“Why are you helping me?” I made out Dakota’s question as she slurred the words a bit. I clenched my teeth. I was going to count every inch of harm he’d ever done to her and get further retribution later. I hadn’t tried to take the McAllisters for everything they had. We’d left well enough alone for more years than I could count, even though Everett spouted all over town and to anyone who would listen that we underbid jobs, stole deals by going behind him, and shit like that. Now… I would do everything in my power to take him down. I wanted to see him walk out of Sandee with not a cent to his name.
Dakota spat blood as I stood behind Ma, assessing the situation. My skin felt overly tight and ready to burst at the seams as I took in the state of my wife. Perfect as a peach not more than an hour ago, warm and safe in our bed, my arms around her.
“Ma, move.” I growled low in my throat, clenching my fists with the need to hold Dakota, hug her to my chest, and take away her pain.
“Sutton, dear, let me handle her until the doctor sees to her injuries…” Ma attempted, but I was having none of it.
“I swear to Christ, let me see to my wife!” I yelled. I heard the gasps and mumbles at my admission, but I didn’t pay them any mind, focused solely on my girl.
Dakota’s left eye was swelling shut, her cheekbone already twice its size and her nose red with blood trailing out of it, not to mention the line of blood running down her chin from the split in her lip.
“Did you kill him?” she croaked, blinking her eyes open and closed as though trying to see through both, but one was too damaged. “I hope you killed him,” she hissed and moaned.
I crouched down and cupped her jaw. “He’s never going to hurt you again. Just breathe, baby. I’m gonna get you some help.”
“Don’t make a promise you can’t keep,” she whispered. And then she passed out .
I lunged forward as her body slid sideways, and I lifted her up into my arms, princess-style.
“Son, what’s going on? Everett McAllister is claiming you assaulted him?” my father asked as I walked my woman to the ambulance that was creeping up the drive.
I could hear Everett bellowing and groaning in the distance, crying out that he had been jumped and to arrest me. I didn’t so much as spare him or Sheriff Hammond a glance. Not when my wife needed me. She was my only priority.
Ma waved toward us, and my father followed me as I waited for the paramedics to open the back.
“Bring her here,” Bobby, an old friend from high school, instructed. Bobby’d gone straight into paramedic training after school, and he’d been the best in town ever since. A lot of people in Sandee counted on Bobby to take care of its residents.
I transferred my girl to the stretcher, and Bobby and his partner sprang into action, taking her vitals and assessing what’d occurred.
“She was hit repeatedly in the face. Her head smashed at least twice against the barn.” Ma was giving a detailed description of what we saw. My anger renewing with the reminder of everything we’d witnessed.
“Sutton!” A new voice called my name, but I stayed still as a statue and watched the team take care of Dakota.
“Is she going to be okay?” I asked.
Bobby nodded. “Yeah, she’s waking up right now. We need to get her to the hospital and get a CT scan. We’ll know more when she’s been seen by a doctor.”
“I’m coming with.” I hefted a foot onto the rig.
“Sutton, we need to talk about what happened here, son.” My father’s hand was on my shoulder, holding me in place.
The sheriff walked up behind him.
“Everett McAllister is claiming you assaulted him out of nowhere. Is that true, Sutton?” Sheriff Hammond pulled out a little pad of paper and started writing.
“Sheriff, with all due respect, you can question me at the hospital. Right now, I need to be with my wife.”
“Wife?” the Sheriff and my father repeated at the same time, shock filling the single word.
I stepped up into the ambulance rig. “Yeah, Dakota McAllister is now Dakota Goodall. My wife.”
Episode 37
The World Through Her Eyes
ERIK
Savannah happily stared at everything she saw of my homeland as if it were truly magical. I believed all of Norway had a majestic quality to it. There was something about the mix of nature and the hustle and bustle of life that gave my country, and especially Oslo, an organic, earthy quality you didn’t find in many tourist destinations or big cities. The air here was filled with a crisp sea breeze. The fjords a stunning Kelly green that couldn’t be replicated, even through the lens of a high-powered camera.