I stopped at the curb right next to his bike and pulled it out of my purse. “Hey Elaina. What’s up?”
“Are you at home?” she asked, her voice laced with panic that made the tiny hairs on my body stand on end. “No. Stone and I are leaving the Cattleman right now. What’s wrong?”
I heard something through the line that sounded like a door slamming and an engine starting. “Dad’s security company called me. His fire alarm was going off and they couldn’t reach him on his phone. James and I are on our way there now, and the fire department has already been called.”
It felt like my whole body had frozen solid. I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe. “Oh my God,” I breathed into the line, my skin feeling like ice. “Oh my God.”
Stone came up beside me and looped his arm around my waist, looking down at me with concern etched into his face.
“I’m not close,” I started, panic clawing at my insides and tearing them to ribbons. “I’m all the way across town. If I’d been home—”
“Stop,” Elaina ordered. “Don’t do that to yourself. You’re allowed to have a life. I’m sure everything is fine. Just get there when you can, okay? I’m getting off with you to call Crissy and let her know.” My big sister used a tone I’d never heard from her before. It was a tone that said she was the oldest, and it was her job to take care of us. “It’s all going to be okay, all right?”
“All—all right,” I wheezed.
“See you there.”
I disconnected the call and looked up at Stone, feeling my entire face drain of color. “We have to go. The fire alarm at my dad’s house is going off and no one can reach him.”
He hauled me up off the ground and deposited me on the back of his bike like I weighed next to nothing, and took off out of the parking lot like a shot.
I was so lost in my fear, so close to letting it swallow me whole, that I didn’t remember a single aspect of the ride. It felt like an eternity dragged by, but it also felt like the blink of an eye when we pulled onto my father’s street.
My heart dropped right out of my chest as we got closer. There were lights everywhere. I saw a fire engine, an ambulance, and a couple of police cruisers.
Stone got us as close as possible, and as soon as he had the kickstand down, I was jumping off and running into the fray.
My eyes darted around frantically, but all of the faces were a blur; then Stone’s hand came down on the small of my back, and he began to guide me.
“There, sweetheart. There they are.”
Thanks to his steadiness, I was able to spot Elaina and Crissy. I took off at a full run—in heels—going right into my oldest sister’s open arms as soon as I reached them.
“He’s okay,” she said into my hair. “He’s going to be okay.”
I pulled back, darting frantic looks at each of my sisters. “Where is he?”
“He’s in the ambulance,” Elaina told me, then began relaying everything that had happened. “He has a third-degree burn on his arm, and they want to check him out to make sure he didn’t inhale too much smoke.”
“How did this happen?” I asked, but I had a sinking feeling I already knew.
A cloud of tears welled up in Crissy’s eyes as she started to explain. “Apparently the fire started in the kitchen. We think maybe he tried to cook and forgot the stove was on again, but we couldn’t figure out for sure.” The sadness in her eyes deepened, and her husband Phil reached out to pull her into his side as her tears fell free. “He wasn’t in any frame of mind to tell anyone what happened when they got him out. It looks like there was a dishtowel close by that caught fire, and it spread from there. The kitchen is destroyed and they’re worried about the structural integrity of the second floor since the fire reached the ceiling, but the rest of the house is okay.”
Elaina picked up the conversation then, her husband James coming to stand behind her to place two bracing hands on her shoulders. As she started to speak I felt an arm circle my waist and Stone’s heat pressing against my back, letting me know he was there. What he was offering me just then was a bit of relief in a chaotic storm of fear and sadness. I couldn’t possibly express how much that meant to me in that moment.
“They’re taking him in for the burns, but also so they can give him something to calm him down. He was extremely confused and agitated.”
I sagged against Stone’s body as I started to cry, and he didn’t hesitate to hold me up.
James looked over my head at Stone and asked, “Do you guys want to ride to the hospital with us?”
He looked down at me to answer, clearly willing to do anything I needed or wanted him to do. But I knew that the most comfort I’d get until I could see my dad and talk to him was to be wrapped around my man.
“We’ll meet you guys there,” I told my brother-in-law.
Crissy, Elaina, and I embraced one more time before we all broke apart and headed toward the hospital, and I knew we were in for a long night.
Stone
I’d stayed at Willow’s side all night long. I held her whenever she needed it, pouring all my strength into her while we waited for word on her father. The few times she’d broken off to huddle with her sisters, I’d used as an opportunity to text those closest to her to let them know what was going down. Lark and Aurora had both asked if they should come to the hospital to be with her, but I saw the way the Thorne sisters were banding together, leaning on each other, and I felt like they had it.
She’d need her girls when she got home and didn’t have her family all around her, but for now, she had the support she really needed, so I held them off.
Jensen told me to make sure I kept her ass at home the following day, but that was already something I had every intention of doing.
The doctor had come to talk to them, letting them know that Jon would be okay, and that was the first time I felt the tension in the waiting room lighten. They’d asked to see him but had been told to check back the following day. He’d been too agitated and disoriented when he arrived, so they’d given him a sedative so he could rest.
Her sisters left the hospital before us, both of them needing to get back to their kids, but we didn’t leave until well after two in the morning. Before climbing on my bike, Willow had informed me that she wanted to sleep at my house, so that was where we were.
She stopped inside the door just long enough to bend and greet Chief, who’d been waiting anxiously for us to come in, before dragging herself through the living room and past the kitchen to the master bedroom. As if sensing his girl wasn’t okay, Chief followed after her, and when we finally got in bed after undressing, he curled up in a ball on the floor on her side, as though standing guard.
Reaching across the bed, I pulled her over to me, pressing her head against my chest and hooking my arm around her waist to hold her close.
“I wish there was something I could do to make this better,” I said into the dark.
That was something I’d been struggling with all damn night; the feeling of abject helplessness when it came to my woman’s pain. I’d have given my life in that moment to take it all away for her.