“No. I tried to catch their license plate, but it was still so dark out. And by the time I ran over to Stone… It was bad.”
“Tell me.”
Hawk shook his head. “No. You don’t need to know anything other than the fact that he was only calling out for you. At that moment, he wanted you to be there. The last thing he said..” Hawk’s voice caught in his throat as she watched her brother’s eyes glaze over with tears. “Before…”
“Before what?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He cleared his throat. “The last thing he said to me was about loving you always.”
Mae’s head fell to her hands. She cried, more and more tears flooding her face from a place so deep inside her, she didn’t think she’d ever felt it before. She hiccuped and sputtered and carried on, her brother occasionally offering her a new tissue or a reassuring pat on the back.
“Oh god.” Mae’s head lifted as the rest of her friends started making their way into the waiting area. Gunner Brooks and his wife Lily were first, with their daughter Sage tucked tightly in his arms, followed quickly by Gage Walker andSloane Donovan. Nash and Lacy Caldwell came rushing in a second later with a sleepy looking Embrie, their nine-year-old daughter in tow.
The only part of the team missing now was their boss, Sebastian Montgomery, and his fiance, Emma Sullivan. They lived in Bell Ridge, and Mae didn’t even know if the billionaire businessman was currently in Texas. If he wasn’t, she was sure he would make his way back as soon as someone reached out to him.
As if he’d read her mind, Gunner nodded at Hawk. “Sebastian and Emma are on their way. They were just going to drop Addie off with someone before heading down.” His words washed over her just as Lily rushed over, gathering Mae in her arms.
“He’s going to be okay. He has to be.”
She sat in Lily’s embrace, listening to Hawk and Gunner go over the details of the shooting again.
“What can we do?” Lacy’s voice drifted across the space. “Mae? Is there anything we can get you?”
She shook her head, still in Lily’s arms. “You guys just being here is enough.”
“What do we know? Is he in surgery?”
Mae nodded at Sloane’s questions. “Hawk said he was shot twice. Close range. From an SUV that had pulled over to the side of the road. He’s in surgery now, but that’s all we know. Hawk had to… he had to perform CPR before the ambulance got there.”
Lily sucked in a sharp breath from beside her.
“And before he went out for his run…” She swallowed painfully around her regret. “I told him I hate him.”
“What?” The shock in her friend’s voice made Mae want to curl up in a ball on the floor and disappear.
“Those were the last words I said to him. I pushed him too hard. I wanted him to choose. I told him we could have it all.He told me it was over and I said I hated him.” Her chest hurt more with every word she confessed. “It can’t be the last thing I ever say to him, you guys. It can’t. I’ll never forgive myself.”
“I don’t know what happened, but if they were spoken in the heat of the moment, Stone would understand. He would know?—”
Mae wiped at her eyes. “I need to call his mom. And his brother. They need to know. To be here. Cheryl doesn’t fly. She hasn’t ever flown. They’ll have to drive…”
“Let Gage handle that,” Sloane volunteered. “He can make sure they know it's serious enough that they need to be here.”
Seconds melted into minutes that were filled with her friends moving all around her in a pattern she couldn’t make sense of. She was offered water, or coffee, or something to eat, at least once every five minutes. While it should have been comforting, everything about her body felt like it was one sudden movement away from crumbling to ash.
The minutes started dragging on, until the sun was well up over the horizon and Sebastian and Emma had joined the group. Mae just kept thinking, over and over and over, that everyone was there, now. The doctors could come give them an update. But nothing came as the hands on the clock kept spinning around and around.
Finally, after the second sandwich of the day had been shoved in her hands and promptly put down on the table beside her, a man in dark blue scrubs stepped into the private waiting room. “Excuse me, I’m looking for the next of kin for Stone Lawson?”
“That’s me. I’m his health care proxy.” Gunner stood as he cleared his throat, offering his outstretched hand to the doctor. Sebastian walked to the front of the group as well, shaking the doctor's hand in turn. Mae must have given Hawk a confused look because he leaned over to her.
“The other guys legally designated Sebastian and Gunneras their health care proxies when we moved here. I have you, so I didn’t need to do that. But this way, if family wasn’t able to get here fast, and something bad happened where medical decisions needed to be made, they could legally step in.” She didn’t know whether to feel comforted by his whispered words or not, but she was grateful that Gunner would keep a level head and not make any rash decisions if Stone’s care was left up to him.
“How is he?” Gunner’s question sat in the still, quiet air as the seconds passed. Mae watched the doctor remove his scrub cap, and run his fingers through his hair.
She saw it. The moment he steeled himself to tell them the news. The second the doctor’s eyes filled with compassion, looking around at the room filled with people who loved Stone. And then, those eyes landed on her.
Mae stood, her whole body trembling as she walked to stand next to Gunner.
