A few moments later, the shooting stopped.
“What the hell have you done?” a man yelled. Was that Sheriff Winston? Did that mean—
The door to the shack slammed open, and Dax rushed in. The moment I saw him, I started to cry with relief.
“Travis! Are you all right?” I nodded, unable to speak.
Dax rattled the cell door. I thought he was going to pull it right off its hinges, but Ambrose appeared behind him. “Get back. I’ve got the key.”
Dax growled and took the key from him.
“They gave you a dog?” Ambrose asked.
The puppy was hiding behind me and whining. The need to reassure her helped me find my voice. “It’s okay. They won’t hurt you.” I faced Dax and Ambrose again as Dax swung the door open. “They used the puppy to lure me outside. I was petting her and trying to figure out where she belonged when they shot me with a tranquilizer dart. “
“Fuck. That makes me want to go out there and shoot them all over again,” Ambrose said.
Dax snorted. “Be my guest.”
He held out his hand for the puppy to sniff, then made sure she stayed away while he cut the bonds on my ankles and wrists.
“I thought…” I had to take a breath before I could continue. “I thought you’d be angry with me that I went outside.” I pulled the puppy against me, and she started licking my face.
“No. Never. You went into the yard. You should have been safe, but they’d killed the guard I had stationed in the alley.”
Guards. Where were the ones who’d been watching over me? “Where are the men that were here?”
“LePlatt is dead. They’re all dead.”
“But we were supposed to—”
“Plans changed when they took you. Nobody hurts you and lives.”
The puppy barked then as if to agree, and Dax scratched her behind the ears. She’d clearly gotten the message that Dax was a safe person.
“Can we keep her? Please.”
Dax cupped my face, brushing away my tears with his thumbs. “Travis, you can have anything. You can run a whole dog rescue if you want. I’m just thankful you’re here and alive and uninjured. I should never have left you.”
“Dax, it’s not your fault.”
“If I were you,” Ambrose said, “I’d take his offer and start naming your price.”
Dax flipped Ambrose off, then he scooped me and the puppy up in his arms.
“You should be checked out by a doctor.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I just feel a little bit hungover from the tranquilizer. Otherwise, I’m just scraped and sore from trying to get free. That’s all.”
Dax huffed. “I want to be sure.”
“I just want you to take me home as soon as you can. I know there’s probably—”
“There’s nothing he needs to do here,” Ambrose said. He clapped a hand on Dax’s shoulder. “Take him home. I’ll deal with Winston. Remy and Lance can handle everything else.”
I didn’t want to take him away from family business. “If you need—”
“He’ll be useless if he stays. He needs to be with you now.”
Dax nodded. “He’s right.”
“Damn, I don’t hear that often.”
“You’re too busy saying it yourself.”
Ambrose flipped him off.
“Thank you,” I said to Ambrose, and he grinned.
“Anytime.”
Once we were outside, Dax reluctantly set me down so he could talk to his cousins, but he kept his arm around me.
We gave them a brief explanation of what had happened to me, and I tried to keep from looking at the corpses on the ground.
“Can I go see if the puppy needs to—”
Dax’s eyes widened. “Oh shit, you’re way too pale.”
“Get him out of here,” Remington ordered. “We’ve got this.”
We let the puppy run around by Dax’s SUV long enough to do her business. Then I picked her up and kept her on my lap for the duration of the ride back to Dax’s house.
Dax insisted I tell him everything that had happened to me after he’d left me that morning. Recounting the day was easier with a puppy on my lap. I petted her rhythmically as I talked. When I was done, I asked Dax to explain how he’d found me. He was much too vague, but I knew he didn’t want to share too many gruesome details.
Dax made one stop on the way home—a pet store. He ran in for a few basic supplies.
When we got home, the puppy gobbled down some food and then flopped onto her new bed and fell asleep instantly. Dax took my hand and led me quietly to the bedroom.
I was too tired to stand, so I sat on the edge of the bed, and Dax knelt in front of me. I opened my legs, encouraging him to come closer. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed his face against me. I slipped my hands into his hair and bent to kiss the top of his head. We stayed like that for several moments.