Chapter 93

CHAPTER 93

His chest hurt. It took a moment for Fletcher to remember what had happened. That bastard had shot him. That son-of-a-bitch.

He’d seen Will Vanderguard standing right there. A gun pointed right at him. At Dylan.

Dylan had been there.

Dylan.

He forced his eyes open. He needed to find her. He had never been so afraid as he had been, knowing she was out there without him.

“Easy, Truckboy. Don’t move around too much. You will undo all of Nate’s handiwork, and that stepcousin of mine can be kind of cranky around this place. Something about you Tylers ending up here far too often.” Small, warm fingers wrapped around his left hand. He would recognize her touch anywhere.

Fletcher looked at her. She was studying him like he was one of her precious seedlings, her eyes big and wide and beautiful. Perfect.

She was the most perfect woman he had ever seen.

He smiled. The wacky hair stuck out everywhere. That hair would always be distinctively Dylan. “Hey, brat. How badly are you hurt?”

She wore a hospital gown again. Over ridiculous sweatpants with Wonkus McBubbles printed on the side of one leg. “I’m not hurt too badly. Rattled my cage a bit. I am also far holier than I was. And, well, gonna be wearing this for a month or so. Fell when your looney uncle was chasing me.” She waved a cast around—purple and covered with Prince Rufus and Wonkus McBubbles stickers. “But…honestly, I think Nate is just letting me camp here for the night because I am too annoying for them to want to argue with me.”

She leaned closer. “I know how badly you are hurt. What were you thinking? You went a little too hero-y out there. You scared me. You just passed out before they loaded us into the helicopters and would not wake up. I had to take my first helicopter ride with you unconscious, you know.”

“You were out there.” He reached out his free hand. There were tubes in his right. “Climb up here. I need to see you. Touch you.”

“Well, you took big risks, buster. It just reiterates the fact. You need a Fletcher-keeper. One who is uniquely trained in handling you.”

She climbed the side of the bed gingerly. Favoring her left leg. Her left leg were bare—sweatpants pushed up out of the way—he could see the bandages.

Fletcher just watched her, this woman he would love until the day they put him in the ground.

“It’s a lifetime job. Or so I’ve been told.” He wrapped his hand around hers. Tugged her closer. Gently. “Let me hold you.”

“I have already been informed this bed is not big enough for the two of us together.” She gave him her best Dylan-the-school-marm look.

“I don’t give a damn. We’ll make it work.” He kissed the wild curls. “Don’t ever scare me like that again, Dylan Geraldine. My heart can’t take it.”

“It was rather scary. But it’s over now.”

His shoulder burned. His right one. There was plenty of room on his left. There would always be for her. Now he understood the look in Gil’s eyes, in Ben’s, when the women they loved had been hurt or missing. “There is nothing I won’t do to protect you. You are more important to me than anyone else on this planet. Anything. I’d die for you, woman.”

“Well, you aren’t going to be doing that for decades. Maybe even one hundred years.” Big green eyes, wet and vulnerable, looked up at him. “I am going to keep you, Mr. Fletcher Tyler. Just so you know.”

“I think I can handle that. I’ll keep you too. I can’t think of anything I want to do more. Someone has to do it.”

“It is your lucky day. Maybe. I know my sisters have things a bit more together than I do, and you are getting the fakest Talley of the batch, but, well, you are the crankiest Tyler in existence, so I think we’ll be well matched.” She shot him that grin. The one he would love for the rest of his life.

“I am getting the most perfect Talley of the batch. But…I’m thinking we change that to Tyler instead. As soon as we possibly can, How does that sound?”

“Like it would drive my father completely insane. And, well, absolutely perfect. I want six Fletcherlings, you know.”

“Six?” He had been thinking two or three. But she gave him that look. “Maybe we’ll talk—after four?”

“Sounds like a plan.” She rested her head on his shoulder—the side without bandages. “I was scared.”

“I’m not even sure what happened. Why did he take you?”

“Bruce took Abby to lure Will out.” She was quiet for a moment. “Will and his friends were there that day. With Meyra. And…Will was afraid I had seen him on the road that day, I think. But mostly, I think he just panicked when Abby was taken and thought I had seen him again. He just acted, made a bad decision. I was that decision.”

“Why did Bruce want Will?”

“Will—they arrested him. Sage and Joel. But Clint knocked him down and took his gun away and everything. Will is talking to the police. Sage told me what she could this morning when she and Gil were here to check on you. Ben took Dusty down to the cafeteria. Nikki and Hunter are coming in this afternoon.”

“What did Bruce want, babe?”

“Bruce is looking for something. A chest that was once his brother’s. Will was searching for it. I guess he searched our house too. When I was in here before. He’s spilling his guts. About what he knows about the drug stuff up here. The stuff down in Texas. And Bruce and Morris Preston too. I just kind of got in the way.”

She shivered. Fletcher pulled her closer. He still had a lot of questions. Sage would have to give him the answers later. Right now, he just wanted to hold Dylan as close as he possibly could.

“Fletcher…I have a secret,” she whispered.

“What?”

“I think I know where the chest is that Bruce wants. It was supposed to be his brother’s, who died from a heart attack.”

“My father. He was one of Bruce’s brothers who died from a heart attack.”

Dylan shook her head. “No. I don’t think it was your dad. Will and Bruce were yelling about a chest with initials on it. MJT.”

“Uncle Marty. He died when I was not quite two. Martin Jace Tyler.”

“I know where the trunk is.” She was quiet again. “It’s in the attic at the inn. I was using it as a nightstand. It’s bigger than that trunk in Gil’s old room here, but it looks just like it. Except the initials. I don’t know how it got there, but…it’s up there. I just don’t know why Bruce wanted it so much.”

“We’ll figure it out. Later. Right now, I just want to know when I can take you home. And keep you there forever.”

“I’m up for that. As soon as we possibly can.”

“I love you Dylan Geraldine Brown Talley Tyler. And don’t you ever forget it.”

“Right back at you, cowboy. Right back at you. Guess I did get the best Tyler of the lot after all.”

Fletcher just kissed her gently. And kept kissing her—until her sisters arrived and made him behave. Fletcher liked misbehaving with her.

He and Dylan? They were just getting started.