Page 5 of Midnight Between Us (The Timberbridge Brothers #4)

Chapter Two

Simone

When I arrive, the first thing I see is the fire truck.

It’s not ours. Nope. It’s Larkspur Knoll’s emergency services who are attending.

Which means the Birchwood Springs crew is still tied up at The Honey Drop.

Figures. It feels like our small town has been cursed.

I don’t want to believe on any of that since I’m a woman of science, but .

. . what the fuck is happening to our small town?

We should ask more questions about Del’s dad. Maybe his ghost is angry or . . . okay, it’s too farfetched, but I don’t believe in coincidences. Things have been happening for a while now. I bet that if I start a crime board I could pinpoint when this started and maybe even who to blame.

The second thing I notice is the air—how it stills the moment I step out of the ambulance. Not silent. I can still hear the wind catching dry leaves, the distant wail of a second siren, and someone yelling something urgent up the ridge. But all of it sounds . . . distant.

It’s almost like the trees have agreed not to speak too loud.

Like they know what’s here and want no part of it.

I cross the ditch. Mud pulls at my shoes, thick enough to suck a person straight down if they don’t know how to navigate through it.

A flashlight sweeps across the wreckage—metal crumpled like paper, the front end kissing a pine trunk.

The driver’s side door hangs open, bent at an odd angle as if someone kicked it from the inside.

The car appears to have tried to blend into the forest and failed.

“Where’s the victim?” I ask, already dreading the answer.

A deputy gestures toward the back. “Trunk. We found him cuffed. We’re almost done opening it enough so we can get him out.”

I freeze. “Cuffed?”

“Zip-ties. Tape, too. Black sleeve over his head. Real fucked-up scene.”

Something tightens low in my gut. No part of this suggests an accident. This is staged. A goddamn message. Someone didn’t want him found—didn’t want him getting out at all. Okay, it’s not just Del’s mom.

What is going on in Birchwood Springs?

I move toward the trunk, feeling my palms grow hot and itchy, adrenaline licking up my spine. The taillights are dim but still glowing, like the car itself is bleeding out. Another officer is crouched, his flashlight trained on the inside.

He steps back when he sees me coming.

The body’s curled in on itself—bare chest smeared with blood, bruised, streaked with dirt and pine needles.

One leg’s twisted the wrong way, bone straining beneath skin.

His arms are marked up—bruises running from purple to almost bloody-black.

A broken zip-tie dangles from one wrist. The tape near his mouth is barely hanging on.

“Is he alive?” I ask, because this body looks ready to head straight to the morgue.

“Yeah. Barely. He’s holding onto the last thread of his life.”

And his face . . . God.

His face is a disaster.

Swollen, bloodied, almost beyond recognition.

Some poor?—

I stop.

Because when I really look past the wreckage and blood and what’s been broken, I see it.

I see him.

Which is insane because there’s no way it could be him.

No fucking way.

But that jaw is clenched even now. That mouth I kissed more times than I can count. The scar beneath his collarbone—the one I used to trace with my fingertip, back when life was different and hope was still around. Back when everything felt possible.

It’s him.

Keir.

Keir Timberbridge.

“What the fuck did you do?” I mumble under my breath while the ground sways. I grab the trunk just to stay upright, nails biting into the cold metal.

“Help me lift him out.”

“Doc, maybe we should wait?—”

Wait for what? For him to die? I don’t think so. “Help. Me. Lift him.” My voice comes out desperate, urgent. I can’t let him die.

They follow orders.

Once he’s out, I check his neck, his spine and my fingers moving on autopilot even though my pulse is all over the place. We wedge a backboard beneath him, careful, but not careful enough. He groans low when we shift him, his body arching like pain is pulling him from somewhere deep.

His fingers twitch.

Then his head lolls toward me, jaw slack.

And then—he speaks.

Barely a whisper. Just one word.

“Sims.”

And then . . . nothing.

His chest stops moving.

No breath. No sound.

The world caves in on itself.

I drop beside him. “No. No, no, no. You don’t get to do this to me, you asshole.”

Two fingers to his neck.

No pulse.

“Get me my bag,” I snap. “And the defib. Now.”

My hands are already on his chest. Compressions start. I count them off like I’m not losing my goddamn mind.

One, two, three.

His skin’s cooling fast.

Four, five, six.

I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I can’t do this again—I can’t lose him again, not like this, not in a fucking trunk in the woods with his blood on my hands.

“Come on,” I whisper. “Come back, Keir. You don’t get to leave like that. I get to end you.”

The bag valve mask appears in someone’s hand. I don’t remember asking again, but they’re here, and we work. We shock him once. Then again. The forest blinks with white light, and I swear, everything holds its breath.

Still nothing.

And then—his chest jerks.

A sound punches out of him, low and strangled, like a body remembering how to live.

His eyes don’t open. But he’s breathing.

Barely.

“Load him now,” I bark.

“We could call a helicopter to take it to Boston.”

Can’t they see that he doesn’t have that long? “No more waiting. We’re taking him to the clinic. He’s not going to make it to the city.”

“Should we call it in?”

“Don’t call anyone, not yet. We have to move—I’m not losing him.”

They scramble. I stay kneeling by his side, one hand on his wrist, watching the faint flutter of a pulse return like it had second thoughts.

So did I.

But now he’s back.

And I’m not letting go this time.

I ride with him in the back of the ambulance. Not because I need to—but because no one else can do this.

Because I’m not ready to let go of him.

He’s stabilized by the time we pull into Birchwood Clinic’s private entrance. I’d called ahead—and told them we had a John Doe. Told them I’d take over myself.

They didn’t question it. Why would they? I run this place.