I grasped her hands, stilling her movements. “Look at me, love.”
Her head rose, meeting my eyes. Fear swam in the depths of hers.
“I’m okay. It’s just a graze,” I murmured.
Her shoulders relaxed and I pulled her against my body. She wrapped her arms around me and I couldn’t stop the flinch of pain.
With a huff, she pulled away. “Let me see it.”
I sighed, knowing there was no use arguing with her. Besides,it did need to be cleaned and bandaged, although I was pretty sure it needed stitches, which meant an ER visit.
“Did you get a good look at him?” Dylan crossed his arms over his chest.
I gritted my teeth and shook my head. “The minute I gained distance and got close, the fucker tried to shoot me.”
He glared at me. “Apparently you missed the part where I said don’t be a hero, and he did, in fact, shoot you.”
I opened my mouth to make some dickhead remark, but slammed my teeth together and swallowed down a hiss as Lyla cleaned the wound on my side. I glanced down at her, taking in the look on her face that said she too wasn’t happy about my moment of heroism—or rather, impulsive stupidity.
“Sorry,” I breathed out, mostly directed at her and not Dylan.
She tended to me while Dylan and the officers he had with him continued on, leaving one to walk back with us. Once we cleared the tree line, Zack and the guys spotted us and came running.
“I’m fine.” I waved them off as they tried to disentangle me from Lyla to help me walk to the rig. God, I hated to be fussed over. And if I had anyone’s arm wrapped around me, I wanted it to be Lyla’s.
I flinched as Zack crossed his arms, shooting me a glare, assuming he was also pissed at my stunt.
“I’m okay.” I kept my gaze on Zack. “It’s just a superficial graze.”
A huff of annoyance came from Lyla. “Not the point. It could have been so much worse. And it’s still bleeding and needs stitches. Nothing superficial about it. Not to mention the risk of infection.” Her gaze bounced around the group, landing on Jay, who had recently gotten his EMT certification. “Can you drive the rig?”
Owen wanted all of the paid personnel certified before the end of the year. That way we could be an integrated fire/EMS station. Fortunately, Logan and Jay had finished theirs up a month ago, while Zack and Seth were still working on theirs.
Jay nodded. “Yeah, let me run it by the Lieutenant. We got the fire out so we should be good.”
Lyla led me to the back of the ambo, sitting me down and pulling me against her. Wrapping me in her embrace, the pain and everything around us seemed to disappear. Her touch not only calmed my body, but my soul as well.
Instinctively, I knew. Everything would be okay.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
LYLA
I slammedmy hands on my hips and glared at Adam. He was the worst patient. A mix of stubborn and demanding. If he wasn’t telling me he didn’t need my help, he was telling me how to help him. I couldn’t help but wonder if Violet was having similar issues with Seth who was also out of work recovering.
On top of being homebound and healing, he was still frustrated because they never found the arsonist—only the place in the woods where he’d been hiding out. They weren’t able to pull prints off anything, but they did find a rusty old fire department button. Similar to ones we would give out at carnivals and fairs. It was for the station that the kids' godfather worked out of.
So even though it felt like a substantial piece of evidence, without DNA, it felt like we were all back to square one yet again.
It wasn’t actually a total loss, though. Some of the puzzle pieces had started to fall together, and it all made sense. He hadn’t been spotted getting to and from the houses because they all backed up to the large area of forest that weaved through and behind our town.
I pulled a calming breath into my lungs and softened my glare. “That was not what the doctor said.”
He shrugged. “Pretty much. He said I can continue all normal activity as long as I feel up to it.” His lips lifted into that sexy smirk of his. “And trust me, I definitely feel up to it.”
I rolled my eyes. He was heading back to work later this week, and honestly, I was looking forward to it. The graze wasn’t too bad, but the wound needed to fully close and be mostly healed before he could go back on shift. More than a week off, and with restrictions, had him going stir crazy. In more ways than one.
He took a step toward me, and I took one back, shaking my head. “You literally just got the stitches removed.” I took another step back and hit the wall behind me.
