It took me a second before I could place her, finally remembering the beta from the diner. Poor girl was trapped under the heavy wood and while the alphas and betas in the area all helped to lift them off of her I ran around back to see if I could help.
When I saw her tearful face tented between the joists I couldn’t help but slide in, knowing I was probably the only one around that could fit. Boone and Jack would kill me for it but I didn’t hesitate to grab her hand. She was cold and shaking, her hand clamping down on mine in desperation.
“Hey, hey, look at me,” I told her firmly. My voice was confident and she glanced over, meeting my eyes though I knew her vision was blurred with tears. “This isn’t exactly the best way to get to know you, but tell me what you’re planning for your booth.”
“What?” she choked out. The poor girl was staring at me like I’d grown a tail and three heads but she was also not shaking anymore.
“The booth. Are you representing the diner?” I prompted again.
“Yeah, Beatty is cooking up a bunch of baked goods to sell out here so I was measuring the space to see what…” Her words cut off with a groan of pain and the following whimper had me biting back my own tears. I wasn’t good at seeing people hurting, especially when I couldn't do much to help.
“I bet she’ll sell out fast. Her cooking was one of the things that had me excited to come back here,” I told her quickly.
“Yeah right. The city has so much better food. Like Chinese,” she said in a strained tone.
“You know, I never considered there wasn’t one in town,” I gasped. It had both of us laughing, though it cut off again when they shifted the boards. It felt like this was taking hours, though I’d likely only been here for a few minutes.
“We’ve got it! Crawl out if you can!” I wasn’t sure who shouted it, but I scooted backward to give her room.
“I can’t,” she said. Her voice rose several octaves as she kept repeating it.
“We can,” I corrected her, grabbing her by both hands and grunting as I pulled with everything I had. When I smelled the spiced cream of Jack coming up behind me I nearly sobbed in relief. His hands moved in front of me, grabbing her with me and giving a pull, finally freeing her. To my surprise, instead of clinging to Jack, she clung to me, shaking as her tears finally broke free.
“Thank you,” she whispered when she finally quieted down. I simply hugged her tighter and rocked her back and forth until she was calmed enough for Janet and a few alphas with a med kit to step in.
“Hey, come here,” Jack said soothingly as he pulled me off the ground. I gave him a smile and shook out my arms like it could expel the extra tension. “Usually it’s not so chaotic during setup.”
Before I could say anything back Hunter was crushing me in a hug. His voice was harsh as he hissed in my ear, but the slight tremble in it and how hard he was squeezing me were dead giveaways that I scared the shit out of him.
“You do not put yourself in danger, do you hear me?”
His words were just shy of a bark and I knew from the way he clung to me just how much I terrified them.
“I can’t promise that. She needed me. Imagine if it was me under there,” I countered in just as quiet of a voice.
“Youwereunder there,” he argued, emotion still thick in his voice.
“Sorry I scared you,” I said. “But I couldn’t not help her.”
A long moment passed between us before he squeezed me tighter, dropping a kiss into my hair, my whole body shuddering from the affection.
“And you thought you weren’t made for Holiday Hollow. That’s some small town caring if I ever saw it.” He finally released me and I was shocked Boone wasn’t next.
A quick glance around placed him next to the joists, inspecting it as if it had answers for him. The deep frown on his face meant he was beating himself up so I gave the guys a quick squeeze before rushing toward him.
“Hey, bear,” I said gently. He jumped, not even noticing that I had walked up. “You know this isn’t your fault, right?”
His eyes said everything he couldn’t force out of his mouth. I sighed before pulling him in and this time Hunter and Jack joined in, flanking him so we were in an odd sort of huddle.
“It’s not,” Hunter agreed. “You reminded everyone that they’d need a final inspection and told them last year we should replace the metal.”
“I did,” he said. “But I should have insisted. This is on me. Is she okay?”
“She was shaken up, but our girl here crawled under there and calmed her down and pulled her out. They had her leg splinted but I think she’ll be okay,” Jack answered, giving me an apologetic look.
“You what?” Boone asked in a scary calm voice.
“I was safe. I wasn’tfullyunder the rubble,” I promised. My head was definitely under, but that was only a small fraction of my body and I had faith in the alphas and betas helping.