Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

C arlos followed his brother through the gate that had recently been built between Bulldog's and Steel's houses. They could hear the voices of the VDMC women and children as they walked around the house on the grass. Just as they reached the corner that would allow them to see Steel's back porch, a loud crash rang out, followed by a hushed silence that only lasted a second, and then panicked voices.

Bulldog and Carlos exchanged a looked before they hurried around the corner and towards the porch. Carlos reached the wooden stairs first.

Jenna's niece, Clara, was trying to push her way through the crowd of people gathering for lunch. A broken plate was on the patio floor by the food table. Others tried to get her attention, but Clara ignored them. She was keeping her head down as she made to leave—and ran headlong into Carlos at the top of the stairs.

The two of them seemed to be suspended in midair for a heartbeat until gravity got the better of them and they went tumbling down.

Carlos instinctively wrapped his arms around Clara and tried to take the brunt of the many impacts. His knee collided with something sharp, his chin clipped something solid, and his back smacked down hard onto the steppingstones on the grass where they came to a halt. Additionally, his utility belt was digging painfully into his hip.

Voices and shouts arose as everyone tried to reach for them. Wincing, Carlos released his hold on Clara when he realized she was trying, quite frantically, to get off of him. They were a tangle of limbs as she scrambled to stand. In her haste to rise, her knee collided with his balls.

Raging hot fire radiated through his entire body. Carlos grunted and groaned, rolling into the fetal position. Nausea roiled and somehow Carlos did not throw up. All air left his lungs and he could not get his body to recall how to breathe for several seconds.

At twenty-eight, Carlos could proudly say he'd gone through his life without having ever felt a man's greatest fear. Christ, he never wanted to feel this level of pain again. It was agony incarnate.

He felt hands try to get him upright and then he saw Bear in front of him. The giant man was a registered nurse and his wife a doctor. But Carlos knew there was no magic cure or medication to help him through this pain. Only time could help.

Bear reached behind him and grabbed something from one of the guys. It took Carlos a second to figure out Bear was trying to get him to move his hands away from his throbbing jewels to put an icepack there.

Carlos glared at Bear as the man let out a small chuckle. "What the fuck, man?" It came out more as a whine than a complaint.

Bear grinned wider. "How's your first day on the job going, Sheriff?"

Carlos could only groan.

As the others gathered around the deputy she'd fallen down the stairs with, Zoe frantically tried to make her escape. She looked around for Kyle. Spotting him across the lawn, Zoe headed towards him but Jenna stepped in her way.

"Stop! They're not here for you."

Zoe froze at her words. Her heart was still thundering loudly in her chest. Both from the fear of having been discovered as well as her tumble down the stairs. The deputy, the one with the sweet eyes, had protected her from harm.

Jenna reached for her hand. "They're here for lunch too. That's all. They don't know who you are and aren't suspicious of you—unless you run off. Then they might start asking questions."

Zoe swallowed nervously. Should she believe her?

"Please, Clara," Jenna encouraged. "They only know you as my niece. I promise."

Zoe looked across the lawn at Kyle, who was playing on the swings, oblivious to the possible danger. If Jenna was wrong, she would be arrested. Would she even make it to jail? Did she still have a bounty on her? Not for the first time, she wished there was a way for her to contact Owen or Jack to find out.

"I can't risk it," she finally managed to say.

"You're safe here. If Steel did not trust these two deputies, they would never have been allowed on our property."

Zoe looked over her shoulder at the crowd that had gathered around the good-looking deputy she'd accidently taken down. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment for having kneed him in the groin. She recognized him from almost six months ago when she'd still been living in Steel and Jenna's house. He had been respectful and sweet to her—and she remembered thinking him handsome.

But he was a police officer. She could not, would not, trust the police again.

"You may trust them," Zoe told her, "but I don't." She pulled her arm free of Jenna's hold. "I'm sorry. I can't risk being taken away from my son. I shouldn't have come here."

Zoe rushed across the lawn to the swings to get Kyle. As they made their way back down the path to their trailer, Zoe wondered if she meant ‘here' as in lunch…or ‘here' as in Mount Grove.