Page 75 of To Hold and Protect

And then the blackness took her.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“That was a gunshot,” Parker said. He and Tristan raced across Willow’s yard.

Crystal ran out the door and jumped right into his arms. “Oh, my God, Parker. She shot me.” She held out her arm. A trickle of blood dripped down from where a bullet had grazed her, barely breaking the skin.

“Where are they?” He pried her off him. “Where’s my daughter and Willow?”

“I’m so sorry. I tried to save our daughter, but she...that woman...” Crystal took a shuddering breath. “I tried, Parker. I really did.”

Our daughter?He stamped down the rage boiling up inside him. If he let go, he’d physically hurt a woman for the first time in his life. Ember growled, something she’d never done before, and he glanced down. Ember was in alert position, her eyes slitted and teeth bared as she stared at Crystal. He had to find Everly and Willow, and he pushed Crystal at Tristan. “Get her out of my sight.”

He headed for the house, refusing to let his mind go there, to what her words implied. He hadn’t lost his daughter. He would know it, would have felt it inside if she was gone. He had to believe that. Then, he stumbled as he ran up the porch steps. Smoke!

“Tris, get my men over here. Now!” Ignoring all his training, he raced inside. “Willow? Everly?” He dropped to the floor, where the air would be cleaner, and started crawling. The smoke was too thick to see, and he formed a mental image of the layout of the house. Where were they?

A groan sounded to his left, and he crawled that way. Old houses were the worst when it came to fires, burning way too fast, and the smoke was so thick that he couldn’t see an inch in front of his face. Even though he was keeping his face close to the floor and cleaner air, he coughed as the smoke found its way into his lungs. How long had Willow and Everly been breathing in the smoke? Didn’t matter how much damage the smoke might do to his lungs. He had to find his girls.

He crawled a few more feet toward where he’d heard a groan, and then his fingers touched an arm too big to be Everly’s. “Willow?” he said, then coughed again. She didn’t answer. He slid his hand over her back and pulled her to him. Where was Ev? Where was his baby girl?

“Willow, where’s Everly?” His only answer was another groan. He needed to get her out of here, but that would delay him from finding Everly somewhere in a fire that was already eating its way through the bottom floor of Willow’s house.

How could he leave Willow to go search for his daughter? The woman he was in love with would die if he did. But how could he not go find his baby girl? No. Just fucking no. Neither one was going to die on his watch.

“Willow. Wake up.” He put his finger on the pulse of her neck, the relief at feeling blood still flowing through her vein was beyond anything he’d ever felt. She didn’t wake up. He pulled her toward him. “I’ll come back for you. I’ll get you out of here, Willow. I promise.” He had to find his daughter. Willow would understand. There was no doubt about that.

He tore off his T-shirt and covered her face with it so that she was at least breathing filtered air. “I love you,” he whispered.

When he put his hand on the other side of her to crawl over her, it came down on a tiny arm. “Everly, thank God.” He put his finger on her neck and squeezed his eyes shut at the relief she had a pulse. It appeared that Willow had covered Ev’s body with hers to protect her from the fire. How could he ever begin to thank her for that?

Now to get them out of here. The smoke was growing thicker, and he coughed into the crook of his arm in an attempt not to inhale more smoke than he could help back into his lungs. If he could get Everly over his shoulder and then get his arm under Willow’s, he could drag—

“Breathe, Chief,” Greg said, crawling up next to him and pushing his breathing apparatus onto Parker’s face.

Parker gulped in the fresh air, then handed the mask back to Greg. He pulled Everly out from under Willow and handed her to Greg. “Go!”

Blessed water rained down on him as his crew directed a hose over their heads. Greg took off with Everly, and Parker turned Willow onto her back, hooked his arms under hers, and dragged her out. When he reached the door, Tristan and Eric were there, and Tristan scooped her up and took her to the stretcher waiting at the bottom of the porch steps.

“Come on, Chief, we gotta get you checked out,” Eric said.

“I need...” He had a coughing fit. “I need to check on—”

“They’re both being taken care of, and you can see them after you let Josie take a look at you.”

Parker wanted to say that he didn’t need checking out, but another coughing fit put a lie to that thought. “Everly?” he asked as he walked with Eric to the ambulance.

“On the way to the hospital on bus one. The sheriff went with her.”

That was good, both that she was on the way to the hospital and that Skylar had gone with her so Everly wouldn’t be alone. He needed to get to the hospital.

Josie stood at the back of bus two, waiting for him. “Sit, Chief.”

He glanced inside. Charlie, another of his paramedics, was leaning over Willow as he worked on her. Before he could ask how she was, Josie pointed at the floor of the ambulance. “Sit.” He sat, and she slapped an oxygen mask over his face.

“How is she?” He shifted so he could see inside.

“GSW to the chest and smoke inhalation,” Charlie said. “We’ve requested Statesville send their Life Flight. They’ve confirmed that they’ll meet us at the high school’s ball field.”

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