Page 24 of Hideaway Whirlwind (Big Boys of Berenson Trucking #4)

Teagan

I fly out of bed when Storm howls her head off from the front of the cabin, tripping and landing on my hands and knees when my feet get tangled in the comforters and sheets.

“Mommy!” Sydney is already crying when she sits up in bed, hugging Kendall tight as Kendall does her polar bear. “What’s happening?”

I lunge up and toward the door. “Stay here!” I lock the bedroom door from the inside before I leave, my heart beating so fast in my chest I’m worried it’s going to give out on me, my head pounding with a headache after crying myself to sleep last night.

Storm’s barking nearly drowns out the repeated knocks on the front door, her hackles raised, and I wish more than ever Elliott were here.

“Re—” I think better of commanding release as Elliott had done to get her to relax. If it’s Priscilla out there, then I’ll be grateful to have Storm standing with me between Priscilla and the kids.

I drag a kitchen chair toward the pantry on the left wall and climb onto it, rolling up on my tiptoes to reach Elliott’s sawed-off shotgun he keeps hidden from little hands on the top shelf.

With no idea how to use Elliott’s gun, or if it’s even loaded, I hold it up the way I’ve seen him do.

Only then do I peek through the front window, my shoulders sagging when I see who it is.

“Release,” I tell Storm with my hand on the doorknob. Instantly, she calms and trots off a few feet, though the hair on her back is still raised. I, on the other hand, struggle with turning the deadbolt and letting our visitors inside. I already miss Elliott, and we haven’t even left yet.

“Teagan!” Marigold only waves, since we’re not close enough as friends to hug. Her smile dries up when her gray eyes drop to the shotgun hanging by my side. “Wow. Ok. Do you know how to shoot that thing?”

“Sure.”

“No, you don’t. A woman needs to know how to protect herself.

” She lifts the hem of her thick blue sweater beneath her oversized utility jacket, showing off a motherfucking handgun holstered on her hip.

“We’ll get you one of your own, and I’ll take you to the gun range so you can learn how to use it,” she says, her earlier smile returning.

Then the badass, confident woman who is hardly recognizable from the exhausted teenager I once knew breezes inside, leaving Davis behind on the porch, a large SUV backed up on the driveway.

“Hey, Teagan. Is Elliott here?” Davis appears almost nervous as he pushes his hands into the pockets of his blue and silver plaid jacket and looks over my head. “Ah, dumb question. If he were, he’d’ve already threatened to shoot me.”

“Yeah,” I acknowledge, gripping the shotgun tighter before I finally step out of the way to let him inside .

Marigold is patting Storm’s head and cooing at her like she’s the cutest, tiniest, most non-threatening little puppy ever.

Storm laps up the attention, her big tongue lolling from the side of her mouth with a smile that splits her face from ear to ear, her whole rear end shaking with the force of her wagging tail.

But as soon as Storm sees Davis, she dips her head with a growl, moving in front of Marigold, crouching to lunge at him.

“Whoa, now, easy girl, easy.” Davis holds his hands up as he backs into the corner between the couch and the fireplace. “You remember me, right? Right?”

“Storm, release!” For a moment, I think she’s going to ignore my command. But then she sits on her bony bottom, though she doesn’t take her eyes off Davis as he cautiously moves away from the corner, swerving around her.

“Goddamn.” Davis sucks his teeth. “Figures a man as scary as Elliott would have a hellhound for a dog.”

“Where is Elliott, anyway?” Marigold asks, her hand tucked under her sweater, ready for anything, it seems.

I sigh, climbing back up onto the kitchen chair to put the shotgun away. “Help me get the kids packed, and I’ll tell you.”

Elliott

I wake to the stench of Storm’s hot breath strong enough to make my eyes water when she licks my face, slathering me with slobber and yipping excitedly when I turn over from my back onto my side to escape her tongue.

“Holy shit,” Davis says, drawing out each syllable, when I emerge from the woods.

I’m so stiff and filthy, possibly hypothermic, that I can barely muster a grunt in acknowledgment. My fingers twitch when I reach for my shotgun at the sight of him, only to remember I left it in the cabin.

Davis finishes stowing two loaded garbage bags into the trunk of Goldie’s Explorer before eyeing the tattoos on my arms with surprise, since he’s never seen them. “You doing alright? Teagan told Goldie what happened. We were worried about you.”

I don’t respond, sluggishly making my way up the back stairs, his pity turning my stomach sour and making everything that much worse.

I snap out of my drowsy state when someone hollers from inside the cabin, and I trip over the last step, unable to feel my toes, nearly busting through the back door when I fall.

My heart breaks all over again at what awaits me.

“Why can’t we take Rain? He’s mine!” Dustin yells with tears rolling down his red face, hunched in the corner of the kitchen with his favorite of the two puppies on his lap. He twists his body away from Birdie, who sits on her heels before him.

Sydney is rocking on the recliner with the other puppy, Sky, her own sweet face puffy and wet. “Please, Mommy, ple-e-ease!”

“Papa!” Kendall squeals and tumbles off the couch with her polar bear. She throws herself at me, and for just one beautiful second, I forget I’m not really her papa when I pick her up, burying my nose in her hair.

“Elliott?” Birdie slowly rises, and as soon as there is enough space to do so, Dustin takes off down the hallway with Rain, followed by a door slamming shut.

“Elliott,” Birdie says again, but with relief, as if she hadn’t known I’d ever come back.

She doesn’t step into the arm I automatically open for her, though, crushing more of my spirit.

“Papa, tell Mommy we stay!” Sydney yells, racing toward me after setting Sky on the carpet with Storm, who is growing more alarmed by the minute.

I scoop Sydney up on my other arm, holding both girls close, my heart being ripped to shreds. I’m going to lose them before they were ever really mine .

From over their heads, Goldie and Davis approach, and I automatically back away. They’re going to take them from me . A familiar darkness begins to seep into the edges of my vision.

“Elliott, you have to let them go,” Goldie says, shifting her long golden-red hair behind her shoulders and raising her hands to take Kendall while Birdie does the same with Sydney.

“No, please,” I beg of Birdie, fighting the impulse to run. Even carrying both girls, I could outrun any of them. But I can’t outrun a bullet. I wouldn’t put it past Goldie to shoot the backs of my knees out, just like Davis warned me, if I tried to take the girls. I’m trapped. “Stay with me.”

“I can’t,” Birdie says, shaking her head with purple smudges beneath her amber eyes. They’re as dark as the ones she sported when we first met. The ones that had slowly, so slowly, grown lighter with each passing night spent in my bed.

Sydney screams and loops her arms around my neck when Birdie tries to lift her. Kendall cycles her legs in the air, throwing her head back against Goldie’s chin when Goldie successfully pulls her out of my arms.

“You’re going to hurt Sydney if you don’t let her go,” Davis says from behind me in the open door. He must have slipped around back, perhaps sensing I was thinking of leaving, if only for a little while, to put off the inevitable.

“Papa, Papa,” Sydney cries out when I kiss her temple, pull her arms from around my neck, and allow her mama to take her. “No, no! Papa!”

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” Birdie murmurs, stroking Sydney’s back now that she clings to her mama as Birdie follows Goldie out the front door.

Davis claps me on the shoulder, and I shudder at his touch, lurching to the side.

He drops his gaze to the floor and mumbles an apology, then heads into the hallway, knocking on the spare bedroom door while I stand numbly, watching my family be ripped away.

How did it come to this? I should have been standing guard at the end of the driveway with my shotgun instead of feeling sorry for myself and falling asleep in the woods.

The blood is rushing too hot and fast through my head for me to hear what Davis is saying when Dustin eventually unlocks and opens the bedroom door.

My boy bawls when Davis asks him to bring Rain to the living room and put him down beside Storm, since the puppies are too young to be on their own yet.

Dustin squeezes Storm around the neck and tells her he loves her, and she tries to lick his tears away.

Then he comes running and crashes into my legs.

Dustin absolutely undoes me when he says, “Don’t make me go, Papa!”

I squat and wrap my arms around him, my chest caving in.

I want to say it’s not my choice. I want you to stay forever.

But that might only serve to turn him against his mama when Birdie is trying to do what’s best for her and the children, and I won’t do that to any of them.

In fact, I can’t find the ability to say anything at all when Birdie comes back inside and talks Dustin into finally letting go of me.

Davis reaches for Dustin’s hand, and I clutch my chest when another man leads my boy out of the cabin. I slide down to the floor and drop my head into my hands, trying to breathe through the onslaught of fatalistic thoughts too great for me to bear.

“Elliott?” Birdie whispers.

I look up through my tears to find her kneeling beside me. I curl my fist over my mouth and bite my knuckle to smother the sob that utterly wrecks me.

“Thank you for helping us. I’m sorry for…I’m just sorry.”

When she starts to stand, I selfishly, impulsively, reprehensibly pull her onto my lap and tip her chin up to steal a kiss, though she turns her head after the briefest connection.

It’s not enough. I maul her, shoving my fingers into her hair to tilt her head to the side, sinking my teeth into the spot on her neck that I am compelled to bite, to claim, when we’re together.

After a few seconds, unbelievably, she arches her neck with a moan, moving to straddle my lap of her own volition, one palm on my cheek while she presses on the back of my head.

“I’m sorry,” she manages to say before she moans again when I band my arm around her lower back, rubbing my nose up and down her skin, my chest heaving as I inhale her scent, murmuring her name over and over again. “I have to go.”

I shake my head, nipping at her small chin. “No, you don’t.”

She twists away when I try to steal another kiss. “I…I don’t want to,” she says in the barest of whispers. “That’s why I have to. Please tell me you understand.”

“No, Birdie, I don’t. Please don’t leave me,” I beg when she pushes against my shoulders and stands, taller now in her platform combat boots.

“I’m sorry.”

“Please, please, stay with me,” I say to her back when she reaches the front door.

“Goodbye, Elliott,” she says quietly over her shoulder.

“Don’t leave me,” I say to the empty air after she walks out and closes the door behind her.

“Please don’t leave,” I beg no one as the Explorer bounces down my driveway out of view.

“Come back,” I whisper when I can no longer hear the crunch of gravel, and the sound of the running engine fades. “Come back.”