Page 13 of Defended By the SEAL (HERO Force #10)
Charlotte sat on a branch on one side of Grams, Tom on the other, the two of them shielding the old woman’s body from the worst of the storm as sawdust, smoke, and exhaust mingled with sleet in the air, making it hard to breathe.
She wore her grandmother’s long wool coat, the freezing cold breeze skating up her neck and through her hair. Charlotte wished for a hat.
A small fire burned nearby in a metal wheelbarrow, the heat of its flames barely reaching them.
Cowboy hovered over the women, working to saw through the trunk, but the chain saw clearly wasn’t cooperating with near constant starts and stops, its motor sputtering.
This time, he was struggling to get it going again.
Charlotte squeezed her grandmother’s hand. “You’re doing great, Grams.”
“We have to hurry,” said Grams, her stare heavy with concern.
“We’re going as fast as we can.”
“But we need to get to the lighthouse. I can’t do it all by myself.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “Can’t do what by yourself?”
“They must be freezing,” said Grams. “And they didn’t get their supper!”
“It’s the cold,” said Tom. “She’s delusional.”
Grams’s lips were blue, and she seemed to be getting tired. Charlotte didn’t know how long it had been, time warping and hovering with her adrenaline and the desperate nature of the situation. The chainsaw ran for several minutes before stopping again.
Cowboy cursed colorfully. Grams worked to kick off her blankets.
“What are you doing?” asked Charlotte.
“I’m so hot. Get these off me,” Grams said.
“No,” snapped Cowboy. “That’s a sign of hypothermia. Feeling overly warm when your body temp is dropping. You keep those blankets on, Loretta.” He added more fuel, finishing what was in the canister.
One whole tank of gas, and they hadn’t even gotten through the main trunk yet. Beside her, Tom’s teeth were chattering. “Maybe you should go to the other part of the house and warm up for a while,” Charlotte said.
He shook his head. “I’m staying here.”
“We don’t need both of you getting hypothermia. I can take care of Grams.”
“And feed the chickens,” said Grams.
Tom shot Charlotte a pained look. “I’ll be back.” He extricated himself from the branches, nearly losing his balance as he climbed away.
Charlotte repositioned herself to cover more of her grandmother’s body as Cowboy finally got the chainsaw started again. Her ears were so cold they hurt, so she used her mittened hands to cover her grandmother’s ears.
What would she do if her grandma died today, here, like this?
She should have spent more time with her, should have made her a larger part of her life.
And what about Cowboy? He was breaking his back working to free her, and she knew without a doubt he would do as much for anyone who needed help.
He was a good man—the best of men—and she hoped she was doing the right thing by letting him go.
They stayed like that for what seemed an eternity as Cowboy sawed through the rest of the trunk and moved on to the thick branch. Tom came back carrying a steaming bowl of chicken soup for Grams, a wave of nausea rolling through Charlotte’s stomach as the scent reached her nose.
Grams shook her head, and Charlotte was grateful when Tom removed the offending liquid. She frowned. She must be getting sick. For a second there she really thought she was going to hurl, and the same thing had happened yesterday on the plane, then later at dinner.
A terrifying thought dawned on her. When was her period due? It seemed like she should have had it by now. God, could she be pregnant?
No, it wasn’t possible. She was on the pill.
Grams’s story had terrified her, the idea of a tiny human being affecting her decisions terrifying her—and for good reason.
Still, she itched to check the calendar on her phone.
Oh God, what if she was? What if she’d finally gotten the courage to break things off with Cowboy, and she was tied to him forever by a little human being?
You slept with him last night. It’s not like you really got him out of your system.
She squeezed her eyes closed tightly. No, she hadn’t made a successful break, and if she was being completely honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she could do it.
He was sawing her grandmother out of an entrapment right that very instant, for goodness’ sake.
What kind of woman could walk away from that?
She watched him working, the muscles of his forearms standing out in relief, golden hair covering his skin. She loved the feel of it, loved to run her fingers along his body and hear the deep groan in his throat.
Stop it.
What would a child of theirs look like? She imagined a tow-headed little boy with his father’s mischievous grin, her heart instantly warming to the image.
But children were more of a commitment than marriage, and if she couldn’t get herself to marry Leo, then how could she have his child?
She might break out in hives just thinking about it.
Maybe Tom poisoned the soup in an attempt to take her grandmother’s fortune, and that was what she’d been reacting to, like some highly trained canine who could smell a dangerous broth from ten paces away.
She rolled her eyes. She was losing her fucking mind.
Suddenly, the chainsaw slipped from the branch and nearly hit the floor, its motor stopping. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Cowboy hopped on one leg, cursing a blue streak of obscenities. When he stopped, he reached for his pant leg, a slice in the denim of his jeans stained red. Charlotte gasped.
“It’s just a scratch,” he said. His eyes went to Grams, so still in her chair. “How’s she doing?”
Charlotte looked at her grandmother. Her eyes were closed, and she appeared to be sleeping. Fear spiked through Charlotte’s bloodstream as she tried unsuccessfully to wake the old woman. “Hurry, Leo.”
This time, the chainsaw started on the first pull, Grams’s fate tied to the remaining few inches of wood between her and freedom. Please don’t let her die, she chanted in her mind.
It took what seemed like an eternity, the repeated stops and starts of the chainsaw getting more and more frequent before stopping once and for all. Charlotte turned hopeful eyes Cowboy’s way, hoping he was done, but the branch remained where it was.
Cowboy punctuated his frustration with a colorful string of curses and unscrewed the gas cap. “The goddamn thing’s out of gas.”
Before Charlotte knew what they were about, Cowboy had sent Tom to look for a manual saw. When he finally returned, he handed Cowboy a hacksaw.
“Not so mechanically inclined, are you?” asked Cowboy, bending with the saw and going to work on the final strip of wood between his cut and Grams’s freedom.
He wondered how someone who didn’t know a hacksaw from a hole in the wall could have fixed a broken pipe, and figured there was a decent chance the basement was flooding with water that very instant.
The muscles of Cowboy’s arms burned, but he fought against the fatigue that begged him to stop moving. Finally, the saw broke through the branch, its weight falling away from the chair where Grams sat.
“Don’t move her yet,” barked Cowboy, climbing over the felled limb to get to them. “I need to remove that branch. Tom!” he called, and the older man came running.
Charlotte cringed with fear and worry, fighting back tears.
The men managed to push the limb off Grams’s unconscious body, but despite what surely must be painful, Grams didn’t wake up.
Cowboy draped Grams’s arm over his shoulder and Tom did the same on the other side, the men carrying her awkwardly over the tree branches and sawed pieces to safety.
“Put her on the living room couch,” called Charlotte, already running ahead to stoke the flames of the fire burning in the hearth.
It was far warmer here, though she knew it must still be chilly by heated home standards. She prayed it would be enough as she dragged the couch closer to the fireplace. Cowboy carried Grams into the room and settled her on the couch as Charlotte raced to retrieve the blankets from the other room.
They were all wet. “Damn it!” She raced up the stairs and pulled every blanket she could find off the beds and brought them down with her. Tom sat on the sofa, Grams’s head cradled in his lap as Cowboy cleaned her wounds. Charlotte covered Grams and took a step back, helplessness washing over her.
There was nothing she could do, no one she could call. Either her grandmother was going to make it or she was not. Wind blew at her back. She needed to find a way to close off the den, or it would never get warm in here.
The den was connected to the house by a doorway some six feet wide.
She ran through the foyer and made her way up the steps.
She wandered through the upstairs, looking for ideas.
The home had solid wood doors, which were a definite possibility.
She’d need some way to connect them, maybe with boards holding them together, but it would be time consuming to get the doors off their ancient hinges.
Entering her grandma’s bedroom, her eyes fell on a large patterned rug, thick and tightly woven.
She pushed the bed off it, then rolled it up and dragged it downstairs, astonished by how much it weighed.
She left it at the bottom of the stairs and told the men her plan, the three of them securing it in place with a hammer and nails Tom ran to get from the workshop.
The improvement was instantaneous.
Tom went back to sit with Grams, and Cowboy opened his arms to Charlotte. “Come here.”
She didn’t have the energy to fight her need for this man, didn’t have reserves to bolster herself up. She needed him to hold her, needed him to comfort her in the face of her grandmother’s condition, needed his love.
Closing her eyes against his chest, his arms came around her, the familiar scent of his body shoring her up. If there was a way for Grams to survive, Leo would help her find it, and she wondered in that moment why she’d ever run away from him.
Her eyes popped open, the memory of her earlier nausea returning with a start. She really needed to find her phone and look at her calendar.
Being pregnant could change everything she thought was true, and most certainly her relationship with this man. Cowboy would be all over it—all over her to marry him, that is—in an instant. She had no doubt that would put his earlier efforts to shame.
Please, God, don’t let me be pregnant.
She wanted to cry. Wasn’t being overly emotional a pregnancy sign as well? But she was terrified for Grams and nearly as frightened for herself, needing the kind of clarity and relief only her calendar—or her period—could bring.