Page 78 of Outlaw Ridge: Griff
Lily wrapped her arms around Caleb, feeling the tremble in his small body, the way his breaths came in short, shallow gasps.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered, voice thick with emotion. “You’re safe now.”
And she meant it.
Because this nightmare, whatever sick version of love or vengeance had driven Margo to the edge, had just lost its grip.
Griff met her eyes from where he knelt beside Margo, his chest rising and falling with the weight of what they’d stopped. What they’d survived.
And finally, finally, Lily could breathe again.
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Chapter Twenty
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The antiseptic sting of hospital air clung to everything. Walls, furniture, skin. Griff leaned against the bland beige of the corridor, arms crossed over his chest, eyes on the door across from him where Caleb was being checked out. Down the hall, behind another closed door, Hallie McQueen was being treated for the bullet wound to her shoulder. Last update they’d gotten said the injury wasn’t life-threatening.
Still, that didn’t ease the tightness in his chest.
It had been an hour since they’d pulled Margo away from her son and slapped cuffs on her wrists. An hour since Caleb had been carried from that back room atStitched in Time, wide-eyed and shaking, but alive.
And the threat, that gnawing, looming pressure that had followed them for days, was finally over.
Well, almost.
They still didn’t know if Margo had murdered Hannah, though it was pretty clear Margo had hired those gunmen. If so, it was possible she’d hired them to kill Catherine. That was something Griff hoped Margo would own up to when they had her in interview.
Which would happen soon.
As soon as Lily and he got back to the station and formally charged Margo with a whole list of crimes. Including kidnappingher own biological son and putting him and a whole bunch of other people in extreme danger.
Griff exhaled slowly, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders one inch at a time. He glanced down the bench at Lily, who sat slumped beside him, her head tilted back, eyes closed but not asleep. She looked as wrecked as he felt—her clothes wrinkled, her hair wild from the wind and chaos, her body running on fumes.
But she was here. Alive. Whole. Safe.
And so was Caleb.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
She opened her eyes and turned her head toward him, offering a tired but real smile.
“We made it,” she murmured.
He nodded, voice gravel low. “Yeah. We did.”
There was more to say, always more, but it didn’t need to be said now. They both knew what they’d faced. What they’d stopped. What it had cost. And what it had proved—that no matter how messy or haunted or impossible it felt, they were a damn good team.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor, and a nurse stepped out of Caleb’s room, giving them a small, reassuring nod. “He’s okay. Just shaken up. You can go in if you’d like.”
Griff stood and reached a hand down to Lily. She took it without hesitation.
Together, they stepped toward the boy they’d fought like hell to save. And together, they stepped into whatever would come next.
The lights were low in Caleb’s room, the beeping from the monitor steady and calm. Griff held the door for Lily as they stepped inside.
Caleb sat upright in the hospital bed, a bandage on one wrist and a plastic cup of water on the tray in front of him. Helooked smaller than Griff remembered, younger somehow—like the weight of everything had pressed down harder now that it was over.
