She trailed her fingers through his hair, and he closed his eyes. Inside of Bree were his two children. Two! He couldn’t wait to tell his family.
“Gwenn and Kera are going to have a field day with their Baby Pool,” Bree said.
“Pops is going to give free rounds of whiskey at Lucky when he hears this,” he said.
Bree chuckled, and Declan’s head bobbed. “We’re going to be all right Bree. I just know we are.”
“10-9.”
Declan pressed on his directional microphone’s button and repeated, “10-23.”
Caitlin crouched next to Declan, behind the see-through hedge that surrounded the house partially. They had just arrived at the scene. The front door stood wide open. A piercing female scream came from inside the one-story house.
“I’m going in,” Caitlin said as she tried to stand from her hunching position.
Declan pulled her back down and hissed, “Stay the fuck down, Ryan. We’re not flyin’ off the hook and walkin’ straight into trouble.”
“We can’t let him beat her into a pulp! I can’t sit around and do nothing!” Caitlin spat at him.
“I’m not askin’ ye to do nothin’. Just don’t go all Rambo on me. Ye need to know where ye gettin’ yerself into before ye—”
“This is not my first day on the job, Declan Mills.”
She grabbed her gun from its holster and snuck closer to the front door, hiding behind two large trash cans.
“Why do I even try?” Declan said as he looked up to the morning sky. They were going to Bree’s mother tonight for Christmas Eve. Was it too much to ask for a slow day today? Or for Cait to not lose her cool?
As he followed Cait’s lead, they crept under the window. Cait shook her head as they heard a booming voice inside say, “Admit it, Jess. You were taking Liv away from me, eh? Well, this is the last time!”
A soft little whimper followed, and a woman said, “Don’t you dare hurt my daughter!”
Declan positioned himself next to the front door and announced himself.
Cait ran past Dec with her weapon drawn and before Dec could react, she already fired at the burly man holding a knife against the little blonde girl’s throat.
The blonde woman who’d knelt at the man’s feet let out a horrendous cry. The shot missed. Cait didn’t waste another second and grabbed the angelic girl from his grasp.
She held the girl behind her back and gave the bastard a kick to his gut that lead him down to the floor.
“I’m going to kill you,” the man shouted while he attempted to get up to reach for his knife.
As if possessed, Cait gave him another kick to the face. Knocking his lights out. Dec kicked the knife to the other side of the living room.
He did a first visual check on the woman who had snagged up the child into her arms. The child was crying, but luckily not bleeding anywhere. He then passed them to stop Cait from doing further harm.
He took Cait by the shoulders and pulled her away from the motionless arsehole. Although unconscious, the man’s pulse was luckily still there. Declan also checked for any internal bleedings caused by Cait’s kick to the gut. He searched the room and next to a painting was a bullet hole. The shot had gone wide.
If she’d killed him, he would be her second perp this year. First she’d shot Kayla’s stalker in March, and now this. Declan knew this would be Cait’s final straw.
There would be no coming back from this incident. She’d stormed into the house, shooting at the man holding the knife to the child’s throat. Although she’d saved the child, today’s actions were unlike Cait.
Declan steered Cait into the small kitchen and called everything in. After receiving word from dispatch, he sat Cait down on a stool and made her promise to sit tight and to talk to no one.
He needed her to save whatever left of her sanity. The feral expression she’d showed today after kicking that man unconscious, made even Declan shudder. And he didn’t get easily spooked.
He walked over to the woman. She rocked the little girl in her arms.
He checked the man’s pulse again. Still steady. And still out cold.