Page 29 of Protected By West (San Antonio S.W.A.T. #1)

Jack turned and Weston saw her eyes widen for a second before she locked down her expression.

"I'm fine." She turned to walk away, but Blue caught her arm.

"If you need sugar, I can carry some for you."

A strange combination of emotions moved over her face so fast, he could barely recognize them.

Her hand snaked out and grasped the front of his Kevlar vest and yanked him forward.

Weston heard Blue's in-drawn breath.

The man was built of muscle, but even at half his size, Jack had almost pulled him off of his feet.

"Look," she sucked in a breath and glared at the other man. "You worry about you. I've got myself in order, okay?"

Weston didn't quite agree with what she was saying.

They were a team, and they would always have each other's backs on shift and off, but he could understand her frustration if she felt like Blue was stepping over the line.

He'd talk to her later and see what was going on outside of work.

He had a feeling that if he approached her when they were both in uniform, she might overthink the situation. She might misinterpret his question for a fishing expedition into her health.

From what he'd heard from others in law enforcement, Jack had had it tough. Not just coming up through the department but just in general.

One of her parents was a psychologist who treated officers from different departments and from what he heard, had made things difficult for some officers to be cleared for duty.

Jack had probably suffered from more than a bit of retribution for things she hadn't even done.

Her hard shell was making more and more sense.

He was going to have to keep an eye on her and dig a little deeper.

Whether Jack knew it or not, she wasn't just a part of his team. She was going to be part of his family.

He wouldn't use those words exactly.

He had a feeling that she'd fight that tooth and nail and he wasn't interested in her sinking her claws into his arm. When he'd been a little over ten, one of his sisters, Kenna, had found a kitten in a bush.

She was crying because she thought it was crying.

He wasn't good with girls crying. It made him feel helpless back then, even worse now.

Kenna had begged him to free the cat from the blackberry bushes near the house.

Sticking his arm into that thorny bush was not something he wanted to do on a good day, but with his sister's tears coursing down her cheeks, he didn't have a choice.

He'd tried to work his hand through, almost turning back to the house to get a long-sleeved shirt on before losing flesh and blood, but Kenna clung to his shirt, tugging on it, begging him to save the cat.

So he'd gotten down on his knees and leaned into the bush, getting his hand as far in as he could, feeling fur against his fingertips.

By the time he'd gotten the kitten out of the bush, it was wild-eyed and yowling.

As he turned to hand it to his sister, the little feline turned on him, digging its claws into his skin and its teeth into his finger.

The cat dropped from his hands, and he watched it scamper off into the shadows under the blackberry bushes a moment later.

His mom had given him some tender, loving care, but his dad had clapped a hand on his shoulder and sighed. "You should be more careful, son. Not everything you rescue wants the help."

He had a feeling that Jack might turn out to be like that little kitten.

Not that she was little or a child in any way.

That didn't change the instincts in a person.

Jack was a survivor.

That was in her DNA.

Weston watched as everyone got into position. The team at the back of the house was out of sight and the team at the front were using some overgrown brush to get closer to the door. Stepping up into the transport van, West saw two battering rams still in their positions under the counter.

He shrugged and sat down to view the oversized screen before him. Everyone's bodycams and their head mounted cams were up on the screens.

Trying to watch the cams on six of his team made for quite a bit of confusion when they were in training.

Now, it was a kind of dance, moving his gaze over the twelve monitor windows to see what everyone was looking at.

Fox's cams were on, showing the front of the house from his vantage point. He preferred to work out from cover to foster a connection with the people he was negotiating with. Weston didn’t like the idea that Fox wasn’t behind a solid wall, but he understood the reasoning.

He tapped the microphone at his station and all six of his team that were on the ground answered back that they were in position.

At this point, Fox had tried to get the suspect inside to surrender himself peacefully.

That had gone over as well as the meth that the man had smoked earlier in the day.

Thank God there weren't any children on scene. The last thing anyone on his team wanted to see was a child hurt during a situation like this. With adults only on the scene, they could use methods that weren't possible with children in the home.

West was taking notes as he listened to Fox’s conversation.

"Julia... Julia, I need you to breathe and tell me again. Where is your father?'

He could hear the woman's answer through the speakers on Fox's monitor.

"He's... he's on the floor with me. I'm... I'm trying to stop the bleeding."

"Okay."

Weston heard Fox breathe audibly, trying to get Julia to calm down naturally. The last thing people would do is calm down when someone was telling them to 'calm down.'

"Is the bleeding slowing with the pressure you're putting on it?"

"No... Yes... I don't know. I think so!" Julia's voice was climbing higher. "But there's so much blood already here that I can't tell!"

Weston saw Fox out of the corner of his eyes. The man was rock steady, but West could see the tension in his jaw.

"Just keep doing what you're doing, Julia. Your dad needs you to keep calm. Can you ask Nathan to come to the phone again and-"

"I'm not talking to anyone! I just want y'all to get away from here! Everything's gonna be okay if people just leave us alone."

"Please! Just let my father go! I'll stay with you! I... I'll do whatever you say, Nate! Just let my dad- Nate? Wh-what are you doing?"

West leaned in toward the monitor saw the view from one of the eye-level cameras. Dally’s.

West spoke up to alert the rest of the group. "He's reaching behind the sofa cushion."

West gripped the microphone on the desk before him and gave the order. "Go."

The scene developed in front of him through the screens on the monitor in front of him.

Both front and back doors imploded almost at the same time.

The sudden explosion of sound turned the suspect's head.

"Show me your hands!"

"Ma'am, come with me."

"Let me take over, Ma'am. I've got him."

"Don't reach for anything!"

"Stop fighting."

"You're going to add a charge for resisting-"

"You think I don't know that? I know where I'm going."

"Then give me your hand and shut the fuck up!"

Weston let out a breath at that. Myles was a good Ranger, but he tended to let his mouth get ahead of him.

"As soon as you have him secured, I'm sending in the EMTs." Weston turned to look at Fox and saw the way he leaned heavily against the counter, his elbows planted on the flat surface.

He was upset but West knew that he was still focused on his job.

"We're good, Fox. Let them in." Jack's voice came through loud and clear. "Dally?"

"I'll get the door."

West moved over to stand beside Fox and put his hand on the other man's shoulder as the front door squeaked open and Weston saw Jack standing just inside the door, holding the wooden door open.

"I think they're going to need that door replaced." West's comment proved true when the door sagged down, leaning heavily on Jack.

"Coming out the back with the suspect, West."

"Good work, everyone."

West looked down at Fox. "Why don't you come out and see them put him in the transport."

Fox shook his head. "I don't... I'll just stay here."

West didn't even want to entertain the thought of leaving Fox behind in the van. Instead of trying to coax him out, West decided to pull rank. "Get up and come outside with me."

The look on Fox's face bordered on insubordination.

The scowl West saw on his face... Well, he knew it was directed more at himself than anyone else.

"I don't recall giving you an option. Let's take this outside."

Fox got up out of his chair, but the look he had on his face said he wasn't doing it for any other reason than the fact that he'd been ordered to.

Weston was good with that.

He didn't mind a scowl or two.

By the time Fox had his boots on the ground, it was just in time to see the suspect being loaded into the transport van, his own bad attitude displayed on his face.

"Okay, boss." Fox's voice, which was normally deeper than most was downright gravely. He was somewhere south of Trace Adkins deep, warm bass. "I'll get a start on my report."

West took hold of Fox's arm just above his elbow. "Move your feet."

Fox knew well enough that he wasn't about to be let off the hook. West smiled as Fox's feet moved along with his own.

He was glad that his friend had decided to go along with him, but he wasn't above or below dragging his ass.

When they got to the ambulance, West felt Fox's attitude change.

The EMTs were working on the older man who'd been injured.

Julia's father.

"See?" Weston was leaning in, murmuring under his breath so he wasn't going to disturb anyone. "This is the point of all of this, Fox."

Almost as if Julia could feel that they were talking about her father, she turned, and it was plain to see the tears rolling down her cheeks. The tight and twisted expression of worry on her face lifted when she saw them.

She started to walk in their direction, but one of the EMTs stepped down from the back of the ambulance. "Miss? We're going to head over to the hospital. Are you coming with us?"

"Yes! Thank you!"

The EMT helped her step up into the back of the ambulance and as he moved over to close the back door, Julia looked up at them. And almost as if she knew that Fox had been the one on the phone call, she focused her eyes on his face and smiled, mouthing, 'Thank you.'

The back door of the ambulance closed with a hard click.

West kept his gaze fixed on the ambulance, even when Fox turned to face him.

He knew how hard this was for Fox.

They'd had so many conversations about the responsibility of being a public servant.

"Her father had already been injured before we got to the house."

Fox was so still, Weston wasn't sure if his friend was breathing.

"You know as well as I do what her husband was capable of. You saw his history just like I did."

The man's criminal record was long, and they both knew that there had to be a long list of criminal offenses that hadn't made it onto his official record.

Not every criminal got caught on the first offense.

Most likely had committed a number of crimes before they were caught and prosecuted for something.

It was usually that lead up to their first arrest that had emboldened him.

"You can't control people."

Fox looked at him with an eloquently raised brow. "I'm the team's negotiator."

"Then you know this better than everyone else. Sometimes the aim of a negotiator is to know that you can't change someone else's actions. Sometimes, your job is going to be giving us the time to fix things in other ways."

Fox closed his eyes and nodded.

Weston could see how upset his friend was. It wasn't easy. None of what they did was easy.

"There are going to be days where everything we do feels like we're trying to dig a deep hole at the beach with a plastic spoon. Doing what we do means that sometimes we're going to be digging that hole over and over and not have the success that we want."

"So, what happens when people ask why I'm on this team if it's not to save someone's life?"

"Is that how you see it?" He hated seeing his friend hurt, but worse than that he wanted his friend to have confidence in himself.

Fox shrugged and the movement of his shoulders was heavy.

"Today, everyone came out alive. A daughter was able to go with her father to the hospital where he's getting the best care.

She got to walk out of that house with her life intact and we're putting an abuser behind bars.

" Weston didn't mention that it might be temporarily behind bars, that would be counterproductive. "What we did today was save lives."

"I didn't talk him out. I didn't even talk him into letting them go."

"But you did keep things going. You gave us the time we needed to do the job. And because of that, people lived, Fox."

There was something in his expression that changed. Nothing big or earth-shattering, but there was something lighter than it had been.

Something with an element of peace in it.

And when he took his next breath and let it out, there was an ease in his movements that felt more like the Fox he knew.

"Thanks, West." Fox smiled, a small one, but a smile nonetheless. "I needed that."

Weston nodded. "It's the truth."

Fox lifted a brow at that. "Are you sure you don't want this job?"

Weston knew that he was unsuited to the job of negotiator. "I let my temper go too hot when I'm talking to idiots. You're much better at talking folks down. I'd probably just kick their ass."

Fox thought about it and nodded. "Sounds good. I'd rather do what I do than have to ride roughshod over the children."

Weston smiled at the thought. "They are a handful."

"Come on," Fox clapped a hand down on Weston's shoulder. "Let's get back to the office so you can head over to see Tracy."

Weston gave his friend a look of surprise. "How did you know?"

Fox smiled at him. "If I had a woman like her waiting for me... I'd want to get to her as quickly as I could."

Weston felt his whole heart swell at the thought of her. "Then let's get going."