With a grumpy sigh, Gage rearranged the decimated platter of goodies that he’d brought, absentmindedly staging them for maximum appeal just as he did daily at the bakery.
Not that the guests really needed any encouragement to inhale his baked goods; he probably should’ve brought another tray, actually. Last year, the miniature cinnamon rolls had been a crowd favorite but this year, the cream puffs with chocolate inside were pulling ahead.
With another disgruntled sigh, Gage looked around the crowded living / dining room of his parents’ house, hoping to spot the Birthday Girls, but he couldn’t catch sight of either one. He hadn’t seen hide nor tail of Cady, either, since she’d made a beeline for the buffet table. He’d been caught when he first got there by his grandmother, who’d been supremely unhappy to see him showing up with someone of the female persuasion, and by time he’d finally convinced her that he and Cady were simply friends, Cady had pulled a disappearing act.
It wasn’t any of his business, of course – this had been a good idea to invite her here so she could get to know other people in the community. She was clearly busy doing that, so he should be happy. And he was. He just…
Restless, he headed for the sliding back door that led out into the backyard. Maybe she was back here, hanging out with Emma and Sugar. That was probably it. Emma could make friends with a taciturn hermit who hadn’t stepped foot outside of the Amazon for the last twenty years. She could surely make friends with Cady, who at least had flashes of friendliness…whenever she was brave enough to let her guard down.
He was stepping through the sliding glass door when movement to the right caught his attention, right before a heart-stopping scream grabbed his attention by the balls.
“Let me go!” Sugar yelled, her arms flailing as her ex-husband pulled her backwards across the porch, holding her in a chokehold as he went, and was that…? Dear God, the man had a gun shoved underneath her chin.
Gage didn’t pause or think or breathe but only launched himself at the man who dared to hurt Sugar. For just one moment, he was back in high school again, going for the tackle to bring down the other team but this time, so much more than just a championship was on the line.
Dick’s eyes, bleary and unfocused from the massive amounts of alcohol he’d consumed before crashing the birthday party, swung towards Gage, realizing a bit too late that he was going to go down. Instinctively, he threw Sugar off to the side, probably realizing that even as tiny as she was, she could still slow him down just by fighting him tooth and nail, and turned to make a run for it.
Which was when Gage hit him with an oh-so-satisfying crunch of bone and muscle beneath him. They skidded across the deck with Dick on bottom, thank God, no doubt depositing slivers where the sun didn’t shine as they went, until they came to a stop next to the railing.
“Stop! Help! He’s attacking me!” Dick yelled like the little girl he was, throwing his hands up in front of his face to protect it.
“It doesn’t feel so good to be on the receiving end, does it?” Gage asked, rolling to his feet so he could get some good leverage behind his punches. He’d hate to land only light taps on the worthless son-of-a-bitch. He was just debating whether he should do an uppercut to the jaw or a fist straight into Dick’s stomach when he heard Abby Miller’s voice behind him.
“I’ve got it from here, Gage,” she said calmly, stepping up beside him. A Long Valley County cop, she was apparently on duty tonight, decked out as she was in her police uniform.
“Oh hey,” Gage greeted her, cool as a cucumber, even as he drew back his booted foot and kick Dickwad in the side as hard as he could. “I didn’t know you were here,” he said calmly over the screams from the worthless conglomeration of cells writhing on the deck.
“Just stopped by while on my rounds to wish the Birthday Girls a happy birthday,” Abby replied easily, not batting an eyelash at the kick Gage had delivered, but when he drew his foot back for round two, she put her hand on his arm. “We don’t want to give this man any reason to be able to talk his way out of jail, right? Because we all know what happened the last time someone tried to teach this guy a lesson.”
With a regretful sigh, Gage stepped back to give Abby the space she needed to work. She was right, of course – a beat-down on Richard Schmidt was how Abby fell in love with her prisoner and future husband, Wyatt Miller. Because the damage to Dick’s face wrought by Wyatt’s fists had been so extreme – requiring facial reconstruction surgery to get him back to semi-normal looking – his lawyer had been able to successfully argue that he’d paid for his mistake of driving while fall-down drunk, and Dickwad had walked away without having to serve even a day behind bars.
It didn’t hurt that Richard Schmidt’s father was the judge in town. In small counties like theirs, it never did.
Gage straightened his glasses on his face – they’d been knocked askew during the fight – and then looked around to try to figure out where Jaxson was, and if Sugar was okay, and where was Emma and Cady? He found that Jaxson was holding Sugar who was holding their one-month-old, Rose, and even as the beautiful baby slept peacefully in her momma’s arms, Sugar kept cooing to her, “It’s okay, baby girl. No one’s gonna hurt you. You’re all right. Uncle Gage saved us.”
Uncle Gage…It was an honorary title Sugar had granted him the day of her wedding to Jaxson, and it’d touched Gage every time he heard it but tonight, it meant so much more.
But what if he hadn’t been there? What if Dickwad’s finger convulsed out of panic or fear, and Sugar had died? Terror spiked through him at the thought and he caught the gaze of Jaxson, whose arms were protectively wrapped around his wife. Jaxson mouthed, “Thank you.”
Gage nodded once in acknowledgment, and he felt his panic over Sugar’s well-being subsiding just a smidge. Jaxson would take care of her. He would make sure she was okay, but who would look after Emma and Cady? He’d come out partway through the confrontation – it was possible that Dickwad had put his hands on them also. He pushed his way through the crowd, nodding as people clapped him on the back and congratulated him on being the “hero of the night,” until he finally found Emma and Cady together, clinging to each other, a terrorized look on their faces.
“There you are,” he said, surprised at the strength of the relief that washed over him. “Are you guys okay?”
Emma straightened up first. “That son of a bitch!” she spat out. “He didn’t love Sugar while he was married to her; I don’t know why he thinks he deserves anything more from her. Did you smell the alcohol coming off him? I swear to God, I was getting drunk just breathing in the fumes!”
Satisfied that Emma was indeed just fine, Gage turned to Cady. “How are you doing?” he asked quietly, not making a move towards her, waiting for her to think through the answer before giving it.
She looked up at him, her golden brown eyes huge with sheer panic and terror. Shit. She was spiraling and Gage knew that if he didn’t break through to her and pull her back from the abyss, she’d go tumbling over. What she’d just seen was traumatic, sure, but somehow, Gage knew it had been a thousand times worse for Cady than anyone else in the crowd. He didn’t know how he knew that – he just did.
Cady continued to stand there, blinking, not saying a word, and the longer she said nothing, the more worried Gage got. This wasn’t good. She wasn’t going to be fine. She wasn’t going to snap out of it and come out fighting on the other side, like Emma had.
And then without a sound, she turned and sprinted around the side of the house, through the gate that led into the front yard, disappearing into the shadows as if she’d never existed. Emma turned to Gage, her eyes wide with surprise. “Is there something wrong with Cady?” she asked quietly.
“I think so, but…well, she hasn’t exactly been confiding in me. I’ll be back,” he promised his sister, and then took off in a jog towards the front of the house. She probably didn’t want to hear from him or see him, but since he was the only one there who even had a chance of getting through to her, he had to try. There was a primal terror in her eyes that called out to his protective nature – he wanted to care for her; to help her realize that she was going to be okay. There was a small part of him – okay, a very large part of him – that doubted that he’d succeed, but still, he had to try.
She’d made it to her Jeep by time he finally caught up to her, but she was just sitting in the darkness, not moving, not turning the key, just staring blankly ahead of her, a frozen statue of a person.
He hesitated for a moment, and then pulled on the door handle to the passenger door, sending up a silent thank-you when it swung open for him. He’d been a little worried that she’d locked herself in, and he was a thousand percent sure there was no way he’d be able to talk that statue in the driver’s seat into letting him in.
“Cady,” he said, his voice just above a whisper, as he struggled to get comfortable in the cramped quarters of her Jeep. Her back seat was filled to the brim with junk, and she obviously hadn’t had someone in the passenger seat who was over 4’10” in a very long time. Finally, he managed to get his legs in just the right spot and he turned towards the statue sitting in the driver’s seat, still not moving, not blinking, not…breathing?
“Cady, you gotta breathe.”
Nothing.
He reached over and patted her roughly on the shoulder, much like he’d burp a baby, hoping to force some air into her lungs.
He’d known to expect an explosion from her – she didn’t appreciate being touched, no matter the circumstances – but still, the ferocity of her attack was shocking. She went from perfectly still to launching herself across the console between them and straight at his eyes, howling as she tried to blind him with her fingernails. He found himself wrestling with her, pulling her arms down by her sides, pinning them there, doing his best not to hurt her even as he kept her from hurting herself.
“Cady, it’s me. It’s Gage. You’re okay. You’re safe here. You’re fine. Just breathe.” He kept his voice low and smooth, not even winded by Cady’s struggles in his arms. She was such a tiny thing, the only way she’d manage to hurt him was if she got access to delicate parts of him, like his eyes or his nuts.
Yeah, even a tiny slip of a human could do real damage there.
Finally, she wore herself out and collapsed against him, her breathing harsh and ragged in the darkness. “You’re okay, you’re all right,” he kept murmuring, finally moving his hands to her cloud of wildly curly hair and stroking it out of her face. “You’re gonna be fine.”
Eventually, she made a move to clamber out of his arms and back into the driver’s seat, but Gage ignored that, instead settling her more comfortably on his lap, where he held her loosely. Please, dear God, let my dick stay down. Even with her sliding her very curvy, very delicious ass across me, this is not the time to sport a boner.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” he asked in the darkness – a statement, not a question.