“Baby, please . . . I love you.”
“Then why are you with her?” she cried, almost veering us off the road.
I grabbed onto the seat again. “Because I thought she was pregnant with my baby.”
“And because you love her and not me.”
“No, that’s not true. If the time away from you has shown me one thing, it’s how much I . . . miss you.”
She scoffed. My words had lost their affect on her because she had spiraled too far down the rabbit hole of craziness. I had to act. I had to end this now before she killed the both of us.
I lunged for the gun on her lap. But she slammed on the brakes and the car spun wildly off the road, tires screeching, our world spinning in circles, around and around. When we came to a stop, we both sat stunned and breathless. Brandi slowly looked at me and I saw the light go out of her eyes and the madness shimmer across her face. With a wild, psychotic scream she slammed her foot down on the accelerator, and with a squeal of tires, drove us straight off the road and into a tree.
HONEY
As soon as they left, I called the police.
And then I rang Cade.
After hanging up with him I wanted to run to my car and speed off in the direction of Cavalry Hill. But the police insisted I stay where I was and wait for the deputy who was on his way. I paced the floor waiting for him, chewing my thumbnail down to the nail bed as I panicked, my head wild with thoughts of a crazed Brandi behind the wheel. When the deputy turned up five minutes later, I grew frustrated by the minutes we lost as I explained to him what’d happened. How Brandi had knocked on my door and insisted she needed to show me something. How that something ended up being a gun. How we’d sat at the table at her insistence and she’d demanded I stop seeing Caleb. That he loved her. That they belonged together. That I should be ashamed of myself for trapping him with a baby.
“They’re heading to Cavalry Hill. Please, you have to stop them. She’s crazy.”
“It’s okay, ma’am. The sheriff and another deputy are on their way. We’ll find them.”
Panic was a violent wave crashing through me. Brandi was so unhinged it could already be too late.
I rubbed my big belly. My daughter was restless and kept moving. This morning when I’d woken up, she seemed to have dropped lower and my belly appeared to be even bigger than it had been when I’d gone to bed the night before. After leaving Caleb in the studio, I’d come home and crawled into bed, absolutely exhausted from breaking up with the man I was in love with, and cried myself to sleep. The longing to be in Caleb’s big, strong arms was crushing, and now the idea of him being hurt by his psychopathic ex-girlfriend was too much to bear.
I stopped pacing and sat down at the table, my heart thumping wildly in my chest.
“Are you okay?” the deputy asked when I started to rub my lower back.
Before I could answer him, his radio crackled and I recognized Sheriff Buckman’s voice as he requested assistance. “We’ve found them. But we’re going to need an ambulance.”
Alarm shot up my spine.
I tried to swallow, but my throat wouldn’t work.
Seeing my panic, the deputy requested further information. “Can you confirm you have the suspect?”
Again the radio crackled. “Both suspect and passenger are in need of medical assistance following a single vehicle accident.”
I stood up so quick I saw stars. “Is he alive?”
The deputy excused himself and stepped outside to speak to the sheriff while I tried desperately to control my madly beating heart. I took up pacing the floor again, chewing my poor thumbnail and rubbing my belly. When the deputy walked back in, he looked at me gravely.
“There’s been an accident,” he said, and I watched his throat work as he swallowed with the hesitation of telling someone bad news. “Both passengers have been transported to the hospital.”
“Please tell me he’s alive.”
Again, another deep swallow. “I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry, miss, but that information isn’t clear.”
I drove to the hospital with shaking hands, terrified. Panicked. I don’t even remember the drive. I was on autopilot.
What had Brandi done?
Was Caleb alive?
By the time I got there, he was already in the ER. I wasn’t able to see him straight away. After being assessed, he was transferred from the ER to surgery.
It was hell waiting for news. I paced the crowded waiting room where Caleb’s family and half of the MC also waited. No one seemed to know anything. No one knew the extent of his injuries or if he was conscious, and it was torture.