“I know.” I pat his good shoulder as Willow brushes her fingers through his hair. “I know, kiddo. It’s scary as hell.”
“Listen, we didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” one of the guys says. “We really thought it was okay for us to be here.”
“I told them to go,” Aiden says.
Two sheriff cars roll up the driveway, and the men hurry over to us just as Dusty comes riding up to take care of the horses.
It’s chaos for several minutes, and all I can think about is getting my boy to the fucking hospital.
“I want them gone,” I say, pointing to the unwanted visitors. “They’re trespassing. An ambulance is on the way for my boy.”
“Can you give us a rundown on what happened?” deputy number one asks, and I stand to give him the information. His face is grim as he turns to the strangers. “Let’s go, folks. And for future reference, if someone tells you to leave, youleave.”
As they file away, an ambulancefinallypulls in, and the EMTs rush toward us with a stretcher.
“I go with him,” Willow says, not leaving Aiden’s side. “He’s mine. I go with him.”
“That’s fine, ma’am,” one of the EMTs says and then turns to me. “We’ll be at Paradise General. You can follow us in.”
I turn to Dusty, who gestures with his chin. “Go. I have everything here handled.”
I jump into my truck and immediately call Gideon, and then the PR department for the Blizzard, and they assure me they’ll get my social media handled.
Fucking Andy.
I’d bet a year’s salary it was that asshole who put my address on social media.
He’s going to pay for all this.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Willow
My heart is going to burst out of my body. Jesus, I can’t calm down. My boy is on a gurney, moaning in pain, and there’s nothing they can do for him until we get to the hospital.
“His blood pressure is good,” the EMT named Sandy says. “Good heart rate too. And I don’t think he has a concussion, because his pupils are the same and not dilated.”
I know she’s trying to calm me down, but until a doctor tells me that I can take him home, nothing is going to calm me down. My kid is in pain, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Talk to him,Sandy mouths to me.
“Hey, kiddo, remember that time that we went to Disney World when you were ten?”
“You got sick after Space Mountain,” he says with a smirk.
“Are you seriously making fun of me for getting motion sick?”
“Duh.” He winces when we hit a bump. “It was cool that Gideon and Ryker met us there.”
They surprised us both the day after we got there, and the four of us had a whole week of rides, time at the pool, and all the park food in the world, and I’m pretty sure Ryker spent a mint on all the souvenirs thatAiden wanted. It was one of the few times over the past decade that I got to spend significant time with Ryker, and I soaked in every minute of it.
“Where are your Mickey ears?” I ask him.
“In my room at the ranch,” he says. “In the big house, not in the bunkhouse.”
I smile softly. “Aw, you still have them?”
He purses his lips. “Don’t tell anyone.”
