Page 100 of Blue Norther
“Christ, your jaw looks awful.” Jessie stormed to the freezer, grabbing more bags of frozen vegetables and tossing them to Beau.
“I’m coming with you,” he groaned as he pressed the cold makeshift ice pack against his skin.
“Absolutely not.”
“I am. She was my responsibility, and I fucked everything up. You two losing each other the first time was your own goddamn mess, but I’m not being responsible for you losing her again.”
“You need to be here to tell the deputies who respond what happened. They’re on foot, Beau. I have a chance of catching them if they went deeper on the ranch.”
“Colt, I know you want to go after them right now, but it might be a smarter play to wait for backup. He’s unhinged. There’s no saying what kind of weapons he could have.”
Hawk had a point—but I couldn’t just do nothing. I couldn’t sit in our house, thinking of all the horrible things that sick bastard could be doing to her, without taking some sort of action.
“You’re right. I don’t want to get her hurt, or worse, if he’s truly unhinged.”
Living far outside the limits of Silver Springs was a blessing in many ways. The time it took for help to show up was not one of them.
I fucking paced back and forth with the baby monitor in my hand for what seemed like an eternity before the patrol cars and ambulance filled my front yard. I tossed the monitor to Jessie and was out the fucking door before anyone could say my name.
The rain poured down as my porch filled up with my coworkers.
“Ford, tell us what the fuck is going on?” Jonesy stood in front of me, his eyes wide with worry. The paramedics moved past us, heading straight into the house to deal with Beau.
“Demco, Mcallister, Langley. I want you on this house. My son is in there, and no one who isn’t already inside should stepfoot in there until I’m back with my wife. One on the inside, two on the outside.”
My phone chirped in my hand. As soon as I flipped up the screen to look at the alert coming in, I pointed to Nate and ran down the stairs towards his patrol car.
“Give me the keys!” I yelled over the wind and rain.
He dug into his pocket and tossed them over the hood. We were both inside the vehicle in a flash, his door not even closed as I started backing out of my yard.
“Where the fuck are we going?” he asked, grabbing the oh-shit handle above his head.
“I know where he took her. We’re going to get my wife back.”
Violet
“Callie?”
Shit. Shit.Shit.That monster was calling my name from the bottom of the stairs. I’d only been up here for a minute. One freaking minute! I needed something…anything…to give me a chance at getting away. I frantically pulled out the drawers in the bathroom as quietly as I could, ignoring the burning from my incision. God, I’d been so numb trying to keep up with him on the walk over here…I couldn’t focus on what damage had been done there. I needed to survive whatever the hell he had planned.
His footsteps were loud on the staircase, drumming in half-time to how fast my heart was fluttering. I opened the last drawer, praying there was something more than a few old hair pins and soap bars. Something metallic caught my eye.
Scissors.
Sliding them into my still wet nursing bra, I quickly closed the drawers and pulled the fresh shirt I’d grabbed out of the dresser and walked out of the bathroom. Ryan was standing in the doorway, rage rolling off of him—until he saw me. Then it turned into something worse. Something so much darker.
Lust.
Trying not to recoil at his gaze, I walked as steadily as I could manage. I forced myself to smile the closer I got to him.
“Ryan, you came up here so fast! Did the water boil already? I think I’m getting a sore throat from being out in the rain like we were. I’d really love some tea.”
His hand came up, stroking my wet hair, his fingers tangling awkwardly in the strands.
“You didn’t have time to dry this while you were up here?” he asked.
“I didn’t have anything to dry it with,” I answered, sliding past him in the doorway.Come on, Colt. Where are you?
