
“Yeah, Zach!” Zakelina screamed. “She’s gonna make it!”
I wish I had their confidence.
Seriously, I wish I did.
“She’s gonna make it!” my mother squealed, bouncing up and down with Zakelina, our newly adopted daughter, in her arms.
I watched as Zakelina clapped and cheered, all worry gone from her eyes, and knew the truth.
Crockett was going to make it.
I could see that now.
Where the other women had started to run faster, she’d kicked it up a notch.
I could see her leg muscles popping as she kicked it into the last gear. A gear that I’d never seen in anyone else but her.
She could ignore pain like nobody I’d ever seen before.
It was something that I admired about her. During races anyway.<
br />
Afterward, when she was hurting, I kind of hated that she was able to mentally turn that off.
“Oh, God. She’s really close to second,” Six, who’d come to watch the marathon with us, breathed.
“Holy shit,” Swayze and Wyett said at the same time. “She looks really fierce.”
She did.
Then, sadly, though she was close to second place, the woman from Kenya clenched it, giving Crockett third.
I erupted from my seat, screaming my lungs out.
“Crockett!” I bellowed. “Yeahhhhhh!”
It took me eight and a half minutes to make my way to her, and when I found her, she was panting, eating a banana, and looking for me despite a reporter asking her questions.
When I spotted her, her face lit into a grin that she reserved only for me.
I got close enough to hear the reporter’s next question.
“What are you going to do now?” the news journalist asked.
Still, to this day, after as many races as she’d run, she was still nervous as hell to talk to anyone that wasn’t a friend or family.
But she was getting so much better.
Her nervousness was turning into confidence, and each day that her wings spread even more, a sense of pride would hit me at being able to call the woman mine.
“Now?” She looked at me, the microphone in her face. “It’s time to have this baby.”
The reporter’s mouth all but fell open.
“You’re pregnant?” the woman all but screeched, shock leeching into her voice. “You just won third place, bronze, in the Olympics. And you’re pregnant? That’s twenty-six point two miles!”
To say that we were surprised when we found out that Crockett was expecting our baby would be an understatement.
Not only were we extremely careful—I mean, hello! The woman was going to the Olympics. As much as I wanted a baby, I wanted her to win the fuckin’ gold first—but we were very conscious of avoiding certain parts of the month.
I wanted to make sure that nothing was there to hinder Crockett’s progress.
Only, our little baby hadn’t cared how careful we were.
When we’d found out that she was pregnant six weeks ago, we’d freaked out.
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