by Karly Morgan
“He’d better not get off scot-free in this. Ya know he played a hand in everythin’ that happened here,” I threatened, the need to keep Carissa safe from harm bubbling up inside my overly tired mind and body.
“In there,” the sheriff said, tipping his head as two deputies raced through the front door. With just a nod of their heads, they moved past us into the kitchen. One of them returned quickly, motioning for the sheriff to join him.
“Ya need ta see this,” he told him, and Sheriff Donovan turned his head toward me with a questioning look.
“I won’t lie. I beat the holy hell outta that man for harmin’ my wife. He got what was comin’ to him,” I stated before lifting Carissa as carefully as I could without causing her more pain and slid myself under her so her head was cradled in my lap.
The sheriff stood and followed the deputy into the kitchen without another word to me. Caleb joined me in the living room seconds later.
“Damned cops. Tellin’ ya where ya can and can’t be in yer own home,” he grumbled as he lowered himself into Mama’s recliner. I almost told him to move but refrained. If anyone had the right to sit in that particular chair, it was Caleb.
I didn’t respond to his statement. I just sat there, smoothing my hand over Carissa’s hair and silently begging her to bless me with the sight of those stunning hazel eyes of hers, but she remained out cold.
Everything around me seemed to run in slow motion as a deputy exited the house only to return a few minutes later with paramedics that he led into the kitchen instead of toward my wife. It took a lot of self-restraint to keep from going apeshit over the fact Carver was receiving medical attention before my beautiful Carissa was.
Carissa’s mother was lead out of the house in handcuffs, screaming about how we’d invited them over only to turn on them once they’d arrived. The exact story Carissa had warned me they’d try to use. I hoped it didn’t stand up and didn’t see any way it possibly could.
Hours seemed to pass before a medic was kneeling in front of Carissa’s face and questioning me about her condition. I watched as he checked each of her eyes and performed various other tasks meant to tell him what he needed to do to properly care for her. I watched in a daze, knowing this man wouldn’t hurt her, wondering if this day could get any worse.
When they carefully moved her onto a stretcher after admonishing me of the dangers I’d put her in by moving her from spot of her original injury, I stood, fully prepared to ride with them in the ambulance to the hospital.
Reality hit me with a ton of bricks when Sheriff Donovan blocked my path to the door, a firm but resigned look on his face.
“What the hell?” I demanded, everything coming into sharp focus at the blink of an eye.
“I know ya wanna go with Carissa, but I can’t let ya leave before gettin’ your statement and Caleb’s,” Sheriff Donovan stated, squaring his shoulders and preparing for a fight.
“I’ll give my statement at the hospital once I know she’s alright,” I informed him and moved to step past him. He side-stepped and continued to provide the barrier between me and Carissa.
“I can’t let ya do that. Especially not with the statement Mrs. Waters just gave us,” the sheriff replied, his face an unreadable mask that stopped me cold.
“Don’t tell me ya believe a single thing that viper had ta say,” Caleb snapped, pushing to his feet and moving to my side.
“I need ta get all the facts. As it stands right now, I should be cuffin’ ya and haulin’ ya down ta the station instead of Mrs. Waters. The fact I’m givin’ ya a chance ta tell your side here instead of at the station should tell ya somethin’. If I haul ya down ta the station, it’ll be that much longer ‘fore ya can go check on your wife,” Sheriff Donovan stated, his eyes pinned on me, evaluating whether or not I was going to give him any problems.
I sank down onto the couch and glared at the man preventing me from being with Carissa when she was hurt and vulnerable.
“I’ll go make some coffee,” Caleb declared, taking a step toward the kitchen before the sheriff stopped him.
“Ya can’t go in there. It’s an official crime scene,” the sheriff stated, and Caleb growled his displeasure.
“It’s a sad day in hell when you’re attacked in yer own home and can’t even go in the kitchen ta make a pot of coffee,” Caleb grumbled as he returned to Ma’s recliner and flopped down. I wasn’t even sure if he realized where he was sitting. If he did, he wasn’t showing it.
The sheriff began questioning me after warning Caleb to remain silent until it was his turn to give his statement. The interrogation felt as if it took an eternity as the sheriff asked question after question, repeating most of them several times over. I almost felt as if I was on trial.
Finally, he released me with the warning of not disappearing, and I raced out the door faster than I’d ever ran before. I jumped in my pickup, pulled the key from the visor, and jabbed it into the ignition. The engine roared to life, and I floored the pedal after jamming it roughly into gear. I couldn’t get to Carissa’s side fast enough. I had a vague sense of déjà vu as the truck sped across the asphalt toward the hospital, terror nipping at my heels.
“Please be okay, Carissa. Please. Please, baby, be okay,” I begged into the emptiness of the truck’s cab as I hurried to be with her.
The tires screeched when I turned into the parking lot of the emergency room, barely slowing my speed, and screamed when I slammed on the brakes as I slid into a parking spot. I couldn’t care less if the damned truck wasn’t parked straight as I jumped out and flew toward the doors as fast as my feet could carry me. How in the hell did this day get so fucked up? This morning was perfect.
“I need an update on Carissa Reed. I’m her husband,” I panted as I skidded to a stop at the nurse’s station. Nurse Adrienne was once again on duty, and her eyes widened when she saw my disheveled state.
“Give me just a second,” she murmured, and I saw her note the splatters of blood on my clothes and knuckles before redirecting her attention to the computer screen in front of her. “It looks like she’s been transferred to room 318.”
“Thank you,” I told her, taking off toward the elevators before she got the chance to speak another word.
Impatiently, I pressed the up button over and over again, even though I knew it wouldn’t make the car come any faster, bouncing on my heels as the wait seemed to drag on. I briefly wondered if it would’ve been faster to just take the stairs.
Finally, the elevator dinged and the doors opened. I had to wait for several people to step off before I could enter and push the button for the third floor. I cursed Carver, Carissa’s mother, and the sheriff for every second Carissa and I had been separated. Each one that passed felt never-ending.
As soon as the doors opened, I glanced at the plaque on the wall pointing in the direction of Carissa’s room and took off at a dead sprint. I was so close I could almost feel her silky skin against my fingertips.
“Hey! Slow down!” a nurse belted at me as I sped by, not even bothering to glance in her direction or acknowledge she’d spoken. I didn’t stop until I was standing in front of the door to the room the woman my heart beat for resided in for the time being.
Taking a deep breath to steady myself and calm my racing heart, I opened the door and stepped inside, relief hitting me squarely in the chest when Carissa’s gaze fell on me as I entered the room.
“Oh thank God!” she cried out, lifting her arms to me. “I thought you’d been arrested.”
“It’s so good to see those gorgeous eyes of yours open, darlin’,” I told her, wasting no time in moving to her bed and wrapping her in my embrace. “You were beginnin’ to scare me when ya didn’t wake up.”
“Apparently, I have a mild concussion, and the stress of the situation was too much to handle, and combined, my brain shut down to protect me,” she informed me, putting my mind immediately to ease that she didn’t have any more serious injuries. “The cut on my neck doesn’t eve
n need stitches.”
Anger and guilt flooded through me at the reminder that the reason she was back in the hospital was my inability to protect her the way she deserved.
“I’m so sorry, darlin’,” I mumbled, thoughts of how much safer she’d be if I weren’t the one she’d put her trust in to keep her safe.
“Don’t you dare, Kolton Reed,” Carissa said, her voice low and vibrating with her own anger. “There wasn’t a damned thing you could’ve done differently. You didn’t hurt me, they did. Carver did.”
“And Carver only got his hands on ya ‘cause I paid attention to the wrong threat against ya like they’d planned. That was my fault,” I insisted, knowing it was true, no matter how much it pained me to admit.
“They studied us to know how to distract you. They didn’t go into this unprepared. No matter how much information about them I gave you, there wasn’t any preparing for how they came at us. Never in a million years would I have imagined my mother would leave her castle in the sky to come here to assist Carver and my father in taking me back to New York,” she told me, shaking her head in disbelief.
“I hated how your mother talked to ya. It was awful,” I said, sadness filling me at the realization of how little love Carissa had actually known in her life.
“That was nothing out of the ordinary. Now how I spoke to her was,” she informed me, pride filling her voice and her brilliant smile lighting up the room. “I’ve never had the courage to stand up to either of my parents the way I stood up to her tonight. I owe that all to you, Bonnie, and Caleb for showing me how to be strong and stand up for what’s right. I know I haven’t been here very long in the scheme of things, but everything I’ve learned in the short time I’ve been here is invaluable to me. Having you stand there, protecting me, gave me the power and the will to stop being the weak, timid mouse they were all used to me being.”
“I didn’t keep ya safe though. I didn’t protect ya the way I promised to,” I said, my voice cracking as my guilt, sorrow, anger, and frustration fought for dominance inside me.
“Yes, you did. They weren’t able to take me anywhere. I’m still here with you,” she said, placing her hand on my cheek and cupping it in her soft palm. “I’m still right where I belong…in your arms.”
“You deserve so much better than what I can give ya, darlin’,” I told her, wishing I could be the man she already thought I was.
“There isn’t any better than you, Kolton Reed. I’m the luckiest woman in the world to have you as my husband, lover, and protector. Stop being a masochist and see what happened as it really did,” she spoke softly, her words building hope inside my chest that I hadn’t failed her as much as I thought I had. “If it had been anyone else, Carver would’ve gotten his hands on me immediately and done unspeakable things to me, and there wasn’t a single thing I would’ve been able to do to stop him. It was your power, your strength that kept him at bay for as long as he was. It was the threat of what you’d do to him that kept me out of his hands for so long and from harming me any more than he did. It could’ve been so much worse.”
“When he grabbed your hair and held that knife to your throat, I died inside. I wouldn’t have survived if he’d taken ya or hurt ya. Hell, the little bit he did was too damned much and should’ve never been allowed to happen,” I said, squeezing her a little tighter in my arms and thanking whatever power that be that had kept her safe for doing so. As much as I wanted to set her free, I wasn’t sure my heart would cooperate and allow me to do so.
“Yeah, well, get over it. It’s over now, and we’re still here together. All I want to focus on from this point forward is us and our family,” Carissa declared, her tone leaving no room for me to argue. “Nothing can tear us apart that we don’t allow.”
I couldn’t argue the point with her anymore. She was here in my arms, awake and talking to me, and looking toward our future together. What more could I have asked for in that moment?
Chapter Thirty-Five
Carissa
The doctor released me from the hospital the following day, and Kolton took me home, quieter than I’d ever known him to be. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, determined to mentally punish himself for what little damage Carver had done to me, no matter what I said on the matter. Unlike Kolton who seemed to think he failed in protecting me, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d saved me. I’d had multiple angels looking after me, both here on Earth and beyond, knowing Bonnie had played her role as well in keeping Carver and my father from succeeding with whatever they had planned.
Sheriff Donovan was waiting for us when Kolton pulled the truck into the driveway and glided it to a smooth halt.
I watched as the two men stared at each other through the windshield, neither making a move toward the other. I couldn’t read either of their body language as the stare down continued, the two men seeming to have a silent conversation I wasn’t privy to.
After a few minutes of sitting there, waiting to be caught up as to what was going on, I flung open the passenger door, hauled my crutches over the seat, and hopped down to the ground. Kolton swore under his breath and hauled ass out of the truck and around to my side.
“What the hell are ya thinkin’?” he demanded as I steadied myself on the crutches without his help. “Ya coulda hurt your foot or your head jumping out like that.”
“I got tired of waiting on you, and I’m fine,” I told him, pushing him out of my way and moving aside so I could push the door shut behind me. Kolton grabbed it and closed it for me, hovering worse than he’d done when I came home from the hospital the first time. I almost groaned in dismay at the realization he would be worse this time than the last, which wasn’t long enough ago.
“Kolton. Carissa. How’re ya feeling?” Sheriff Donovan asked, meeting us halfway.
“Better than I look. How is Carver?” I asked, not because I cared even an iota but because I knew his condition determined what would happen to Kolton in the long run.
“He’s awake. His jaw is fractured in multiple places and is wired shut and his nose was shattered. He’ll have to have reconstructive surgery down the road,” the sheriff informed us, and I breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t in danger of dying, which meant no murder or manslaughter charges against Kolton.
“Has he given his statement?” Kolton asked, tension thrumming through his voice as he stood there, tall and proud with his hand resting lightly on my back as if we were discussing the weather with the good sheriff.
“He’s written down his version of events,” Sheriff Donovan said tersely, not giving anything away, and my body tensed at what he wasn’t saying.
“Contrary to anything he says, we did not invite him or my parents into our home. We didn’t even know he was at the funeral to hear the invitation we offered to Bonnie’s friends and family. None of them are, or will ever be—past, present or future—welcome in our home,” I declared, my voice lowering with the fury boiling in the pit of my stomach. “Not my father. Not my mother. And sure as hell not Carver.”
“What makes ya say any of ‘em said y’all welcomed ‘em into your home?” the sheriff asked, his voice carefully devoid of emotion.
“Because Carver and my father worked a divorce case a few years back where the husband attacked the wife and got off on the technicality that she’d held an open invitation party, and that open invitation somehow extended to him as well. I remember the case because my father came home after winning the case and took both my mother and I out for dinner at a fancy restaurant which was not typical behavior for him. He spent the entire dinner gloating over how he’d screwed over the wife by getting the husband off and how he was then going to go after every penny they could milk her for. Carver joined us just before dessert was served, and they knocked back more than a few drinks in celebration of their victory,” I informed him, my eyes never wavering from his and allowing my disgust for my father and Carver to show on my face and in my voice.
“My mother celebrated right a
long with them, and all I could think about was how awful my parents and Carver were and how sorry I felt for the woman who’d not only been beaten repeatedly by the man who promised to love, honor, and cherish her, but that same man being acquitted in a court of law for doing so. That was the first time I’d ever met Carver Evans, and I wish to hell it had been the last, but if it hadn’t been for my father insisting on me marrying that asshole, I never would’ve come here and met Kolton. So I’m sorry if all of this crap landed in your jurisdiction for you have to deal with, but I sure as hell don’t regret coming here and falling head over heels in love with Kolton Reed and finally knowing what parental love is actually supposed to be from Bonnie and Caleb,” I raged at Sheriff Donovan, pissed that he’d even consider believing a word out of any of their filthy mouths. They’d called Kolton filth? Each one of them needed a mirror placed in front of each of their faces before they ever spoke again about my husband.
“Carissa—”
“No. There’s no way in hell I’m just going to stand by and watch them bury you for being an honorable, loving man when they’re lying, deceitful assholes who don’t deserve the honor of sharing the same space as you, let alone breathing the same air. My own mother and father have basically held me prisoner my entire life by not allowing me to have a normal childhood with friends or the ability to play and have fun. That’s how much they loved me,” I continued on, refusing to allow Kolton to calm me when he tried. The dam had burst, and there was no stemming the tide until I’d released it all. “If I stepped one toe out of line, I wasn’t allowed dinner that night and forced to stay in my room until breakfast the following morning. And then, when I was finally old enough to break free, my father stepped in and decided what college I’d attend and what my major would be. I’d seen enough over the years of what happened when people crossed my father, and self-preservation kicked in. I continued to toe the line to keep him happy, until he finally pushed me too far by selling me off to Carver, to be that sick bastard’s wife.