by Dee Tenorio
Locke looked up, blinking in the bright daylight, trying to get his bearings. Townspeople were milling around, some on their cell phones, probably calling for help.
“Daniel,” he tried to say, but his voice was hoarse for some reason.
His brother looked up, jaw still clenched, waiting for something he could do. All that strength, probably as much anger as Locke had inside, but nowhere to empty it. Nowhere to direct it.
“Keep your eye on Hall until the police get here. If he so much as twitches…” He didn’t have to say it. They both knew Daniel would break the bastard’s fucking neck before he ever had a chance to get close to their family again. He wouldn’t lose a moment of sleep over it, either.
Daniel nodded, moving for the store. He’d watch Hall as long as it took. And if the other man got stomped a few times while Daniel was watching… Well, who would know?
Locke turned to Dean. “Help me get them upstairs.”
Another nod and his brother started hustling Amanda into the sporting goods store. One of Spencer’s kids opened the door for them, shutting it as Locke carried Susie inside.
“Lock it,” he ordered, looking around for his cousin. Spencer wasn’t hard to find, his kids in a crowd behind him. Obviously, he’d been keeping them out of sight in case there were more shots. The girls looked traumatized as it was. “No one comes in unless it’s a sheriff or the EMTs. No one, you understand me?”
Spencer nodded too, but his brows crashed together. “Locke, your hand—”
“I’ll be fine. Just get the paramedics here.”
Susie’s arms tightened, her face pressing into his neck at that. He lifted her higher, carrying her as close to his heart as he could. She didn’t want to be seen and he didn’t blame her. She was still shaking. Or was that him?
With Spencer’s agreement, Locke finally followed his siblings into the back room, to the stairs that led to the elder twins’ apartment. Dean had made quick work of clearing their futon couch and was dropping a comforter over it as Locke walked in. Amanda was already sitting in their recliner, a massive polar-fleece sports blanket wrapped tight around her. Gingerly, ignoring the growing fire in his hand, Locke laid Susie on the cushion. Dean came back with a pillow for her head, slipping it behind her as carefully as he could. Susie curled her legs up to her chest, rolling onto her side, eyes closed, lips pressed tight. Dean looked to him, but Locke didn’t have any answers. She seemed to be holding herself in.
He smoothed her hair off her face, careful not to touch the bruises already forming on her jaw. “Baby?”
She shook her head, balling up tighter.
“Susie, talk to me,” he whispered in her ear, the stillness of her scaring him almost as much as that last gunshot.
Her hand wrapped around his wrist, gripping so tight he knew she wasn’t just getting a hold on her emotions. She was in pain.
Option after option ran through his mind. The gunshot so close to her head. The blood on her hairline. Had something fallen on her? Or… “Is it the baby?”
She nodded on a keening cry.
No. No. Fucking no.
“Hold on, Susie. We’ll get you to the hospital. Just hold on.” He reached for his back pocket, too late realizing he’d dropped his phone when the Suite Shoppe’s window had exploded. “Dean, get a hold of Penelope Montenga. Tell her to meet us at the hospital. Amanda, you’re coming with us—”
“Locke!” Spencer called from below. “There’s ambulances outside.”
He could make them come up and assess her or he could take her to them. Every second counted, but he didn’t know which was the right choice. The wrong decision could be disastrous.
Susie’s eyes opened, and he knew she was terrified. Far more than she must have been with Malcolm holding the gun to her head. But she simply grit her teeth and fixed him with a glare. “No matter what, we don’t give up on her, right?”
He nodded and she pushed out a slow breath.
“Get me down there.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice.
Seconds later, they were on their way back down the stairs. Spencer had rounded up the team, who were trying to figure out how to get their gurney through the front door. They wasted no time once Locke put her on it, belting her in and whisking her toward the ambulance. Locke followed, Amanda at his heels. They were just lifting her in when Daniel showed up.
An urgent hand on his shoulder, Daniel stopped him only by stepping into his path. “There’s a problem.”
Yes there was. Susie needed him and he wasn’t next to her.
“Later, Daniel. When you meet us at—”
“Now, damn it.” Daniel squeezed hard enough to get Locke’s attention back. “The guy’s dead, Locke.”
He waited for some remorse to hit him. For some kind of regret, even if it lacked any guilt. Nothing did.
“Tell them to arrest me at the hospital.” He climbed into the cab, reaching a hand down to Amanda.
“We can only take one of you,” the paramedic said, though he shrugged when all the Jackmans—including Susie—glared at him. “Or, we can make an exception.”
The doors pulled closed and they left the noise, the past and the horror behind.
Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.
Susie lay on her left side, facing the window, watching the day end through barely opened eyes. The thought played across her mind as it did all the other times she’d woken in a hospital. There was just something about the smell, the feel of the sheets and blankets that permeated her senses before she ever opened her eyes. Strangest thing, but no matter where she was, the view out of a hospital window was always the same. Blue sky, the tops of trees and fluffy white clouds drifting aimlessly. Maybe to make people feel calm.
It always made her feel lonely.
But then she’d never had anyone to break up the monotony before. Meaning she usually spent her hospital stays thinking about her pain and what she’d lost. What she would have to go back to…
Now, she dropped her gaze from the window. There was nothing out there she needed. Everything she wanted was right here in this room.
Being loud as hell.
“If the four of you don’t shut up—and I mean right now—I’m going to get out if this bed and shove this IV stand up someone’s ass.” Someone, of course, being Daniel. She looked over her shoulder at the culprits, three of whom actually looked guilty.
“What? I was just saying you’re the thinnest chick on this floor. You know, that’s a patient.” Because she really needed the clarification.
“We thought you were sleeping,” Amanda added, wincing an apology. It had been two days since everything had happened, and Amanda was still looking at Susie like she’d done something amazing for her. Susie tried to point out that the younger woman had saved her own life but Amanda refused to hear it. So Jackman, that one.
“I was.” The dryness of her tone was lacking something, though. She was just too damn…everything to scold them. And honestly, they were too relieved emotionally to take her seriously anyway.
Cole hadn’t been more than an arm’s length from Amanda since he’d caught up with them in the ER and the elder twins hadn’t stopped looking at Susie like she was their damn queen since either. As soon as she got a chance, she was going to bang their heads together to knock them out of it.
Locke, though…
He was asleep for the first time since they’d checked her in, and she was not about to let his dumbass little brother ruin it for him.
She looked at him, his body cramped into a foldout armchair bed nearly a foot below her own. His legs hung far past the length of the makeshift mattress and the blanket they’d been given was just big enough to keep his chest warm. She let her gaze caress the planes of his face, wanting to touch the stubble on his cheeks but afraid to wake him up.
His hand, bandaged and splinted, was curled up over his chest. She hadn’t gotten too good a look at it until one of the nurses saw blood drops at the side
of her bed. His knuckles had been torn up, the skin split over a few, but when she realized two of his fingers were actually broken… She almost felt bad for Malcolm. Almost.
Penelope hadn’t allowed the police in yet, though they were definitely expecting to speak with her in the near future. Daniel and Dean had gone out to talk with them the first day, keeping their conversation about it with Locke quiet and brief. No one had wanted to fill her in, especially Locke, but it wasn’t a secret the others could keep very well. Especially once the boys informed Locke that he wasn’t the reason Malcolm was dead.
She was.
The letter opener that had gone through his arm, cutting her own hand in the process, had nicked the artery. It had taken longer, but the effect was the same as if she’d sliced his wrist open. He’d bled out in minutes.
She still hadn’t begun to process what she felt about his death. He was gone, the relief of that too staggering to think past. She didn’t want to think past it. The last two days, she hadn’t been willing to think about him at all. All she’d been able to do was hold on to Locke’s good hand and pray. Beg. Hope that the baby would be okay.
Her external wounds were simple to treat, just a few cuts and bruises, really. Her jaw hurt, but that was to be expected. No teeth had come out, though the gums were going to be painful for a while. And she knew the split in her lip was going to drive her crazy until it healed, the same for the shallow slice across her palm. Her back still ached where Malcolm had stomped on her. Amanda had started to cry when she’d seen the bruises. Locke had clenched his teeth, his gaze fixed on hers while the nurse took pictures of it for the police report. Of all the injuries. Cataloging them, as she’d been through so many times before.
“You won’t ever have to do this again,” Locke vowed when the nurse left, kissing her hand and holding on to it like a lifeline.
“I know.” Her days as Malcolm’s victim—as anyone’s victim—were over.
Saving the baby, though… That hadn’t been as simple. Injections every four hours to curb the contractions. All the while, she was only allowed out of her bed to use the restroom and even then, Locke insisted on carrying her the few feet to the adjacent room and back again. The first shot got them to stop, but once the injection wore off, they started again. Penelope told them it was touch and go, but if they could get through the next twenty-four hours, their chances improved greatly.
A portable ultrasound had been brought in to check the baby’s state every few hours. Each time the baby was still there, still waving its tiny limbs as if nothing serious were going on, the clamp on her heart loosened a little bit more. Until slowly, so slowly she thought she might lose her mind, the cramps began to grow further and further apart. Finally, an hour ago, Penelope had tentatively given the all-clear. She would be on bed rest for a while, but as long as the contractions didn’t return through the night, she’d be able to go home the next day.
She lay here now, looking at the man she loved, the father of her child and so many other things she didn’t have the words to express. Relief just wasn’t good enough. Love might not be good enough, she decided. What she felt for him was too deep, too much a part of her soul—a soul he’d helped her sew back together piece by tattered piece—for one word to convey. But it was a start.
She felt someone heavy dip the mattress next to her folded knees. A quick process of elimination let her know it was Dean. Amanda and Cole would have to sit together to create the massive shape next to her and Daniel knew better than to get his ears within her reach. He didn’t say anything for the longest time, just watched Locke sleep right along with her.
“He’s the only person I know who doesn’t get any softer when he sleeps,” Dean murmured.
Susie turned her face enough to look at him. He hadn’t aged in the last few days, but he was different. More somber. It didn’t quite fit him, or at least, not how she thought of him. She looked back at Locke with a mental shrug. Who was she to judge how people were affected by close calls? For all she knew, this was who Dean really was, with his happy veneer stripped away. Like Locke had said, they all had their scars. This experience was just one more…
They’d almost lost their brother, the center of their lives, and they all knew it. She hadn’t said a word to any of them about Malcolm putting that gun to the back of Locke’s head, but they had watched him run into a room with an armed man. Run in without a second thought. She still couldn’t allow herself to remember it, though that moment would be etched into her mind for the rest of her life. She would never tell them any of it. All they needed was to know was that he had come out. Come back to them.
“You know you’re going to have to marry him now, right?”
Startled laughter bubbled out of her, and she found herself looking into eyes that had gone back to the dancing humor she was more familiar with. She smiled, shaking her head. Yes, she knew. Locke would never say as much, wouldn’t demand it, but he’d ache for it. A family man, all the way to his roots, and traditional as hell. Not being married to the mother of his child, the woman he’d almost given his life for? No, that wouldn’t sit right with him, no matter how many ways he told her it would.
“Yeah, I kinda figured that out.” The idea didn’t scare her, not the way it used to. Marriage to Locke wouldn’t be a cage. It would be a partnership. A commitment. A proclamation, even, that they’d come through everything that had been thrown at them. But to her, it was more than that.
“He saved my life.” Not just from Malcolm. In so many ways, holding her together until she could do it for herself. Over and over again, giving her everything of him, reminding her of her own strength. Her own needs as a person and a woman, never once holding her back. She didn’t understand how he’d done it, either. Bit by bit, day by day, seeping into her heart and life until he’d become her everything. Until she knew she was his everything too…
Dean’s hand startled her, fitting over her own and squeezing it gently. It took her a second to realize he was comforting her. His hand, warm and dry, almost as callused as Locke’s, though probably for very different reasons, felt strange in hers. She wasn’t a toucher, didn’t usually encourage people to be so with her. In fact, she usually made sure anyone who tried wouldn’t repeat the mistake. But…she recognized this touch for what it was. A brother’s support.
“We know.” He nodded his head to encompass the room and the people in it. Or maybe just the Jackmans as a whole, though Andrew was still on the road and the younger twins wouldn’t be home for another week. Their winter break was too close for Locke to allow them to risk their finals when everyone was physically okay. But they’d all been called. It hadn’t occurred to any of them to keep secrets from one another.
She felt silly, knowing what she said needed a better explanation. “I meant—”
“It’s okay, Susie.” Dean squeezed her hand again, shaking his head. “We know…because he saved us too.”
She smiled, her lips shaking as she looked around again. The other three nodded, full agreement on every face.
“What you don’t get is that you’re saving him.” Dean looked back at his brother, raw emotion flickering across his face. “He gave us all so much, but we could never be to him what you are. He’s whole again because of you.”
Susie didn’t know what to say to that. Wasn’t sure she could get any words past the lump in her throat anyway. All she could do was squeeze his hand back.
Dean coughed before looking at her again, covering his feelings with a carefree grin the way someone would shrug on a coat. But she could still see them, the shadows in his eyes that just couldn’t be shrugged away. Damn, she thought, holding in a sigh. She was going to have to rethink her position on the elder twins being stupid.
“Holy shit, did you guys just see that nurse who passed by?”
Well, maybe just Dean.
As if recognizing that his mask wasn’t working, Dean asked softly. “Promise you’ll make him absolutely crazy?”
Wha
t else could she do? She nodded. “With all my heart.”
“Do you two mind?” Locke’s gravelly voice sounded thicker than usual as it rumbled from him. He hadn’t moved, didn’t even open his eyes, but he was most assuredly awake. “You’re making it damn hard to sleep.”
“Lazy bastard,” Dean grumbled good-naturedly. “They’re gonna come toss us out pretty soon anyway. How about I drag the troops out of here, let you two have some time alone.”
“Man, I just ordered a pizza.”
Daniel’s complaint didn’t seem to register on Dean’s radar at all. “I’ll bring the truck back in the morning with some stuff for you two to change into. You can drop me off on the way home.” They all made some more arrangements, simple things. Mundane things. Groceries for the house. Moving the boxes from Susie’s apartment for her to have if she needed them. Getting the shop boarded up until the glass could be replaced. But they were all so happy to be making them. To take care of each other. Because, she figured, the Jackmans knew what it was like to make the other kinds of arrangements. To lose what mattered most. They valued every day together.
She listened to their voices as they drifted down the hall, leaving the maternity ward a much quieter place. She lay there, waiting for the man just below to grumble again. But he didn’t. She leaned closer to the edge, peering with narrowed eyes. Nope, not even a twitch.
Well, that just wouldn’t do.
He jumped when she flicked his shoulder. “What the hell?”
“You’re really going to just lie there and let your brother do your proposing?”
One eyelid lifted to half-mast. “You said yes, didn’t you?”
She frowned, and damn the man, he gave her a sexy, sleepy grin.
“I’m not stupid, baby. If I ask you again, you might decide you need to think about it. A yes is a yes in my book.”
“Why, you—”
He was laughing now, struggling to sit up in the hide-a-bed so he could get close enough to kiss her. It was a chaste one, especially for him, but the sweetness couldn’t be compared.
