Healed (The Found Book 3) (10 page)

“I guess it will have to be pancakes again,” she said. He kept opening cupboards. Way up on a high shelf he found three cans of ravioli.

“Dammit, how come I didn’t find those?”

“Because you’re short,” he teased.

“You know, at five foot ten, I’ve never been accused of being short in my life. You’re just abnormal.” She poked him in the ribs.

“You liked all of my abnormal bits just fine earlier today,” he said as he turned on the stove. He watched as her cheeks pinkened. “How in the hell can you blush after growing up with six older brothers?”

“Just move, will you? I’m trying to reach the saucepan.”

After the ravioli was simmering Nate picked her up and placed her on the kitchen counter and smiled.

“So is this the best you can do? Your mom fed me lasagna she made from scratch.”

“Mama likes you more than I like you.”

“I asked her to run away with me but she refused. She seems to be committed to your dad. I think they’re staying together for the sake of the children.” She laughed again and he felt like he had won the lottery.

“So, you know all about me, what about you? Do you have any siblings?”

“Nope.”

“You sure tease like you came from a big family.” She grabbed his T-Shirt and made him look at her when he would have turned away. “You were an only child?”

“Kind of. I hung out a lot with the Mahoney family. Ryan Mahoney was an only child too but he had like fourteen cousins, I spent a lot of time over at his house. My parents didn’t approve.”

“They wanted you to spend more time with them?”

“Oh hell no, they just didn’t think the Mahoney’s were good enough. Mrs. Mahoney was a school teacher and his father owned a small moving company. Totally not our type of people.”

“What
were
your type of people,” she asked curiously.

“White, Anglo-Saxon, protestant, rich. Sure as hell not middle class catholic. Not fun and loving.” She winced. Damn he shouldn’t have been so blunt. When he said as much she dropped a kiss on his chest.

“I wasn’t upset they might not approve of me. I was feeling sorry for you. It must have sucked.” A load of tension eased. She understood.

“Yeah, it did. The Mahoney’s were a lifeline. If it hadn’t been for them I don’t know how I would have survived growing up.”

“You would have. Where are they now?”

He swallowed. God, he hated telling this part of the story. “They died in a car crash when I was a junior in high school.” She pulled tighter on his T-Shirt until he was flush against her and she wrapped her arms around him.

“Tell me,” she coaxed.

“It was awful. My parents were damn near happy about it. One of the few concessions my dad ever made was letting me attend public school, and Ryan and I were on the football team together. We were both offered scholarships to OU. I wasn’t going to go. Dad went to Yale and that’s where I was going to go too. But after the Mahoney’s died and my parents were such assholes I decided to take Ryan’s path. He’d always wanted to play college ball and then join the Navy. At first I did it to honor Ryan’s memory and partly out of spite I guess. Upsetting my parents was icing on the cake. But after a year away from them, I realized it was the right choice for me, and I wanted to serve my country.”

“Oh baby, I’m sorry your family died.” He jerked and then settled. She was right the Mahoney’s
had
been his family. “It all makes sense now. You always seemed like such a dichotomy.”

“So are you. Sometimes you can be such a ballbreaker and other times you are such a shy little thing.”

“Am not.”

“How about if I told you I can hear your friend and her son coming up the stairs? Do you want them to see you with your arms around me, and my hand under your shirt?” She scrambled backwards and he laughed.

****

After the late lunch, Sarah took out her phone and put the battery back in. Her first call was to Cyrus. She told him everything, including Kyle’s involvement and his continued problem keeping his big mouth shut. Then she called Ramone, and said he and Brayson could come and pick them up at dusk.

“Who you talking to?” Jeremy asked, curious as always.

“One of the people was my brother,” Sarah answered Jeremy.

“Do you have any sisters? My mom said I might have a sister one day. I think I’d like to have a brother more.”

“Are you kidding? A baby sister would be great,” Nate said stepping onto the porch. He picked Jeremy up and put him on his shoulders. “You would be the big brother and it would be your job to teach her things and protect her.”

“What would I teach her?”

“Do you know how to ride a bike?”

“With training wheels.”

“Well you can teach your sister how to ride a bike with training wheels. Then one day when you learn how to ride one without training wheels you can teach her how to do that too.”

“That’d be cool.” Jeremy was eating up the attention. She looked over at Amy who saw it too but she looked sad. She must have been thinking of all of the times Jeremy hadn’t gotten that kind of positive attention from his father.

“What else, what else would I do Nate?” Jeremy tilted his head so he could see Nate’s face.

“You would protect her. You would make sure that nobody hurt your baby sister.”

“How?”

“You’d walk her to school. You’d let people know if they messed with your little sister you’d pound them into dust.”

“Nate, don’t encourage him to fight,” Sarah protested.

“Hhow did it work with you and your brothers?” Nate looked at her seriously. She saw the big man standing in the middle of the clearing, his blond head matching the little boy on his shoulders. They stared at her with quizzical looks waiting for her answer.

“My brothers would threaten them and scare them. There was never a need to fight because everybody knew the Johnson brothers would pound them into dust,” she reluctantly admitted.

“I told you.” Nate grinned upwards. Sarah looked at Amy who was doing her best not to smile as she rubbed her abdomen.

“Okay son, I think it’s time for us to let Sarah and Nate talk for a bit. You and I need to make one more trip to see if we can find Bambi before we have to head home.” Nate carefully set Jeremy down on the ground and they watched as his face started to scrunch up.

“We have to go home? But I like it here Mom,” Jeremy whined.

“So do I.”

“I like Sarah.”

“So do I.

He grabbed Nate’s hand. “And Nate.” It was obvious he was starved for positive male attention. “Will I see you again?”

Nate knelt down.

“I’m not in Atlanta all that often Jeremy but when I am I promise to visit, okay?” Jeremy gave a tremulous smile and nodded.

“Now don’t you want to go find the deer? Nate and Sarah will still be here when we get back.”

“Do you promise?” Jeremy said, still holding Nate’s hand. He squeezed it gently.

“I promise.”

Amy winked as she guided her little boy out of the clearing and down the path towards the deeper woods. Nate chuckled at the matchmaking.

“She likes you,” Sarah said.

“I like her. How bad of shape was she in?” They sat down in the dining room chairs Nate had brought out to the porch earlier.

“It was bad. The bastard actually cracked her ribs. He was trying to kill the baby she’s carrying.”

“What?” He must have heard her wrong. She explained about the rage Chris had been in when he found out she was pregnant. Sarah didn’t even realize she started to cry. He reached for her-

“Noooooooooooo!” A woman’s scream. It had to be Amy. It came from the woods.

“Get into the cabin. Get your gun. Only let me in.” Nate barely spared her a glance knowing he could count on her compliance.

He took off at a dead run. He had his sidearm ready as he followed the screams. Jeremy and Amy were screaming and then it went silent. He prayed they’d be all right.

He made his way to the spot where he had last heard their cries. He slowed as he got closer. Even though they were no longer screaming, he could still here them and whoever was trying to subdue them.

Nate went wide and circled behind them, checking to see how many there were. He found a straight path leading to mother and child. He gave a fleeting thought to how they had been discovered, but it wasn’t really the time to contemplate it. He made his way closer. There were six men and it was clear that they were professionals, not Jeffries or his friends. Rixitron.

“Mrs. Jeffries, you need to calm down. We don’t intend to harm you or your son. We want Sarah Johnson. We’re going to take your son for a little walk, and then Sarah will come with us willingly.” The man holding Amy worked hard to keep her still as she thrashed wildly.

“We will knock you unconscious if you don’t behave.” Jeremy started to cry. It was turning into a real clusterfuck.

“Mrs. Jeffries you need to calm down and tell your son he needs to be brave and go with us.” Nate watched as she worked to calm herself. Finally the man holding her lifted his hand off her mouth.

“Let go of me and let me talk to my son,” her voice calm.

He did. She knelt in front of the sobbing boy and wrapped him in her arms.

“It’s okay baby, Mommy’s here. I’ve got you,” she crooned.

“Hurry it up lady,” the man pushed her back with the butt of his gun.

“You have to be brave and go with these men and see Sarah. Can you do that for Mommy? I need you to do that. I need you to go see Sarah.”

“Why do you need my son?” She turned to the man behind her.

“Because we don’t want Sarah hurt. She won’t do anything foolish if we have Jeremy.” Fuck, they were right. Sarah would go with them like a lamb to slaughter. Well, they didn’t know he was here, so that wouldn’t be happening.

“Okay. Jeremy, you be good for these men and go and see Sarah, all right?” Nate saw the little blonde head nod. One of the men scooped him up and four more followed him leaving one man waiting with Amy.

The men who were headed towards the cabin were going at a good clip but Nate would easily catch up with them. He waited until they were out of earshot and then approached Amy and her captor.

It took him less than three minutes to reach them without being seen or heard. Three minutes he really didn’t want to take but he couldn’t stand the thought they would eliminate Amy now they didn’t need her. Amy gasped as hegrabbed the man from behind. He struggled for a few brief moments before Nate felt the satisfying give of his neck snapping.

“Is he dead?” Amy asked in a wobbly voice.

“Yes.”

“Jeremy, they took Jeremy.”

“I’ll get him Amy.” Nate turned and ran along the path the other men had taken. He figured he could continue at this pace for five minutes before he would catch up to them. Hopefully they hadn’t made it to the cabin.

Fuck!

“We have the boy.”

Nate heard Jeremy crying and two of the men talking to one another as the one man continued to shout towards the cabin. She better not come outside. As soon as he thought it he saw the door open. Then he heard the sound of a helicopter.

Fuck!

The helicopter was loud and two of the men had dropped back towards the tree line. Sarah didn’t show any change in expression as she saw Nate come up behind first one man, and then the other and kill them. That left three. He realized the one holding Jeremy had a knife to his throat, and that’s why Sarah stepped onto the porch.

The other two men rushed forward as the helicopter landed, and Sarah yelled, “Save Jeremy.”

The scream was just the distraction Nate needed, because the man looked behind him, and Nate twisted his arm away from Jeremy’s body, before flinging him to the ground. He kicked him in the head and looked up just in time to see Sarah being pulled onto the helicopter by the other two men. He ran towards it, but it flew into the air before he could reach it. There were no markings on the thing. He looked over at Jeremy and the still man. He didn’t have his phone with him, it was in the cabin. He picked up the sobbing child and sped to the house.

It seemed like hours before Sierra picked up. He explained everything. As he left Jeremy in the bedroom he went back into the clearing and picked up the unconscious man dropping him onto the porch.

“I’m sure we can get a trace on it Nate,” Sierra assured him. He knew it was a crapshoot, even though she was trying to sound confident.

“It’s okay Sierra, I have another option,” Nate said, looking at the man on the porch. Suddenly, Amy appeared at the forest’s edge. Damn, he’d forgotten all about her.

“Jeremy’s fine. He’s inside,” he called out to her. She broke into a dead run. He heard the happy shriek of the boy and he gave a grim smile. Then he picked up his new friend and took him into the woods. He really didn’t want the small family to hear what he was about to do.

****

Sarah woke up in a hospital bed. The room was bright and cheerful. She felt really disoriented. She was attached to a saline drip. Scratch that, she could see something else besides saline was in her IV, and she didn’t have a clue what it was. She looked around and saw all the usual monitors.

She tried to move and press the call button and panicked. Her arm wouldn’t move. When she tried to move her left arm instead, it was just as immobile. Nothing moved. Her entire body was paralyzed.

“Nurse!” Thank God, she could talk. “Nurse! Somebody! Can you please come and help me?”

The door opened admitting a middle aged woman in nurse’s scrubs. She was smiling.

“You’re awake. We’ve been hoping you’d wake up soon.”

“I can’t move. What’s wrong with me? Was I in an accident?”

“Yes. You’ve been in a coma for a few days. The doctor gave you some medication so you wouldn’t thrash about as you woke up. You’ll be able to move in a couple of hours.”

What the hell? That didn’t sound right, did it?

“Can I speak to my doctor? How long have I been in a coma?” Nothing made sense. Sarah was dizzy and everything was confused. She needed to talk to the doctor and get some answers.