When I pulled open the door, there stood my family, worried looks stretched across all their faces.
I was happy to see them and relief washed over me, but I couldn’t help but wish it was someone else standing there on the other side of the threshold.
Oh shit, Huntley.
Waving the group inside, I was about to rush to my room when I noticed Bronson’s phone pressed to his ear., “We’re here and everyone is okay… Yeah, I’ll tell her.”
My brother-in-law held up his phone, shaking it in the air. “Huntley said, go grab your phone.”
Without saying a word, I rushed to my room to find my cell I dropped when I made a mad rush to get to my daughter. Plucking it up off the bed, I shoved it to my ear.
He couldn’t still be there after all that time, right? Not sure what I was doing, I said, “Hello?” in a hesitant voice.
“Thank God, sweetheart. I think you took ten years off my life.”
I pulled the phone away from my head and stared at it for a second before putting it back. “How are you still here?”
“You didn’t think I was going to hang up when you guys could be in trouble did you? I’ve been here the whole time, babe. I just added Bronson to the call and told him to get over there right away.”
I hadn’t even thought of that. The kids would put all of us on a call together, but I never had done it myself.
“Are you all okay? I know Bronson said yes, but I need to hear it from you.”
Crap, I hadn’t even said a word about what was happening to Bronson and my sister. I wandered back into the front room as I answered him.
“We’re okay, just shaken up. Bre thinks someone was outside her window.”
Lennon looked at me and nodded toward Bronson, who stood next to him in the front room, while the three girls were sitting together on the couch, Stormi curled up next to Bre. That little girl was sometimes the best medicine, I’d come to realize.
“I told them,” my son said just as a feral growl sounded in my ear.
“I’m on my way,” Huntley said.
My heart fluttered at the thought of seeing him and him rushing to us when he wanted to protect us, but I also felt guilty about him driving back over. It wasn’t hours, but probably thirty minutes to my place. Not like Bronson and Lake, who’d made it in two minutes.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Sweetheart, I’m already on my way and will see you within ten minutes. I left the second I heard the scream and you didn’t answer me.”
If he’d be here in ten minutes he was driving too fast. “You’re gonna get a ticket.”
“Good thing I know a cop.” Huntley chuckled and the sound vibrated through the phone, warming my insides. “Bronson can help me out and if not, it’s totally worth it.”
There was a pause and I waited, all the eyes in the room watching me.
“You’reworth it,” he said softly, as if he knew exactly what I needed to hear.
A lone tear slipped free and trickled down my cheek. Lennon took a step toward me, but I waved him off, mouthing that I was okay.
“Why?”
I couldn’t help but ask. Huntley could spend time with any woman he wanted to. Yet he’d chosen one that was still broken, scarred, not only emotionally but physically, and with so much baggage I wasn’t sure I could ever give him what he deserved.
My thoughts sounded like a broken record; I’d had them so many times. Even voiced them to Lake. Because they were real. They were true.
“Because you’re an amazing, beautiful woman inside andout. You can be funny and don’t even mean to, you have a big heart, your kids are proof of that, and you are a warrior. Everything about you makes me want to be close to you.”
I laughed, literally laughed. The man just said the sweetest things and there I was cracking up. If that didn’t tell you I was so far out of my comfort zone and didn’t have a clue what to do with that information then I wasn’t sure what did.
