Page 49 of The Plan

He and Guthrie had wanted to protect and had been helpless to. To stop it all. Helpless.

Their good friend, Chad—a man who had grown up next door and gone to med school with Guthrie—had been the one to stop the man from hurting Genny again.

Thank God Chad had been close enough to do something. Gunn meant that literally. Chad had almost killed that man tonight, before the hospital staff had pulled him off. Gunn could honestly say he understood the feeling.

Genny was in surgery now. Her friend Aubrey would most likely end up with a black eye where the man had roundhouse-punched her when she’d tried to protect Genny. Stitches along one arm. Defensive wounds.

She’d have scars herself from those scissors before he’d plunged them into Genny’s body.

Gunn didn’t understand it at all.

Together, Aubrey and Genny didn’t even weigh what that man did.

The man, a doctor, had a good fifty pounds on Gunn’s own two-forty and had been just as tall as Gunn’s six-three, maybe taller. Why would a man that size think it was okay to hurt someone so much smaller, weaker?

Genny was the stereotypical ninety-pound weakling and the most kind-hearted person Gunn had ever known. She had never hurt anyone. She’d do anything to help someone who needed it. Anything.

She hadn’t deserved this at all.

He adored her. Flat-out adored her. He hadn’t wanted to leave the hospital until they knew she was on her way out of surgery. But Aubrey had been panicking, worried for her own younger sister, as the other doctors were trying to keep Aubrey still long enough to tend to her arm.

She needed to get her younger sister. Her sister needed her. Aubrey had just kept saying it. Almost panicking.

It was late, and she hadn’t wanted the younger woman waiting after dark at the library where she volunteered part-time. Aubrey had been more worried about her sister than herself, this woman who had been hurt trying to shelter Genny.

Gunn would never forget tonight and what it had shown him about humanity and love. Sacrifice. He would see Aubrey Fisher’s arm wrapping around his little sister’s body in a desperate attempt to protect Genny in his dreams for a long time to come.

Genny’s best friend had tried to get between Genny and a madman tonight. She hadn’t hesitated for even a second. Aubrey had tried so hard to protect Genny. Even though she would be hurt, too. Could have been killed.

Gunn had volunteered to drive over and get Aubrey’s younger sister. It was a simple task, and he could do it. At least then he was doing something. Besides sitting there in the waiting room, praying. Not that he was averse to praying—he was a man of God, after all. And he felt that down to the bottom of his heart. But at least now he was doing something to help.

It had hurt him to see Genny’s close friend so upset if he could do something to make it better. The least he could do for her was pick her sister up at the library a mile away. Keep her sister safe, like she’d tried to keep his. He would never forget what Aubrey had done tonight.

The rest of their family were on their way in, anyway. He would do this one little task, then get back to the hospital to be there when Genny came out of surgery. He’d take care of Aubrey’s sister, like she had tried to take care of his.

He owed her that much, no question.

He parked in front of the library and stepped inside. The woman he was looking for was right there, next to the checkoutdesk, and the man who ran the library. Gunn had known Jake Dillon his entire life—he’d been friends with Gunn’s older brother Gene since kindergarten. Jake was now married to Gunn’s brother George’s wife’s younger sister.

Small towns were like that. Connections.

The Dillons attended his church almost every Sunday. Aubrey’s sister was perfectly safe there with Jake to watch over her. Jake wouldn’t have left Ayla there alone. Gunn would bet on that.

But Aubrey was upset. Ayla was all the family the woman had, his sister had told him once. And that mattered. Gunn adored his family, dramatic though they could be. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for them. Genny wouldn’t want Aubrey upset—so Gunn was going to make things better, however he could.

At least then he’d be doingsomething.

Instead of standing in the hospital waiting room, feeling…helpless. Like he had once before. Fifteen years ago wasn’t really long enough to dull some memories. It just wasn’t.

“We’re just about to close up, but we’ll make an exception,” Jake teased, limping around the front desk. He had been injured in a drive-by shooting when he’d been in high school and used a single forearm crutch to maneuver, when he wasn’t in his wheelchair.

Ayla, Aubrey’s sister, used two smaller crutches. Gunn had never asked how she had been injured, or if it had been something from birth. That was only his business if Ayla wanted to share.

The woman in question looked up at him.

“Hi. I know you are one of Greer’s brothers, but which one? I know you are one of the twins…” She peered at him like he was a bug. The woman had no real sense of filters, he’d noticed that before. But then again, she was open and honest andapproachable, too. Gunn still didn’t quite know what to think of the woman he had met a few times before. She wasn’t much taller than his sister Genny, who at five feet was, as Genny put it, the smallest adult Hiller in existenceever.This woman was a few inches or so taller. Ayla just looked delicate, with pale blonde hair, big blue eyes, and china doll prettiness.

“I’m Gunn. The minister at the Hope Life Church. And…tonight, I’m your ride.”

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