Nodding, I push aside my personal feelings. Duty calls. As I go to grab the Jaws of Life tool, I call Mason quickly and let him know what’s going on. He’ll be with Hudson on his way here for sure, and Hudson shouldn’t be here. Not with everything that bitch has put him through. He needs to go find Avery and make sure she’s safe. I head over to the silver SUV that’s crumpled like a soda can just as I’m hanging up with Mason.
The driver side is pinned up against a parked car, and they’ve got the passenger window broke out already as I get there. I waste no time assessing exactly what to cut and where.
“I’m gonna have you out of there in no time, ma’am. Hold tight,” I say loud enough that she can hear me.
I hear a faint ‘okay’ and get to work.
My hands are steady, precise as I work the Jaws of Life, but my mind is anything but calm. The door gives way with a metallic groan, and I peer into the twisted wreckage. The woman inside blinks up at me. Her face is bloodied, and her eyes are wide with shock, but that’s when recognition slams into me. Those honey brown eyes have haunted my dreams more times than I can count.
Is it really Iris? Or have I been so desperate to reconnect with her that my mind is playing tricks on me?
“Angel?” Her voice is a weak whisper, laced with pain and disbelief.
I shove my shock aside and focus. “I’ve got you,” I assure her as I carefully maneuver around broken glass and twisted metal to reach her. Her body trembles as I work to free her from the seat belt. It isn’t long before I’ve got her neck stabilized with a brace and freeing her from the wreckage. The rest of the world fades away and it’s just Iris and me, like it used to be before everything changed. I wrap my arms around her protectively, remembering the last time she was in my arms, when I let her go so she could move on to bigger, better things... Probably the biggest mistake of my life.
I’m not sure if there’s more tears now or back then.
“Iris, talk to me. Where are you hurting?” My voice is gentle but firm. I need to assess her injuries even as part of me wants to just hold her close and demand she not leave me again. I can already see a gash on her forehead, but I need to know if anything is broken.
She clings to me tighter, her breath hitching between cries. “I don’t know… My head hurts.”
“Do you feel nauseated?”
“A little,” she says. I glance down and don’t see any other obvious blood. I’m shocked she doesn’t appear to have any broken bones or anything from the looks of her vehicle. “Angel, what happened? I was going to a meeting and the next thing I know, I’m trapped in my car,” she says, tears streaking down her blood-stained face.
“Someone hit you, but I’ve got you now. We’re gonna get you all patched up,” I say.
The world shrinks again as our eyes lock, and a silent conversation passes between us. There’s fear there, pain, but underneath it all, a glimmer of the connection that never truly faded.
She nods weakly, and for a split second, I consider jumping into the ambulance with her as we load her up. Duty roots me to the spot though. My team needs me here and the EMTs need room to do their work. With a heavy heart, I watch the doors close and the ambulance speed off.
Turning back to the wreckage, I throw myself into my work with a quiet intensity that’s foreign to me. Usually, I’m all jokes and laughter and keeping the mood as light as I can because sometimes these kinds of scenes can linger in your mind and your heart for weeks, but today my mind is elsewhere. The crash site needs cleared, and any potential hazards contained. I move effortlessly through the motions even as my thoughts linger with Iris.
“Never seen you so quiet before,” Calum, one of the guys on my team, chuckles as he steps up beside me.
“Guess there’s a first time for everything.”
“Mason just radioed and said to let you know that Avery is okay. She’s with Hudson,” Callum says.
“Good,” I say, but it doesn’t really convey the relief that the news brings. “Any update on Iris?” I ask, not making eye contact. I don’t want anyone to see how much it’s killing me right now not knowing.
“No,” he says and heads over toward the firetruck.
With each sweep of broken glass or twisted metal piece set aside for removal, Iris’ face swims before me. The memory of her trembling against me plays on repeat in my mind.
And all I want to do is forget the past and start a new future with her.
But how can I forget the way my heart shattered when she told me she was leaving me all those years ago? That our plans hadn’t really mattered to her. When I had let her move on to bigger and better things without me.
Chapter 2Iris
Lying in the hospital bed where I’ll be spending the next several hours, the stiff sheets scratch at my skin as I replay the words of the doctor.
We’d like to keep you overnight for observation.
My head throbs in agreement. Just when I thought my return to Scarlet Ridge couldn’t get any more eventful than the promise of a new future, fate throws me a curveball—no, a full head-on collision with the recklessness of a drunk driver that brought me face to face with the only man I ever truly loved.
I’m lucky to be alive.
I know that, and I still can’t believe some bruises and a possible concussion is all I’ve walked away with. Not that a concussion is a small thing, but it could’ve been so much worse. The thought makes me sick to my stomach.
The walls of the hospital room close in on me, the beeping of machines composing a soundtrack to my frustration. Of all people, it had to be Angel wrenching open the mangled door of my SUV and pulling me into his big, strong arms. Years have passed since I left for NYU, years since I’ve heard his voice, felt his presence. He’d become a ghost trailing my thoughts, one I’ve tried desperately to exorcise with every achievement and goal I’ve ever accomplished. Every time I succeeded in my career, I’d tell myself that I hadn’t made a mistake leaving all those years ago.
He didn’t even really give me a chance to explain why NYU was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, why it was the only thing powerful enough to pull me away from him. He was my best friend and I thought he’d always be by my side. I’d hoped at some point I’d work up the courage to tell him I was in love with him, but the thought that I might lose him kept me from it.
And yet, I’d lost him anyway.
We’d talked for years about traveling once we graduated from high school, but no concrete plans were ever made, and I knew I could never afford to take on such a trip, so I applied to my dream school, never expecting to actually get in. I thought at best I’d end up going to the local community college but when I’d been awarded a huge scholarship and gotten into NYU, I couldn’t turn it down. It was my only real chance to get a good education without so much debt waiting for me at the end.
His silence had been deafening after I left. Text messages and emails to him had gone unanswered, and he always seemed to be out of town when I tried to go visit him on my breaks. Angel Heart, my best friend and the man I wanted to share my life with for forever, had let me go without so much as a fight. A clear sign he hadn’t loved me the way I loved him.
The floodgates opened the moment my eyes met his a few hours ago and those feelings—those damned, stubborn feelings—I’d buried deep down surged back with a vengeance. It’s infuriating how just one look from him can unravel years of careful emotional distancing.
My heart races, betraying me with every beat, reminding me of how broken it truly is.
I just wish it hurt less than my head does right now.
Chapter 3Angel
