Danny almost got to his feet, almost called out, but he was terrified if he did, it’d distract Jake long enough and give Hobbs an opening to shoot one or both of them.
“You mean your queer boy-toy? Yeah, I took him. Going to frame him for the murders and make it look like he committed suicide. It’s all set up back there.” Hobbs tilted his head toward the garden shed, and Jake’s gaze darted past him. “You can join him, if you want.”
Jake’s expression got even tighter, pure rage crossing his features. “If you’ve hurt him—”
“Hurt him?” Hobbs laughed, the sound slightly unhinged. “He’s not hurting anymore. The dead don’t feel pain.”
Jake uttered a strangled curse and started forward. He still had his gun trained on Hobbs, but it was clear his attention was completely focused on the garden shed. Hobbs gave a manic grin, and all thought fled Danny’s mind. He acted on pure instinct, shoving up from where he was crouched and sprinting the short distance across the yard. He threw himself into Hobbs just as the man squeezed off a shot.
They both went down and with his arms tied behind his back, Danny couldn’t break his fall. His shoulder took the brunt of the impact, a sudden sharp pain radiating down his arm and back making him cry out. Hobbs recovered quickly, scrambling up and grabbing a handful of his hair to wrench him up.
The gun jammed into the side of his head, and he caught a glimpse of Jake pulling himself up from the ground, one hand clamped to his arm, blood seeping between his fingers, face pale and drawn with fear.
Jake’s gaze collided with his and he saw his own maelstrom of emotions reflected back at him—terror, denial, desperation, and gut-wrenching grief. This was it. The last moment. Jake was injured and had dropped his gun. There was no way Jake could reach him in time—he could read it in the burn of Jake’s eyes. God, he would have given anything to stop time. To somehow reason with Hobbs and just make all this go away. But the cold weight of the rounded metal against his head told him he was way past the point of escaping. In that second, all he wanted was to touch Jake one last time, feel their palms pressing together or the warm slide of Jake’s fingers across his skin. But even that had been stolen from him, along with all the years they should have spent together. All the words they should have said to each other.
Hobbs cocked the gun and Danny squeezed his eyes closed, catching his breath sharply.
The single shot made him jerk, made his entire body spasm with a fear he’d never known. And then he was falling, being pulled back before Hobbs lost his grip on him and was gone. Danny hunched in on himself, curled on his side in the grass, chest aching from holding his breath, until it finally registered that he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even unconscious. Hands grabbed at him and he flinched. Except the hold was gentle, pulling him up, and someone was calling his name over and over.
His mind was sluggish, pain and shock making his thoughts too hard to catch. But when he opened his eyes at last, he saw nothing but Jake leaning over him, hazel eyes brimming with distress and worry. It was the best thing he’d ever seen in his life, and he shuddered at the relief crashing over him like a tsunami.
“That guy—” He tried to look around Jake, but his head was throbbing and when he shifted, a blaze of aching pain lit up in his shoulder. Moving ever again seemed like a terrible idea.
“He’s down. The sheriff has us covered,” Jake assured him, gaze glued to him.
“Thank God,” he breathed, sinking deeper into Jake’s hold.
“Oh no you don’t.” Jake shook him gently. “Paramedics are on their way, and you are definitely staying awake until then.”
“I’m awake,” he argued, except his words sounded weak to his own ears, and everything had gone very woozy.
“Danny? Danny!” Jake’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away and despite the fact he wanted to stay with him, the pain was finally fading. Maybe, just for a few minutes, he could rest in the dark where nothing hurt.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
JAKE COULDN’T do anything except keep his fingers pressed against Danny’s neck to monitor his pulse. He’d slipped into unconsciousness, and no matter how Jake called his name, he didn’t come around again. He didn’t want to risk shaking Danny. From the blood staining his dark blond hair, he clearly had a nasty head wound and his shoulder was dislocated.
“Is he okay?” the sheriff demanded from where he was kneeling next to Hobbs.
“Head injury, deep gash on his arm, and a dislocated shoulder are the most obvious injuries I can see. He’s unconscious, but his pulse is steady. What about Hobbs?”
“Dead,” the sheriff reported in a grim voice.
Emotions clashed inside of him: relief the man couldn’t hurt anyone else—couldn’t hurt Danny again—and frustrated fury that the man had gotten away too easily. By all rights he should have spent a good number of years locked up in a cell on death row contemplating his fate for what he’d done, especially if he was responsible for the two other murders like he seemed to be indicating when he’d said he was going to frame Danny.
Hell. For a second there, when he’d really, truly thought Hobbs had killed Danny, he’d felt utter desolation, anguish, and pain like nothing else he’d ever experienced. The man deserved to burn in hell, but now they’d never know why he’d done any of it.
The sheriff went over to check on the neighbor—presumably the one who’d made the noise complaint—but it was clear even from here, the poor man was dead. God, what an absolute mess. He tightened his hold on Danny, unspeakably relieved he wasn’t among the body count.
“How’s your arm, Perez?” The sheriff knelt down next to him and brushed some of Danny’s bloodied hair off his forehead.
“Just a scratch,” he replied in a thin voice as sirens finally sounded in the distance. The backup they’d requested and the paramedics. “He said something about setting Danny up for the murders. In the garden shed over there.”
Hayes pushed to his feet, walking over to the weathered structure. He skirted a can of gasoline and ducked inside. Jake’s gaze stuck on the evidence of how Hobbs had planned for this to all end. Thank God they’d gotten here when they had.
“Sheriff Hayes?” Peggy calling out roused Jake’s attention, and he glanced over his shoulder toward the driveway.
“Over here!” he yelled in reply for the sheriff as Hayes stepped out from the garden shed and returned to his side.
“Looks like there are items belonging to the other two murder victims in there.” Regret touched the sheriff’s features. “You were right, Perez. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you sooner.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head, the lack of sleep, stress, and fear catching up with him now the adrenaline was fast draining from his body. “We got Danny back safe. That’s what counts.”
The sheriff gave a single nod, setting a hand on his shoulder briefly, before going to talk to Peggy as the paramedics arrived and started shooting questions at him. He reluctantly relinquished his hold on Danny as the paramedics worked to check and stabilize him. Just as they were loading him into the back of the rig, he came around with a soft groan.
“Jake?” he mumbled, head lolling to the side.
“I’m right here.” He caught Danny’s hand and held it gently, but tight. He climbed up into the back of the ambulance and took the seat the paramedic pointed out to him.
Danny’s eyes cracked open, gaze slowly drifting over his surrounds. “We going to the hospital again?”
He cupped Danny’s cheek, offering a smile, though he knew it had to be watery. “Yeah, we are. Seems kind of wrong we’ve spent more time in hospital than on actual dates.”
“S’lright,” Danny mumbled. “Long as you’re there, don’t care where we are.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He pressed a gentle kiss to Danny’s forehead, and by the time he sat back, Danny was out of it again.
“Are you his boyfriend?” the paramedic asked, holding a clipboard.
�
��Yeah, not that he’s made it all that easy on me.” Though, in Danny’s defense, most of that wasn’t Danny’s fault. He felt like he’d aged ten years in two weeks. If the rest of their life was a snorefest, he wouldn’t complain one bit.
“Can you give me some of his personal information?” the paramedic prompted, pen poised to fill in the notes.
He answered as many of the questions as he could. The rest would have to come from Danny’s mom when she arrived at the hospital.
“How is he?” he asked once the paramedic put the clipboard away.
She ran another assessing glance over Danny and adjusted the blanket tucked over his legs. “He’s stable. They’ll be able to tell you more at the hospital once the doctors have checked him over.”
He nodded, swallowing down the urge to demand more details. He’d worked as a deputy and alongside first responders enough to understand there were just some processes that had nothing to do with personal feelings and everything to do with the system.
Almost as soon as they arrived at the hospital, a doctor put Danny’s shoulder back in, which brought him round once again. They whisked him off for various tests, while a nurse deposited Jake in a waiting room where he took up pacing, ignoring the alarmed looks from other people because of the blood covering his shirt—most of it was his own from the shallow GSW on his upper arm, but some of it had come from Danny’s head wound.
A passing nurse finally asked him if he was injured himself and he showed her the minor wound. It was cleaned, sutured, and wrapped, and then she gave him a blue scrubs top to change out of his own bloody shirt. By the time that was done, Danny had been put in a room and the same nurse who’d left him in the waiting room earlier told him he could visit.
When he stepped through the doorway, he found Danny’s mom already seated in the chair next to his bed. Danny was awake and sitting up, looking much better than when Jake had last seen him.
He hesitated just inside the doorway. Now the danger had passed and Danny was clearly okay, he wanted nothing more than to rush over and kiss the hell out of him. However, even though Danny’s mom knew about them, he wasn’t sure how Danny would feel about any serious PDA in front of her.
Danny glanced up from where he’d been talking to his mom and saw him, obvious relief chasing across his features.
“Jake.” Danny held an arm out, so he hurried across the room to take his hand.
When Danny had hold of him, his fingers closed tightly around his and tugged him forward. Jake let himself be led in. He sat on the edge of the bed near Danny’s hip.
In that second, it seemed Danny only had eyes for him, blue gaze caught intently on him, like nothing else existed. Danny’s hand slid over his shoulder to the back of his neck, drawing him down.
Whatever self-restraint he’d been clinging on to snapped free and he set his mouth tenderly against Danny’s, lingering, not doing anything other than relishing the press of their lips together, the warmth between them, the utter rightness of everything that was Danny Jones for him.
He pulled back, only a fraction, leaning their foreheads together, breath mingling and swirling between them.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispered, unable to voice the dread any louder.
“I thought I wasn’t ever going to see you again,” Danny murmured in return, voice thick with emotion.
He shifted in closer, pulling Danny fully into him, hugging him tight against his chest, even as Danny clung just as securely to him.
“Is it over?” Danny asked in a ragged voice, the hint of fear making Jake feel sick to his stomach.
“Yes.” He buried his face against Danny’s shoulder as tears started escaping, even though he’d been working so hard to keep them inside. “I’m sorry, Danny. God, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. It’s my fault you got hurt—”
The tears were clogging up his throat, and he could barely breathe anymore, let alone talk. A sob escaped his chest, the same one he’d shoved down over and over during the nightmare that had been the hours Danny had been missing.
And once the first one burst free, his control collapsed into the dust. He cried messily into Danny’s shoulder, harder and deeper than he had even after Luis had died—because he hadn’t let himself cry in favor of putting all of his emotional energy into making sure Leroy Hobbs was brought to justice. Now it was all over, everything was pouring out of him in a way he couldn’t stem or stop.
Danny simply held him closer, stroking his hair and murmuring that everything was okay. By the time he could catch his breath and the sobs had subsided, he felt wrung-out, like he’d been hit by an emotional steam train and completely flattened.
“Are you okay?” Danny asked with a warm note of concern in his voice when he finally pulled back and wiped his wet face with the hem of his scrubs shirt. He glanced over his shoulder to find Danny’s mom had left at some point to give them privacy.
“I am now, yeah.” He dropped his gaze to where Danny had taken his hand and threaded their fingers together.
“Want to tell me what that was all about, or wait until later?”
He drew in a long breath, still struggling for calm and trying to find the courage to admit to Danny how badly he’d messed up his life.
“I meant what I said, Danny. You got hurt because of me. I’m pretty sure Leroy Hobbs did all this to get back at me.”
“What some clearly psychotic asshole does is not on you, Jake. No matter what you tell me, I’m not going to blame you.”
He brought his gaze up to stare at Danny. “But if it hadn’t been for me— If I hadn’t moved to Everness and gotten involved with you—”
“Then I’d still be miserable and my mom wouldn’t know the truth about me and wouldn’t have kicked my dad to the curb like she should have years ago, and wouldn’t be getting the mastectomy that’s probably going to save her life.”
He couldn’t quite believe Danny didn’t blame him, not even a little bit. “But you’ve been hurt so many times—”
“And I’m okay. A small price to pay for finding you.” A rueful smile edged over Danny’s lips. “Or maybe not so small.”
He huffed a halfhearted disbelieving laugh. Of course Danny could still make a joke about things. That was just one of the reasons he was so gorgeous and amazing.
“Why don’t you tell me from the beginning?” Danny prompted gently. “This has something to do with your brother?”
He nodded, taking a second to gather himself. At first, his thoughts and words were a little jumbled as he started telling Danny about Luis and what’d happened to him. But once he got going, the whole story flowed out of him in a way it never had before, even though he’d spoken about it any number of times with other people. By the time he was done, he felt unburdened in a way he’d never expected.
“I’m sorry you went through all that, Jake.” Danny lifted his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles.
“You’re sorry?” he repeated. “What about everything you went through? You’re definitely not the one who needs to apologize here.”
Danny gave a thoughtful nod. “Maybe so. But you’ve already said sorry. And anyway, how do you know Hobbs hadn’t decided to frame me simply because I was the one who crashed into the back of the sedan that first day? Maybe it was just incidental you and I got involved and Hobbs realized he could kill two birds with one stone.” Immediately, Danny’s brow creased with consternation. “Sorry, that was a bad choice of words. But you know I could be right. This might have happened whether you’d been here or not. In fact, if you hadn’t been here, Hobbs might have succeeded in—”
Danny broke off with an obvious swallow, some of the haunted shadows returning to his blue eyes. His theory chilled Jake from head to toe. God, what if he hadn’t ever moved here, met Danny, and been the one to make the connection between the house Hobbs had been squatting here the first week he’d arrived and the neighbor’s noise complaint? Danny could very well be dead right now.
“Anyway, it all w
orked out for the best,” Danny continued determinedly after a moment. “There might have been some bumps along the way, but we’re okay now.”
“You call this a bump?” he said with a smile, reaching up to touch the bruise discoloring the side of Danny’s face.
Before Danny could answer, there was a discreet knock on the door and Jake glanced over his shoulder to see the sheriff standing there next to Danny’s mom.
“Sorry to interrupt, boys, just wanted to check in,” the sheriff said, stepping forward.
“You’re not interrupting. Come in.” Danny sunk a little deeper into the pillows and blinked as though he was getting tired.
Jake stood, but Danny didn’t let go of his hand, so he simply turned around so he could face the sheriff while he stood by Danny’s side.
“I hear the doctors want to keep you for the next forty-eight hours to monitor the head laceration.” The sheriff stopped at the foot of the bed while Danny’s mom returned to the chair she’d been sitting in earlier.
“Just a formality,” Joyce answered, sending Danny a reassuring smile. “They said you’ll be fine in a few days.”
The last bit of tension left Jake’s shoulders at the confirmation Danny was fine apart from a few nasty bruises. God, he’d been so lucky. It could have turned out so much worse.
“We released your father. Not without charges. He was driving drunk and ran his truck off the road, after all. And if you want to think about a restraining order after what he said to you at Monroe’s—”
“Wait.” Danny’s brow creased with confusion. He was definitely looking sleepy. They probably needed to let him rest. “You arrested my dad? Why?”
The sheriff glanced at him, though Jake wasn’t quite sure why.
“They thought your dad was responsible for you being missing,” he explained, gaining Danny’s surprised attention.
“What?”
“Jake found your cell phone next to whole lot of blood at the garage,” the sheriff took up. “Plus, the place was trashed.”
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