Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
They were the only other ones who had something other than a bike.
A furor of activity rushed around us. Boots thundering. Trent scooped Nolan into his arms, and Theo and Cash helped me carefully lift Charleigh, doing our best not to jostle her so I could keep the compress held firmly to her side.
They cast me worried glances, glances that made it feel like I was the one being stabbed straight through, knowing what those expressions meant.
She was in trouble.
The situation dire.
My heart bleeding out.
We carried her to the back door of the car, and I slid in with her in my lap.
Fucking praying with all the strength I had.
“You’re going to be okay,” I whispered the hoarse words, my arm bound around her as I held her against my chest, my hand wedged between us to give extra pressure to the compress. “You’re going to be okay. Just breathe. Breathe.”
I poured my belief into her.
Otto jumped into the driver’s seat and tore out of the lot. He sped back through town.
I was so close to telling him to take us to the emergency room. To get her immediate help. But I’d promised. Knew it wasn’t what Charleigh would want.
Nolan would be taken from me if it was discovered what I’d done, and she’d made me promise, no matter what, that Nolan would be the first priority.
The second we made it through the town, Otto gunned it, taking the car to its limits. Trees whizzed by on both sides of the road as we traveled the twenty miles back to Moonlit Ridge, the landscape growing denser with each second that passed.
He made the thirty-minute drive in half the time, and my heart was battering at my chest as he blazed through Moonlit Ridge. He barely slowed as he took a sharp left into the parking lot of the medical facility, and he flew around to the back of the building to the private door.
He screeched to a stop. I didn’t wait, I tossed open the door and jumped out with Charleigh in my arms.
Dr. Reynolds was already there holding the door open.
“Hurry,” he wheezed, and I angled around him and jogged down the hall to the private room that we’d had stocked for circumstances exactly like this, though I’d never imagined it would be quite like this. I’d always thought it’d be a stranger I’d carry in and not the woman who’d come to mean everything to me.
The one I could feel beating through my veins.
The one I could feel slipping away.
I laid her on the elevated examination table.
“Help her.” I fucking begged it, I didn’t care.
Dr. Reynolds shuffled forward, then he stumbled in confusion. “Charleigh?”
My chest clutched in a fit of desperation. “She’s Nolan’s biological mother. Help her. Save her. We can’t lose her.”
“Oh my God.” The old man jumped into action, his concern clear as he examined the wound and then bustled to the cabinets to pull out supplies.
I knew he knew what he was doing. A retired surgeon who’d opened his own practice once he’d left the hospital in Denver. A man who’d shown his integrity and care and compassion with every victim we’d brought through his door.
Still, my insides were in knots of grief and tangles of desperation.
Trapped in the disturbance, Otto hovered at the doorway, his face a mess of sorrow and sympathy.
I turned back to my girl. My perfection. My match.
And I pressed my lips to her temple and murmured, “Don’t leave, Little Runner. Don’t leave. Run back to me.”
SIXTY
CHARLEIGH
I blinked my eyes open to the golden haze that saturated the room. It was quiet, and the rods of sunlight that slanted in through the bedroom window appeared alive. Dancing as they played through the motes that dusted the air.
My thoughts were fuzzy and disjointed, but in an instant, I recognized one thing.
The soft pants that puffed from the child’s mouth where he was fast asleep beside me. Both blue stuffed puppies were tucked to his chest, his little arm holding them close as he slept.
He was on his side, his precious face turned toward me. My fingers trembled as I reached out and brushed them down his chubby cheek.
Love swelled. Swelled to overflowing.
Nolan.
My son.
“He wouldn’t leave your side.” That low voice rumbled from across the room, and I jerked, then shifted enough to find River standing in the doorway. His giant body was leaned against the jamb, all that ferocity shearing through his features.
My heart that was already filled to overflowing leapt.
I attempted to sit up, then yelped as a smack of pain pierced through my middle.
River’s hands shot out like he could reach all the way across the room and keep me pinned to the bed. “Don’t try to get up.”
I rolled until I was flat on my back and staring up at the ceiling. I gently placed my hand over the throbbing in my side.