Chapter 37

Lincoln

“Maggie!” Faye shouts frantically. “Lincoln—Oh fuck. There’s so much blood.”

I pull off my jacket and shove it along her back. Faye does the same with her shirt, pressing it along her side. Sirens blare and the red and blue lights swing in chaotic patterns along every inch of the back-alley entrance of Midnight Proof in the next few seconds.

Cortez rushes over, taking inventory of the shitshow that’s just transpired: Maggie unconscious, being hoisted onto a gurney and put into the back of an ambulance. Faye doing her best to hold herself together right now. My right hand and forearm blanketed in red.

Faye grips onto the front of my shirt, full-fisted and wordlessly begging to feel safe, grounded, anything other than what seeing her sister being rushed away is doing to her right now.

Cortez scans her quickly, from top to bottom. “Faye, are you hurt?”

“Yeah, she’s fucking hurt. She’s leaning to the side because that fucking animal punched her. That’s just the physical shit, Cortez,” I bark back. “This should have never gotten this out of hand, and you know it.”

He looks at me and then down at Waz slumped over, his own blood pooled around him. “Who did it?”

Faye’s hand squeezes my shirt tighter, her hold and breaths trembling and so unlike her. But we both keep our mouths closed without so much as a look at the other. “Maggie should have had back-up. Or some kind of surveillance, Cortez. You’re walking into a crime scene because it was self-defense against a fucking lunatic who has been loose in this town for far too long. Everyone knows it.”

The cop in full uniform comes over with crime tape and speaks to Cortez, “We have a DOA and a weapon.” He looks at both Faye and me pointedly before he says, “Are we?—”

Cortez canvasses Faye, and then focuses on her hand holding on to me. I don’t know what he’s trying to understand here, but he eventually clears his throat and says, “No arrests are necessary. I’ll need you to come down and give your statements. Go make sure Maggie will be okay.”

Faye nods, already stepping forward without letting me go.

With another look at the body, he adds, “The way it looks to me is that this was self-defense. You’re going to need to corroborate that, but based on what I heard on the phone call from Maggie, and what I see here, it’ll be written up as such.”

I give him a nod and fire off a text to Grant. He’ll be able to understand what comes next here. What, if any, repercussions I’ll see after all is said and done. Every muscle in my body is still wound tight, adrenaline coursing through me. The moment I saw Waz holding my girl’s face like that, I knew I would do whatever was necessary. I won’t lose anyone else.

“Faye,” Del calls out from his dark Crowne Vic and waves us over. “Get in. I’ll take you to the hospital.”

We shift into the back of the car, and as soon as the door closes, he floors it, practically catching up with the ambulance on the main road riding its siren.

“Faye, honey, I never wanted you in this position. I knew shit wasn’t stacking up right. Had a gut feeling that Maggie wasn’t just going to take a beating like that and keep working for them. When I saw you meeting with Cortez, and then the way Blackstone had been murdered...I know this wasn’t what you signed up for.”

She leans forward and holds his shoulder. He pats her hand. “Del, if you hadn’t called me, I don’t know what would have happened here.”

When we arrive at the hospital, it’s a whirlwind trying to find out anything right away. But now we sit and wait for Maggie to come out of this, detecting the faintest smell of cloves in the hallway near Maggie’s room as the doctors assess the state she’s in.

Faye’s arms wrap around my shoulders, and I’ve never wanted to hold on to anything so tightly in my life. We sit quietly together for what feels like hours. Dried blood on my shoes and flecks of it on my forearm are the only lingering hints that I just killed a man. It would guarantee me more rounds of therapy, but there’s no remorse in any part of me for having done what I did. What matters is that Faye’s safe.

“Thank you,” she says in a quiet voice. This isn’t how anyone expected this to go. She nuzzles into me and brushes her lips against my neck. “I’ve been trying to save other people for so long—” Her voice cracks, and she sits back. “I didn’t know what it felt like to have someone look out for me. Not like this. Lincoln, I’m so sorry I involved you in all of this. This was never your mess?—”

I wipe the tears pouring down her cheeks with my thumbs. “Look at me.”

She lets out an exhale as her eyes flit to mine. So beautiful.

“Hi,” I tell her softly with a smile.

It does what I want. She smiles back, and her body relaxes. “Hi.”

“Listen to me. I’m not ...going to say I love you while you’re covered in blood and in a hospital.”

Her hands find the hem of my shirt again as she plays with the material.

“I’m not going to tell you how I want your mess. And I won’t tell you how you are exactly the kind of chaos I want mixed with mine.”

She tries biting that favorite lip of mine.

“You didn’t involve me in anything I didn’t want to be a part of, Peach.” Her pretty green eyes pool with more tears as she listens and searches for every truth I’m giving her.

“There’s so much more here than I ever planned.” I give her lips the kiss that they’ve been begging for, just tender enough to let her know that I’m not going anywhere. “So I’m not telling you how much I want you to stay and be with me. And my girls.”

She smiles, letting out a small laugh, one filled with relief. “Alright.”

I don’t want this to be lost in all of the emotions swirling around tonight. “When we’re past this, when you’re ready to hear those things from me, you tell me, okay?”

But the clearing of the doctor's throat pulls her attention from me. “Miss Calloway, your sister has lost a lot of blood, but I’m confident she’s going to be okay. We will need to get her into surgery. The wound along her back was deep enough that I want to make sure there isn’t more damage. I’ll be able to answer questions once we’ve taken a better look. For now, she’s comfortable, but I’d like to get in there sooner rather than later.”

My phone keeps vibrating in my back pocket, and when I pull it out, I see Hadley’s name lit up on the screen. There has been a succession of missed calls from her and texts from Grant.

I kiss Faye’s forehead and swipe my phone to answer. Hadley’s voice comes rushing out. “You better be alright.”

Faye squeezes my arm and walks toward the lobby of the hospital as my brothers and Griz bypass the front desk and head straight for us.

“I’m okay. We’re okay,” I tell her.

“And Faye, is she?”

Grant tilts his head and kneels to look Faye over. I can see them making sure she’s alright and the sight of her folded into my family makes my chest ache. This is how it’s supposed to be.

“She’s okay,” I tell Hadley as I turn and stare at my forearm in the reflection of the window. I zone out, studying the outlines of my tattoo and the things that are most important to me—my girls, my bourbon, and the one that’s empty. “If I hadn’t gotten there when I had?—”

Hadley cuts me off, “But you did.”

I clear my throat as my brothers and grandfather stand in front of me. “But I did.”

“Listen, Laney and I are at your house. Grant wanted to come to you, so if you needed him, he’d be there. My guess is Ace and Griz aren’t far behind.”

“I’m staring at all three of them right now,” I tell her as Griz grips my shoulder with a squeeze. His eyes close for a moment, his face squinting, the worry falling away as I lean into his hold.

“Both of the girls are asleep and in their pajamas. Kit too, which is a whole level of cute, by the way.”

“And Dottie?” I ask.

“Your cow is tucked into the barn across the street. She was there when I came over and hadn’t left. I think it’s too chilly for her—seems like a summer kind of gal. Doesn’t matter,” she says with a laugh. “We’re good here. You take care of your girl, and we’ll be here, okay?

“Thanks, Hads. You’re the greatest, you know that?”

She exhales dramatically. “No shit, bestie. Love you, bye.”

When I hang up with her, Ace grips my other shoulder as Griz says, “Del called Grant. Said there had been an accident.” He lets out a stuttered exhale. “You boys are the most important thing in the world to me—” His mustache tips up to the side as he tries to bite back the emotions. “Need you to stick around long after I’m gone. Not the other way around. You hear me?”

I look at Grant, who understands as well as I do how quickly things can be taken away. We might not hug it out with each other, but a heavy hand and tight grip on a shoulder carry more weight between us than anything else. It’s always been that way. I squeeze Grant’s shoulder, and he grips Ace’s. The four of us take a moment together—a touchpoint to make sure each of us is accounted for and okay.

The double doors to the hospital wing swing open as the doctor passes through. She stops short when she sees all of us. Faye leans against the wall with a smile, watching our exchange. “I’ve been asked to bring Faye and Griz back with me to see Maggie.”

Faye looks at me for a moment, but before she does anything else, she walks right into my arms and kisses me. I can’t help but smile against her lips. Just as she pulls away, she whispers quietly, just for me, “I love you.”

I don’t have a chance to wrap my arms around her tighter. She turns away and loops her arm with Griz’s. I watch her walk away and move toward the double doors.

“Peach,” I call out. “You’re going to need to be a little louder with that later.”

She looks over her shoulder with a smile that I burn into memory.

I started falling in love with Faye Calloway on the edge of a cornfield, on a stage, over a bottle of bourbon, and every time she’s been in my arms since.