Page 103 of Hold Your Breath
“How about we both live, then? That’d be a win-win.” This time, he answered her grin with a tiny one of his own.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook, though.” His smile disappeared into the familiar hard lines of his face. “I’m going to think of an appropriate punishment.”
“Yeah?” she breathed, kissing him again.
He returned the kiss but then scowled when she pulled back. “Don’t make it sound so sexy. It will be a real punishment. Something bad.”
Having Callum alive and talking to her made it impossible to dread whatever penance he could impose. “Will you send me on a week-long, out-of-state training with Chad where the only sleeping quarters available is a pup tent we have to share?”
“No.” Lines formed between his eyebrows. “You won’t be sharing a pup tent with anyone but me.”
“Well, that’s good.” She couldn’t stop kissing him, marveling at the warmth of his lips. His eyelids were drooping, though, so she reluctantly pressed her mouth to his a final time and then pulled away. “The guys want to see you. Think you can stay awake for a few more minutes?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Send them in.”
An anxious crowd filled the waiting room—the fire chief, Derek, Chad, and Phil among them—and Callum was visibly flagging when Lou slipped into his room after the last visitor had left. Dragging a chair next to his bed, she picked up his hand again and gave it a squeeze.
“How’d you get here? You didn’t drive, did you?” he asked, his words loose with exhaustion. Lou supposed that almost dying would tire out a person.
“As if I’d do something that stupid,” she scoffed, ignoring the fact that, before Ian offered to bring her, she’d been insisting on doing that exact stupid thing. “Ian drove me in your truck. I called the sheriff and gave him my statement, and then kept almost dozing off before everything that happened hit me again and jerked me awake.”
“What did happen?” He was definitely slurring now, his eyes barely open. “I remember feeling a tug on my line after I started to descend. When I looked up, the end was floating. By the time I’d figured out it’d been cut and looked around for the person who did it, he was far enough away just to be a shadow. It was dumb, I know, but he was too far away for me to see the dive gear at that point, and I was still thinking he was a victim. I swam in that direction but lost sight of him.”
He paused, and Lou thought he’d given up the battle with sleep, but he picked up the story again after a few seconds. “That kept happening—I’d spot him and then lose him again, like this weird game of hide-and-seek. I followed him for a while, but then he must’ve circled around behind me, because something hit me hard on the back of the head. After that, everything got mixed up in my mind. I know I turned and struggled with him. He had a knife in his hand, and I managed to get him to drop it, but then he hooked my regulator hose. Fighting him like I was, I couldn’t get it back. The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was you. I was so pissed at you for coming after me. So pissed, and so scared you’d be hurt.”
“I’m fine.” Her voice wavered, and she swallowed hard, trying to steady herself. “It was Brent. He must’ve been the one to report someone falling through the ice. I don’t know why he attacked you, though. I mean, everything so far had been aimed at me. Why did he want to hurt you?” Her hard-won control broke, and her voice cracked on the last word. Lou was glad he was almost asleep, so he didn’t see the tears begin to track down her cheeks. She scrubbed at the wetness with the back of her free hand.
“Because,” he mumbled, even as his eyes closed completely, “I got…the girl.”
Standing so she could lean over him and kiss his forehead, she whispered, “Yeah, you do.”
* * *
A ringing sound jerked Lou out of her restless doze. Her neck straightened from its kinked position with a painful crack, and her hand pressed against the side. Her phone rang again, and she fumbled to pull it out of her jacket pocket. She answered it without looking to see who was calling, whispering, “Just a second,” with her gaze on Callum. Although he stirred, he didn’t wake completely, and Lou slipped out of his room before speaking again.
“Hello?”
“Louise. What on earth is going on?”
Rubbing her eyes, she walked through the quiet hallway, heading for the far side of an empty waiting area that she hoped was far enough away from everyone that her voice didn’t disturb any patients at—she checked her watch—two in the morning. “Mom?”
“Why is some Podunk sheriff calling Richard in the middle of the night?” she demanded. “Is it true that poor Brenton is really dead?” Her voice caught on the last word.
“Yeah.” Lou sighed. “He attacked Callum. I had to stop him.”
“What? You killed Brenton?” Her mother’s voice rose to an uncharacteristic shriek.
“I had to, Mom.” Despite her words, Lou’s stomach felt heavy, and her throat was so thick it was hard to speak. “Or Callum would’ve died. And I would’ve, too.”
“Who is this Callum?”
This was not the time or the circumstances which Lou would’ve chosen to reveal her new relationship status to her parents. “My boyfriend.”
“Yourwhat?” The piercing shriek was back, and Lou winced, pulling the phone away from her ear. “You were cheating on Brenton?”
“What? No!” It was Lou’s turn to get a little shrill. “How could I be cheating on someone I wasn’t dating anymore? He wasstalkingme, Mom. He tried to kill me—twice! He burned my house down, and my truck, and everything I owned.” To her disgust, Lou was crying again and couldn’t seem to stop. Between her sobs and the still-present throat lump, she could barely understand her own words. “He tried to murder Callum!”
Several seconds of silence ticked by as Lou tried to control her tears, which only made her shuddering breathing more uneven.
