Chapter Ten
Garrison yanked the door open, his chest pounding. The receptionist took one look at him, and he couldseeher reaching for a phone to call the police.
Then again, he was sure he looked a mess. He hadn’t brushed his hair, had pulled on the first thing he could find, and he had to have the crazy gaze of a man who had no problem causing trouble.
Then again, the call he’d gotten from Kat would do that to anyone.
Sure enough, Sunny sat in a chair in the lobby of the veterinary hospital, her arms wrapped around herself, her body hunched forward.
Broken.There was no other way to describe her stance.
Kat looked up, meeting his gaze, her eyes red as if she’d been crying, too.
“It’s okay,” Connor assured the receptionist, and went that way to smooth things over after coming in behind Garrison. They didn’t need the police calling just because Garrison looked ready to kill someone.
Let Connor deal with that—I need to talk to Sunny.
Garrison sat down beside Sunny and draped his arm around her shoulders. “Any word?”
She didn’t pull away, didn’t seem to even react to his touch.
Not a great sign.
He peered past her to get an answer from Kat.
“Spike had a broken leg and a busted rib. They think he was hit with something. They have him in surgery, but they aren’t sure if he’ll pull through right now,” Kat said.
Fuck.Garrison’s chest hurt, for the dog and for the woman whose heart had to be breaking.
“He got a hold of whoever it was,” Sunny said, her voice pained and hollow. “He had blood all over his muzzle, and there was some on the back porch, like the person was bleeding. I think someone broke in, and Spike grabbed him. He put up a good fight, but whoever broke in must have had something to hit him with—maybe a bat?”
Trent leaned down in front of Sunny, placing his hands on her knees. “Look at me, sweet.”
She did, lifting her gaze as if drawn by his order.
“Did you call the police already?” he asked.
She frowned, as if she hadn’t considered it.
Kat broke in to answer. “I called Marcus—he’s already at her place. I also called a glazer to fix the slider and a locksmith to rekey all the locks, just in case.”
Garrison mouthed “thank you” to Kat. The woman was a brat to her core, but she kept her head on straight when everything went sideways. Furthermore, she’d called Marcus, a detective who went to Sanctuary, a man who would understand how important it was to do this right. It let Garrison relax, let him know someone qualified was looking at it.
She nodded, as if it were a given. Then again, even if Sunny didn’t want to accept her place in the community, it seemed the community didn’t have any such hang-ups about claiming her.
“Why would someone break in?” Sunny asked. “I don’t have anything worth stealing, and I’m too far out for it to be someone casing places. This shouldn’t have happened.”
Could it have been the man she’s so afraid of?
“You need to tell me about your ex.” Pushing her was the last thing Garrison wanted to do right then, but it was another example of when what she needed was more important than what they wanted. “We need to make sure he is wherever the hell he was before—make sure this wasn’t him.”
Connor came over, but he didn’t crouch, didn’t try to touch Sunny. He’d moved into veterinarian mode, probably because it was easier to deal with, gave him a clear path to take. “I talked to the doctor, and Spike came out of surgery okay. Until he comes to, we can’t be sure of his condition. They had to amputate the leg, Sunny. There wasn’t any way to save it.”
Sunny crumbled at that, dissolving into broken sobs that tore at Garrison. He wanted to take that pain away, to fix it, but there wasn’t anything he could do.
That was the hardest thing about being a Dom, the desire to protect someone and the knowledge that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t always do it.
He pulled her into a tight hug and pressed a kiss to her head, while he tried to ignore the fear that the worst wasn’t over yet.