But apparently, she was my wild animal.
Not Zach’s, definitely not Cleo’s, and for sure not the vet’s.
Because, oh my God, had my girl gone nutso when he’d tried to handle her.
And Baby Bark really wasn’t her name. I hadn’t come up with one yet. Baby Bark had just been what Cleo had called her and it’d kind of stuck for now until I could come up with something cute.
But last night, my brain just hadn’t been into it.
There’d just been too much to process.
“Why?” Zach asked me suspiciously.
I held up my running shoes and showed them to him. “I’m going to go run. I don’t think I’ll be able to get my training in at the track today, so I thought that I’d get a short fast run in, get a shower, then we can head back up to the hospital.”
Zach looked at me, at Baby Bark, then at me. “She doesn’t do well with you gone. Just take her with you. I’m sure she’s used to running.”
I rolled my eyes. “I…”
The door that I’d partially held open was knocked out of my hand, and then Baby Bark was outside ready to run with me.
“Shit,” I grumbled.
I’d never get her inside. She really liked it better outside, but if I was inside, she’d go inside. It was just a struggle to get her there.
“Fine,” I said. “But, just stay by your phone. I may need you to come get her if this doesn’t go well.”
He held up his thumb, then went back to tying a knot in some rope.
I wasn’t sure what he was doing with said rope, but when I’d asked him, he’d said ‘practicing.’ So I’d left it at that.
This morning we’d both woken up early, curled in each other’s arms, the day and subsequent night before heavy on our minds.
We’d both gotten up around four, him to do whatever he did with his spare time, and me to call Murphy and see if he needed any help.
Only, I’d been told in no uncertain terms that my time off wasn’t finished yet. No, he didn’t need any help, and to top it off, he was thinking about closing down the convenience part of the store and leaving it as a restaurant for me to do with what I would.
After that, he’d promptly hung up, giving me more than a few things to think about on my run this morning.
I sat down to tie my shoes on the front steps, and then when I was ready, I looked at the coyote pup next to me. “You ready?”
The puppy didn’t answer me, but when I started to run, she dove off into the woods that I was running near and kept up with me. Easily, I might add.
While I ran, I kept an eye on her but kept my mind on what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
I was a highly trained chef. I’d spent quite a bit of my time as a chef in a popular restaurant in Nashville. I knew my way around a kitchen.
I just… didn’t want to do that anymore.
I didn’t know if it was because of the burnout that I’d felt from doing the chef thing in Nashville, or because I was forced to do the things I didn’t want to do here at home.
Whatever the reason, I wanted to cook for fun, not for a job.
Which then translated to me needing to find something that I did want to do. Hopefully something that would accommodate my running, because that was something I for sure knew that I wanted to do.
I wasn’t paying attention.
I was running, again looking at my watch to check my pace, when out of nowhere something hit me hard.
So hard, in fact, that I was flung, end over end, into the ditch that was beside the road.
I spent my last thoughts thinking about how awful this would be for Zach to find before I felt stars dancing in my vision.
I had just enough energy to turn and see the back of my father’s car speeding away toward home before I passed out.
• • •
My eyes peeked open, and all I saw was blue sky.
I’d passed out.
After my father had left, I’d fully expected to die right there in the ditch.
But I hadn’t.
“Crockett!” I heard someone yell.
I frowned, my face hurting almost immediately from the action, and tried to turn my head.
My brain exploded in pain.
I’m talking, eyes closing, watering, and feeling like they were about to pop right out of my head pain.
Then the howling started.
The howling hurt my head, too.
But what it also did was draw the attention of whoever was calling my name.
The voice sounded familiar, but also sounded like one that I didn’t hear all that often.
I knew why a few seconds later when the bright sun was blotted out as something leaned over me. I looked up to find Bruno staring at me with horror on his face.
“Oh, fuck, doll.” He dropped down to the ground beside me, started to reach for me, but thought better of it. “Oh, fuck.”
I knew it was bad.
But seeing the horror on his face? That cemented it for me.
This was bad.
Really, really bad.
CHAPTER 22
Woke up fat again.
-Text from Ford to Zach
ZACH
“She has a concussion,” the doctor, one I hadn’t worked with before, said. “A very bad one. We’re going to monitor her brain for swelling. She has a cut on her head that’s the cause of the horror show that she was when she was brought in. I closed it with two stitches. Overall, everything else is fine. No broken bones or anything. She was very lucky.”
She was hit by a car. Yes, that made her very lucky.
“I’m having her moved up to the first floor where she can stay a night or two. I’ll remain her doctor, though, since that’s my area. The brain,” Dr. Lout murmured.
I nodded, thankful that I had a good one looking after my girl.
After he left, I looked at Bruno.
“What happened?” I asked, rubbing my face.
He’d already told me what he’d seen—a white sedan hitting Crockett—but that’d been in the thick of panic.
Now, knowing she would be okay, I was able to listen a little bit better.
“It was her father,” he said. “I got the license plate number as he was driving off. Laric and Trouper are bringing in the father as we speak.”
I knew what ‘bringing in’ meant, and I wanted no part of it. If I saw that bastard, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
I gritted my teeth. “Tell them to take him to the police station. Let them handle him.”
I didn’t want him on my conscience.
As much as I’d like that motherfucker to die, I didn’t want to be the one to pull the trigger.
Because, eventually, Crockett would want to know details. And I didn’t think she’d like it if she knew that I was the one to murder her father.
Bruno sighed as if I’d just taken away his puppy.
“I can’t believe you don’t want to bring him in,” he grumbled, pouting like a teenage girl instead of the grown man I knew him to be.
I turned then, my eyes going to Bruno. “As long as I have no part in it, I don’t care what you do. Take him to the police station. Take him to the fuckin’ pig farm you think nobody knows about. I don’t give a flying fuck. Just make sure that asshole doesn’t get anywhere near me. I’m finding that I like being on the outside.”