Make Me

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  I swallowed bile and said, “What do you need?”

  “My medical bag out of the truck,” he said. “Now.”

  It was the clipped ‘now’ that had me hauling ass outside of the house and heading in the direction of our SUV.

  I ignored the little bloody footprints as well as Jane’s discarded doll—that also had bloody handprints on it—and crossed the yard to the SUV that we parked beside the house.

  Yanking the door open, I had the medical bag out and in my hand in the next second, hauling ass back across the yard.

  When I arrived in the kitchen, Justice still had the wound uncovered.

  “Should we call 911?” I asked.

  Had I already asked?

  Jane started to cry harder.

  Bryce whimpered pitifully from somewhere on the other side of Loki.

  I looked at my husband who shook his head.

  “It all looks superficial,” he said.

  I swallowed hard.

  That wound did not look superficial. In fact, it looked deep and angry and Jesus Christ, I was going to throw up.

  “Royal,” Justice barked. “I need some four-by-four bandages.”

  I threw his go-bag—also known as his medical bag that we kept in the car at all times—onto the floor and had it unzipped in a matter of seconds.

  I was hastily yanking open what I assumed was the right four-by-four package when he said, “No! Not that one.”

  I threw it down and looked again, finding another such package that could work.

  Or, at least, I thought I was.

  Turns out that one wasn’t the right four-by-four package either.

  “No, that one is for gut wounds. I need one that’ll absorb,” he said. “Deep in the pocket.”

  I did this for another two instances before I just fucking lost it.

  “Can we please just take her to the goddamn hospital already, Justice?” I screeched.

  Okay, this was all too much. I was losing it.

  I didn’t do blood well—especially since it was one of my kids that I didn’t do it well with—and Justice was bitching over goddamn four-by-fours when he could just wrap her leg up with fucking paper towels like he was already doing and drive her ass to the hospital.

  Loki stepped away and came my way, bending down and retrieving the four-by-fours in seconds.

  He had them open, and he was pressing them down onto the wound, covering up the wound, in seconds.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when I could no longer see it.

  Out of sight, out of mind.

  Which was a big fucking lie.

  My daughter had a cut so deep on her leg that I could see fucking bone.

  After everything was pressed to her leg and held down, Justice then wrapped her leg up with a bandage and I held out a really big Band-Aid and he took it without complaint.

  I wasn’t sure why.

  My brain was just broken.

  And my daughter’s cries were breaking my heart.

  Each tear that tracked down the cheeks that came from those eyes so much like her father’s, literally tore out a piece of my soul.

  “All right, baby. Let’s take you to the hospital,” Justice said. “You’re going to have to ride in your car seat and rest your leg on some pillows. Okay?”

  “We’ll stay here and watch over Bryce.”

  That was when I looked over and saw Channing holding a silently crying Bryce.

  “I’m so sorry, Jane. I didn’t mean to.”

  I was honestly surprised that I could understand him with how hard he was crying.

  Jane looked over at her brother and said two words. “Love you.”

  Thirty minutes later, we were in a bed in the ER with nurses and doctors crowding around.

  “Holy shit,” the doc said. “That’s a good one. What happened?”

  Justice leaned forward, blood finally wiped clean from his hands, and said, “My parents have a chicken coop. There was a really big spider near it. But to get closer, they wanted to chop some grass down. My father and I had gone to the shop to get the weed-eater, and my mom had gone inside to check on dinner. My wife was in the shower. While we were all gone, my children decided to do their own bushwhacking with sharpened spears. My son took a swing at the grass and lost his balance, falling to the side. The sharpened spear came around and tore straight through the skin of Jane’s calf.”

  The doc winced, right along with me.

  I pressed my cold hands against my eyes and counted to ten.

  “Well,” the doc said. “From here I’m going to recommend laughing gas to calm her down. Then we’ll numb and stitch.”

  Justice nodded.

  “Will it hurt?” Jane whimpered.

  I looked at the doc for him to lie to my baby and tell her that it wouldn’t hurt at all, but he didn’t.

  Just like Justice didn’t.

  “Yes,” he paused. “But only a little bit. Not much worse than I think it’s already hurting for you.”

  The burly nurse came in and sat down next to my daughter, grinning at her wickedly.

  “Have you ever had laughing gas before?” he asked.

  And from there, the ER staff went on to take care of my baby in every way.

  They brought her a blanket and a bear. A bag of goodies. Then they stitched her up and she didn’t cry once.

  The physician’s assistant, who was the one that stitched her up, sat back with a smile.

  “All right,” she said. “How many stitches was the bet?”

  I looked over at Jane and said, “Jane said thirty. Daddy and Mommy both said twenty.”

  “Well, looks like Jane wins. It was twenty-six,” she declared. “Nine internal and seventeen external.”

  I felt nauseous all over again.

  But I didn’t throw up or lose my cool. Not in the hospital. Not in the parking lot. And not in the car on the way home.

  “Well,” Justice said as we were driving home. “That was fun.”

  I looked over at him like he was crazy.

  “That was not fun,” I said.

  He reached for my hand and brought it to his lips. “I know.”

  I just shook my head.

  Justice’s sense of humor was morbid since he was a cop. I’d learned to deal with the morbidness that came with the police-wife territory, but I still didn’t enjoy the blood stories.

  I could handle the drunk and disorderlies. I could handle the fights and when he came home with a scraped arm or a cut on his chin. I could also handle the high-speed chases.

  What I couldn’t handle was when he’d tell me that they worked traffic control at a railroad crossing where two paramedics high-fived using the stray body-parts they had in their hands.

  But I was also thankful that Justice was able to handle his shit in situations like that.

  Because we’d have been fucked tonight after that.

  “Mommy,” Jane said from the seat directly behind me. “I need ice cream.”

  Justice looked at his watch.

  “None of the ice cream places are open,” he said.

  “What about a quart of it from the gas station?” She batted her eyes at him. “Or you could also get me a Coke and a Snickers bar and a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos.”

  I snickered when Justice looked at me with a laugh caught in his throat.

  “I also think that I’m going to make Bryce wait on me hand and foot,” she declared. “He’ll do it.”

  Bryce would do it. He adored his sister, and I knew without a doubt that he felt terrible for what he’d done.

  He was a soft soul, just like my brother is.

  Speaking of my brother…

  “Shit,” I said. “I forgot to call Jimmy back.”

  When I hit his name on the truck’s Bluetooth, he answered on the first ring.

  “Holy shit,” my brother said. “That was a sick ass cut.”

  I looked ov
er at Justice to see him shrug. “He wanted to see it.”

  I just bet he did.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “So why did I bother calling you back when you already had the nitty-gritty from Justice?” I asked him.

  Justice curled his hand around mine and let me talk to my brother. When we got to the gas station, he got out and went inside, stopping to pick Jane up on his way.

  When they went inside, I blew out a shaky breath.

  “That bad?” Jimmy asked.

  “Worse,” I confirmed. “Her leg was just sitting there, gaping open. God, it was a big gash. And there was blood everywhere. Poor Channing is going to be cleaning forever. There was blood on the walls. Floors. Cabinets where it splashed up onto them from the floor and dripped off of Jane’s leg. God.” I shivered just thinking about it all over again.

  “I can’t believe that they did that,” Jimmy said.

  I snorted.

  I could.

  Our kids really were wild.

  It didn’t matter if it was the most innocuous looking thing in the world. If my kids could use it as a weapon, they would.

  “So this was all done with a spear?” Jimmy asked.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose as I tried to get my breathing to even out.

  “Yes,” I said. “Or a sharpened sword. Hell, I don’t know. I haven’t really had the time to go check what they actually used. But I heard Loki say while we were getting Jane ready to leave that they were sharpening sticks with other sticks.”

  Jimmy laughed then.

  “They’re going to pay you back for all the shitty things you did throughout your childhood.” Jimmy’s amused voice made me want to punch him in the throat.

  I thought about that for a moment.

  I hadn’t been a bad kid, but a teenager? Yeah, I’d been bad.

  I’d done anything that I could to stick it to my father.

  Then again, I still did that.

  “I guess so,” I admitted. “But I don’t remember ever having to deal with you taking a sharpened spear to me.”

  Jimmy started to laugh.

  “No,” he agreed. “But there was that one time I pushed you off of the chair we were standing on, and you busted your chin open on the fence.”

  I snorted.

  “There was also that one time I stabbed you in the eye with the scissors.” He paused. “Or the other time that I stabbed you in the face with that paring knife and you had to have stitches in your lip.”

  All of that was true.

  “Though, I don’t remember you ever doing anything to me.” He paused. “Except that time you rolled me out into the middle of traffic when you’d first met Justice and you left me there.”

  I snickered at that.

  “You deserved that, and you know it,” I challenged.

  Jimmy didn’t dispute that fact.

  “All right,” I said as I watched Justice come out of the gas station with a bulging bag of food. “I’m gonna go. I gotta get home and get the kids sorted.”

  “Be safe when you come home tomorrow,” he said. “Love you.”

  Seconds later, I was left staring at my husband as he effortlessly carried our seventy-two-pound daughter out to the truck.

  I knew she was seventy-two pounds because I’d had to get on the scale with her.

  I also knew that I’d gained ten pounds myself…which I wasn’t happy about.

  “Love you too, Jimmy,” I murmured and hung up.

  “We’re set for life,” Justice announced once they were both settled and he was heading back to his parents’ once again.

  I snorted as I looked at the bag in my lap. “You think?”

  The drive was short and sweet, and each time I glanced back at Jane, it was to find her sleeping.

  We walked into the house and Bryce immediately rocketed into our direction.

  He looked up at his sister and said, with big fat tears in his eyes, “I’m sorry for being mean. I didn’t mean to be mean. I’m not usually so mean.”

  I picked Bryce up and cradled him against my chest.

  “It was an accident, baby,” I said to him. “We know that you didn’t mean to. And you’re not mean.”

  Bryce buried his face into my chest and latched his arms around my neck before bursting out crying.

  I looked over to find Loki and Channing standing in the middle of the living room.

  “He’s been doing that since you left,” Loki rumbled. “Apologizing over and over.”

  I squeezed Bryce just a little bit tighter.

  “Bryce, I got Daddy to stop and get us some food. Let’s eat it,” Jane cried.

  Bryce lifted his head up, then nodded once.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Then, that was it.

  Jane had forgiven him, and Bryce had forgiven himself.

  Justice set the bag of food down onto the counter and helped Jane get into the seat across the bar-height counter. When they were both situated, he came back and looked at his parents.

  “Twenty-six stitches,” he said. “Nine were internal, which she says will push through the wound when they’re ‘done,’ and seventeen external, which we have to have out in two weeks.”

  Channing let out a shaky breath.

  Loki wrapped his hand around his wife.

  “That scared the shit out of me,” she admitted.

  I felt a tear slip down my cheek. “Me, too.”

  Justice picked me up in his arms and led me to the couch where we sat quietly together, me in his lap, and listened to our kids bicker about who got what color Starburst.

  It was only after they were happily eating away at their pizza that I turned to look at my husband.

  “I’m fairly sure I’m in need of a nap,” I teased. “Oh, and I love you.”

  Justice squeezed me tighter, then pressed a kiss to my temple.

  “Never knew having kids would freak me out as much as it does.” He laughed. “Jesus, that was fun.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” I snickered.

  “Because,” he said. “It’s either I say that, or I cry right along with you.” He swallowed hard. “Never thought I’d have anything that I cared about as much as you and those kids. It scares me when one of those lives are in jeopardy.”

  I pressed a kiss to his throat and turned to watch as Loki and Channing came to the couch.

  It was only after a long moment of silence that I said, “I’m never having any more kids.”

  Justice squeezed me tight as his parents started to laugh.

  “Papa!” Jane cried. “Did you see my stitches?”

  It was much later, in the dark of night, when Justice was holding me, that I lost control.

  I let out all the fear and anxiety that the night had held for me, and I cried into my husband’s chest.

  He held me through it all, and not once did he let me go. Not even when I practically used his chest hair as a snot rag.

  “That could’ve been so bad,” I whispered.

  He tightened his arms around me.

  “It wasn’t.”

  “But it could’ve been,” I said.

  “But it wasn’t,” he repeated. “Kiss me, baby.”

  I didn’t bother denying him.

  I needed the touch and the reminder that everything was okay, and Justice had always been that for me.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  And, like every single time that I said it, he told me what number it was for him.

  “12,345,” he rumbled.

  Then he kissed me.

  What’s Next?

  Sinners Are Winners

  Book 5 of The KPD Motorcycle Patrol Series

  Chapter 1

  Why do ducks have to be in a row at all?

  -Lock’s secret thoughts

  Lock

  Six months later

  “God, this fuckin’ cake is fucking amazing.�
� I groaned, loving the way the creamy texture of the icing tasted. “Who made this?”

  Royal, one of my good friend’s fiancée, smiled.

  “I know, right?” Her face sobered then. “Her name is Saylor Spada. She has a business that she runs out of her house, Dixie’s Cakes.” She frowned. “I’m so sad that she’s leaving.”

  The thought of never getting a taste of a cake this good ever again really left me feeling sad.

  I was a huge fan of sweets. If I passed a bakery, there was about a ninety-nine percent chance that I wasn’t going to stop myself from running in and trying something inside.

  Hence the reason I ran five miles five days out of the week, and lifted weights like it was going out of style.

  I had to double up my workouts and add on mileage just to fuel the habit.

  “I think I was supposed to pick up a cake from her once. I didn’t actually get the chance to get it because I was running late. Rune had to end up picking up her own cake.” I paused. “Why’s she leavin’?”

  Justice, my good friend and a fellow motorcycle patrol unit operator that sometimes partnered with me, sauntered into the room.

  He took one look at my half-eaten slice of cake and narrowed his eyes.

  “That’s my wedding cake,” he said.

  “Actually,” I corrected him. “This was a sample of the wedding cake. Since you couldn’t be here, I graciously volunteered to help her try it.”

  “I couldn’t be here because I was fuckin’ working,” Justice countered. “Hey, did you hear that we’re getting a new guy?”

  I forked up another bite of food and shook my head. “No. Why?”

  Weren’t we full?

  “I actually heard that this entire unit was his idea,” Justice said. “There’s a lot of talk at the PD about him, too.”

  “What talk?” I asked.

  I hadn’t heard shit.

  “He’s ex-military.” Justice shrugged. “And that he was fucked up and crazy.”

  I snorted. “Exactly what we need. A crazy motherfuckin’ cop on a bike with a death wish. We’ll have another goddamn Speed-Trap on our hands if we’re not careful.”

  With that, Justice started laughing.

  “I didn’t get the chance to meet him before he retired, but I hear he’s a legend.” Justice picked his soon-to-be wife up into his arms and sat before pulling her back down into his lap.