For the Love of Beard

by Lani Lynn Vale

  His pants had been cut from his legs, and I was now the guardian of the belt that’d been around his waist until about two minutes before.

  I stood there, looking at the belt, wondering how Tobias had walked around with it on when it weighed so much.

  With nothing else left to do with it, I untied the belt and looped it around my waist, then tightened down the belt much further past where Tobias wore it.

  Something fell to the ground, and I bent down to pick up the gold badge. The one that’d been over his chest, right over his heart, every single time he went out on shift.

  And I broke.

  I fell to pieces, right there in front of every single police officer who was in the vicinity and not currently responding to a call.

  Nothing, I’d heard, brought the LEO—law enforcement officer—community together like when one of them was injured.

  It didn’t matter if you were local police, state police or highway patrol, like my Tobias was. It literally didn’t matter. If one of their own was in trouble, and they were able to be there, they would be.

  The proof was evidenced by the full hallway and small waiting area that this small-town hospital offered.

  Nobody tried to come toward me, though.

  The Dixie Wardens were also there with their women at their sides.

  But they didn’t come to me, either.

  I don’t know if I was just giving off a ‘don’t get near me’ vibe or not, but they left me alone.

  The only two people who would’ve come up to me would have been Tunnel and Mina, but I wasn’t quite sure where they were.

  Tunnel had disappeared the moment that Tobias had been loaded onto the ambulance.

  My guess was that he followed the other ambulance that had the Shaw in it who hadn’t gotten her head blown apart.

  However, my guess was that they’d either been taken to a different hospital, considering this one was full of cops, or they never made it to a hospital at all.

  Whatever the case, my brother was likely doing something for me that might very well get him into trouble.

  But with Tobias’ drying blood still on my hands and his utility belt with all of his things, I couldn’t find it in me to give a shit what he was doing.

  Hopefully Ephraim Shaw suffered at the hands of my brother, because if he didn’t, then he’d suffer at my hands. That little fucker was more than capable of stopping his wife, and nobody in this world could convince me differently.

  Someone touched my arm, and I whirled to find a man standing there.

  He who looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

  How long had I been sitting here?

  My neck was stiff, and I wasn’t crying anymore.

  Though my eyes were puffy and sore, my cheeks were dry.

  It’d obviously been a while if my tears were dried.

  “You my brother’s girl?”

  I swallowed, tilting my head slightly.

  “Depends on if we’re talking about Tobias or not,” I rasped.

  My voice was scratchy, and I sounded like a man, but it obviously didn’t bother him.

  The man didn’t smile.

  But what he did do was nod his head. “That’s who I’m talking about.”

  “Then yes, I’m your brother’s girl,” I told him, rubbing my eyes with the back of one hand, keeping the other firmly wrapped around Tobias’ badge.

  “Our other brothers will arrive as soon as they can,” he said. “Only Finley, Travis and me are here right now.”

  Okay.

  Why was he telling me this?

  As much as I wanted to meet them all, and I really did, I didn’t want to meet them under these circumstances.

  I wanted to meet them when Tobias was awake and able to introduce them to me.

  But I knew that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon, and it was likely that they wanted an explanation as to what had happened to land their brother in the hospital with several life-threatening gunshot wounds.

  I took a step away from the wall I’d somehow found myself leaning against during my spacing out. “Which one are you?”

  He grunted in reply. “Dante.”

  I nodded, then looked down at my feet.

  This couldn’t be good for him. A hospital had to be the very last place he wanted to be after the death of his family.

  Yet he was here. And if he could be strong, so could I.

  “Where are the other two?” I asked him, still looking at my feet.

  I looked up when he didn’t answer, and he stared at me oddly.

  “The rest of them are at the nurses’ station,” he answered. “Trying to get information on Tobias.”

  I nodded, then started walking, heading straight for the nurses’ station where I’d been sitting less than twenty-four hours before—blissfully unaware of how much my life would be changing in a few short hours.

  Tally was sitting there, a worried expression on her face, as she tried to explain to the very angry men that she didn’t know anything yet because Tobias was still in surgery.

  They weren’t taking no for an answer.

  “Stop,” I snapped, my back straightening. “You’re not helping the situation.”

  An angry man whipped his head around, this one didn’t look familiar at all. I must’ve missed his picture at Tobias’ house.

  “Just who the hell are you?” he snapped.

  “Travis,” Finley said. “Stop. This is Audrey.”

  Travis’ ire fell just as suddenly as it spiked. “Toby’s girl?”

  Toby’s girl.

  “Yeah,” Dante muttered. “Toby’s girl. So how about you stop being a dick and let her speak.”

  I wasn’t aware that I was going to speak.

  But as they all shut up, and stared at me, I bit my lip.

  “Did you hear what happened?”

  “Some of it,” Travis grumbled. “Over the radio. Just that an officer, Toby, was pulled over for a stop and someone slammed into the back of his cruiser.”

  I found myself looking down at the gold badge in my hand, then ran one lone fingertip over it lightly.

  “Brenda Shaw…”

  Before I could even finish, curses started to explode out of the men’s mouths.

  I backed up, surprised at the vehemence, and stared in wide-eyed surprise.

  “Should’ve known that bitch had something to do with this,” Finley snapped. “Reed is going to flip after that shit last week. I knew this was going to happen!”

  I’d met Reed very briefly when he came by Tobias’ house the day we’d arrived back from our cruise—finding Tobias’ house full of people. He’d briefly said hi, introduced himself, and then had left within minutes after making sure that Tobias was okay.

  “What happened, darlin’?” Dante asked. “Start from the very beginning.”

  Dante looked a lot like Tobias, and it was hurting my heart to look at him, so I returned my eyes to the badge, and then explained every single thing that had happened from the moment I strapped on my CIVILIAN Kevlar vest, to the second where Tobias had been rushed to surgery.

  “I’ve been calling back regularly,” Tally supplied. “The last time I called was about a minute before y’all showed up,” she said, sounding sympathetic. “I’ll continue to call, but the last time they said he was still in surgery and there was still no word.”

  I brought the shield up to my chest, and held it there while I said a small prayer.

  “Has anyone looked at you, darlin’?”

  That was Finley.

  I looked at him like he was crazy.

  “No, why?”

  He snorted. “You have blood all over your face.”

  Oh, yeah.

  I remembered that.

  “I told them I wouldn’t be seen until I knew Tobias was okay,” I said. “When they tried to force me, I refused services by them.”

  “And how will you gett
ing an infection, because you’ve got a large gaping wound on your head, make this any better?” Dante snapped.

  I looked at him, but I didn’t have an answer.

  “Nurse, take her back and get someone to look at her head.”

  Tally jumped up, eager to do what he asked.

  Not because she wanted to obey Dante, but because she was clearly upset that I wasn’t getting looked at.

  “That okay, Audrey?”

  I shrugged.

  I guessed that it was okay, but at this point, I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about doing much of anything.

  “You can do whatever you want to do, but I need to be close by in case Tobias needs me.”

  “It’ll be okay, Audrey.”

  I turned to find the rest of the Dixie Wardens at my back, and suddenly, I sagged.

  “Okay.”

  The knowledge that they were all here, and that they would tell me if they heard even the most inconsequential bit of news, was enough to allow me to give myself over to Tally’s care.

  “Sean?” Tally called. “Do you think you could help me?”

  Sean walked over without another word, helping me up onto the gurney that I wasn’t even aware that I’d been close to.

  I was in the middle of the ER, with men all over the place, watching me get looked at, and I’d never felt so alone.

  But I would deal, because that was what Tobias would want me to do.

  He’d want me to deal.

  For him.

  For him, I’d do anything.

  Chapter 21

  When you make sure you’re on the same page with someone, also make sure you are in the same book, and all parties know how to read.

  -Words of wisdom

  Tobias

  I woke up with the worst case of cottonmouth I’d ever experienced, and immediately reached to the side of the bed for my glass of water that normally resided there.

  Only, the thing that I felt when I reached wasn’t a table, but a pole of some sort.

  I cracked open an eye, and immediately groaned when the sun nearly blinded me.

  “Fuck,” I cried out, now using my hand as a shield for the sun that was now blinding me.

  That’s about the time that I realized that the thing pointed at my face wasn’t the sun at all, but a flashlight.

  “Reed, you asshole. Get off of me.”

  Reed and I used to share a room, and he was the type of jerk off who would fuck with me, even fifteen years later.

  “Why is it always me that he blames?” Came Reed’s voice.

  Only it sounded like he was across the room, not anywhere near me.

  I cracked my eye open again and was relieved to see that there was no light shining in my eyes anymore.

  Who I did see standing there, however, was Audrey. She had a small smile on her face, and she was leaning over me as she looked at me with so much concern that it was hard to take in.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I wanted to make sure your pupils were reacting. You’ve been asleep for a long time.”

  I had?

  “What’s wrong with your face?”

  Her face slipped into a frown.

  “That’s not very nice,” she snarled.

  I grabbed her hand before she could get much more than a step away from the bed I was lying in, and pulled her toward me.

  My strength deserted me, so all it really resembled was a feeble tug.

  She took pity on me, though, and dropped her pretty ass on the side of my hospital bed.

  Hospital bed?

  I started to really look around, and realized rather quickly that I was, indeed, in a hospital.

  I also wasn’t alone.

  Not only were four brothers there, but so were my non-biological ones, the members of The Dixie Wardens.

  “What the hell is going on?” I groaned.

  I felt tired, but not tired enough to be in the hospital.

  Audrey looked behind her and said, “Can everyone give us a few minutes?”

  When Audrey turned her head, I saw the thick black line covered in stitches on her forehead, right at her hairline, and my stomach plummeted as the last minutes I remembered before passing out came back to me.

  The Shaws. Shooting. My legs.

  My legs!

  I reached forward and ripped the blankets off of my legs, moaning when I saw them.

  “Oh, fuck.” I pulled the hospital gown covering the top half of my legs up and stared.

  “That was close.”

  I looked over to find Audrey pointing at the gunshot wound that was close to my groin.

  “I know,” I muttered. “I’m lucky I still have my dick and balls.”

  After a quick check to make sure those were still where they were supposed to be, and indeed still intact, I moved on to the other parts of my legs. Those covered in bandages.

  “I was referring to the fact that that one,” she indicated the gunshot near my groin, “Nearly caused your death. It nicked the artery, but the muscles surrounding the gunshot cramped or something, as Tommy Tom describes it, and clenched off the nick in the artery and ultimately saved your life.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “That’s not good.”

  She snorted. “No, it’s not.”

  “What is the prognosis?” I questioned, almost scared to hear the answer.

  Would I ever be able to walk again? What about use my legs?

  That had to be the scariest part of it all.

  If I couldn’t use my legs, how would I stand and watch Audrey walk down the aisle toward me? How would I make love to her on our wedding night? How would I be the shoulder she could lean on during the birth of our first child—a child I hadn’t realized I wanted until I’d nearly died—if I couldn’t hold myself aloft?

  All of those scary thoughts rushed through my subconscious while I waited for her to speak, and by the time her lips parted to explain, I’d gone overboard thinking of all the things that I wouldn’t be able to do without the full use of my legs.

  “They say you’ll be fine…given time,” she admitted. “What they’re worried about most, right now, is infection.” She paused, pointing to one wound in particular on my calf. “This one, in the day that you’ve been unconscious, has gotten red and inflamed, and they’ve started you on an IV drip that is supposed to help fight off the infection. But as of thirty minutes ago when they checked your temp, the fever still hasn’t gone down.”

  I frowned.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “I’ll be fine given time?”

  She nodded. “As long as the infection doesn’t get worse.”

  I started to maneuver myself up in the bed, but grimaced when I put weight on my right hand.

  “What happened here?” I asked, holding up my hand.

  “Four broken fingers,” she answered, touching the very tip of one finger lightly against my skin. “They think that you fell when the car slammed into your cruiser, and maybe you landed awkwardly and put your hand out to catch your fall. We don’t really know.”

  Which reminded me.

  “The other man…the one I’d pulled over. Is he okay?” I asked.

  Audrey’s face fell.

  “No. He died at the scene.”

  My stomach plummeted.

  I was almost afraid to ask about the Shaws.

  “And the others?”

  She knew exactly who I was speaking of.

  “Brenda Shaw was pronounced dead at the scene,” she answered. “Ephraim, from what little I’ve heard from the others, is still in police custody but not doing well.”

  Thank Christ.

  “And you?” I asked, lifting my one good limb and placing the finger on her chest. “If you weren’t wearing that vest…you’d be dead right now.”

  She got up and walked to the corner of the room, picking up the same black Kevlar vest that she’d been wearing at the start of my shift the day before.

 
“It…” she said, laying it down carefully on the bed. “Saved me…I owe you my life for forcing me to wear it.”

  My lips turned up at the corner. “Company policy.”

  She leaned forward until her lips hovered over mine.

  “I love you, Toby.”

  I groaned. “My brothers are so going to die.”

  She grinned. “Don’t be too hard on them. They were really worried about you.”

  I grunted in reply, and then leaned forward the last couple of inches until her mouth was on mine.

  “Kiss me, and then tell them to get their asses in here.”

  She kissed me, and then backed away. “Will do.”

  Then she left, taking my heart with her as she did.

  Chapter 22

  When you make plans while you’re in a good mood, then the day comes to do them, and you realize you’d rather die.

  -Audrey’s secret thoughts

  Audrey

  I finished mowing the back pasture and looked at the job kind of well done.

  Soon I would bale the hay, but for that I’d have to have Tobias out here to show me how to do it…or maybe I could get the neighbor’s kid to show me and I could get to it sooner…or Finley. I knew he knew how to do it.

  My thoughts took me past the chickens, which I then fed because I’d forgotten to do it before I’d started mowing.

  They flapped their wings in excitement, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Y’all are insatiable,” I told them as I went to collect the eggs. “Twenty-one. Four of you are freeloaders,” I said to the chickens, who didn’t even acknowledge me.

  I’d just made it onto the back porch when Tinkerbelly, Tobias’ dog, whined too.

  “Shit,” I said. “Let me put these up and I’ll come right back and feed you.”

  The dog looked at me like she didn’t believe me, but I was back in a split second, a scoop of dog food in her bowl for her.

  “There you go,” I cooed, rubbing her head with an affectionate hand.

  She didn’t seem to notice, too busy eating her food to realize that I was even there anymore.

  Rolling my eyes and standing up, I stretched out my sore muscles, and walked back into the house, only to find Tobias staring blankly at the wall.

  “Tobias?”