Page 73 of Natalie's Nighthawk

He must have realized it was hopeless to get her to leave because he sighed. “I’d get something to use as a fulcrum. Find something strong. Something long.”

Natalie glanced around her. She spied a long metal rod that used to be part of the ceiling. “How’s this?”

“Good. Place one end under the beam and push down on the other end.”

“Got it.” She shoved the rod with all her might as far as she could under the beam. Grabbing the other end, she pushed down. Nothing. She tried again, standing on tiptoe to get a better angle, using all her body weight. Again nothing. Natalie choked back her sobs and kept trying. Hands joined hers on the rod. The team! They were all there.

“Go help pull Graham out,” David said to Natalie. “We’ve got this.” She nodded and ran to Graham’s side. She reached to grab him under the shoulders. The other girls joined her to help pull him. “When we tell you, pull as fast and hard as you can.” They all nodded.

“He’s clear here,” Finch called out, making sure as much of Graham was uncovered as they could. They didn’t want anything else trapping him.

Four guys got on the rod and pushed. The beam moved a tiny bit. They pushed harder. “Now!” David called, and Natalie pulled with all her might. Wrist protesting. They pulled, dragging Graham as far as the scattered debris would allow until he was free. The men let the beam drop as soon as his feet cleared it. Natalie was beside him in an instant.

“Can you stand?” she asked.

“I think so.” She helped him up. He was wobbly and limping slightly, but with the rest of the team’s help, he was able to hobble out of the ruined building. Stopping briefly, he turned to David. “Lauren. She’s in …”

“On it,” he said, calling to Jude and Evan to help him look for her.

Natalie put her shoulder under his, her arm around his waist as she helped him half walk half hop away to a safe distance from the warehouse. He plopped himself in the grass, staring at the building in disbelief. The magnitude of the destruction was overwhelming. Natalie knelt beside him, checking him over for injuries, so beyond grateful he was alive. “Your arm is bleeding.”

“Shot.”

“What? She shot you?”

“Well, the ricochet did. Don’t worry. It’s just a scratch,” he reassured her.

Natalie turned to Logan, who was carrying a med bag, demanding the supplies she’d need to clean his arm. She knew Logan was a paramedic like Graham, but she had to do something, or she’d fall apart. She ripped his shirt sleeve as much as she could and reached for the antiseptic wipes tearing one open with her teeth. Her injured wrist wasn’t cooperating, unable to make her fingers grasp anything. She cleaned the blood away to find a deep gash in the upper part of his arm. As Logan saw to his leg, wrapping a cold pack on his ankle with an ace bandage, Natalie kept cleaning. She bandaged it, not sure if it needed stitches or not. Then she started to look for additional injuries.

“Chickadee,” Graham said, grabbing her hand as she fussed. “Stop. I’m fine.”

“O … okay,” she stammered at a loss as to what to do next. He pulled her to his side, his arm around her. He kissed the top of her head. Together, they waited for the others to find Lauren.

It wasn’t long before David was walking toward them, grief in his eyes. “We found her,” he reported quietly. “It looks,” he stopped and took a deep breath. “It looks like she was killed instantly in the blast.”

“Oh, God,” Natalie gasped. Even though the woman had had almost killed her, she shouldn’t have died in such a horrific way. Everyone stood around, different levels of grief affecting them. Lauren had been a member of the team from the very beginning. It was going to take Graham and the team a long time to understand and accept everything that had happened. Natalie’s heart went out to all of them.

“She tried to kill Natalie again,” Graham told David. “I tried. I tried talking her down.” David placed a comforting hand on his brother’s shoulder as they waited for the authorities to arrive.

Hours later, after all the interviews from the sheriff’s department, after the coroner took Lauren away, after Logan had rechecked her handiwork on Graham’s arm and added a few stitches, Natalie paced in her kitchen. She needed to find something to distract herself. Otherwise … well, she didn’t want to think what she’d do.

Upon arriving home, they went directly to the shower. Washing the remains of the horrific day off of them. They made love against the shower wall. Quick, fast, and furious. Both needing to release the pent-up adrenalin. It had been intense but exactly what they had both needed. Each wanting to reassure themselves the other was alive and unharmed.

But now, she paced as Graham spoke on the phone to his parents, reassuring them he was fine, and that Natalie was fine. How sweet of them to ask after her too. Graham found her at the kitchen island, absentmindedly folding and unfolding a dish towel over and over. He wrapped his arms around her from behind. She placed her hands on his arms where they crossed in front of her.

“Come, Chickadee,” he said gently. “You’re supposed to be icing that wrist.” She had tried to hide her pain for as long as possible, but of course, Graham had noticed. He insisted the paramedics look at it. They had wanted her to go to the hospital for more x-rays, but that was not how she wanted to spend the rest of the night. She promised she’d get it looked at on Monday.

Letting go of Natalie, Graham reached into the freezer for the bag of peas. He steered Natalie into the living room, made her sit, and place her wrist on the arm of the couch, then covered it with the frozen peas. God, that hurt. But the longer she sat, the more the pain eased. Graham had turned on the fireplace before joining her on the couch. He grabbed her uninjured hand and laced their fingers together as she laid her head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry about Lauren,” Natalie said softly.

Graham sighed. “Yeah.”

“No matter what she was at the end, she didn’t deserve to die that way.”

“You’re more forgiving than I am.” He rose swiftly, his turn to pace. “I just can’t believe what she did. I can’t wrap my brain around it. The woman I knew was not the woman in that warehouse. How did that happen? How could something go so horribly wrong in her head?”

“I don’t know,” Natalie replied quietly.

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