Page 73 of Guarded Hearts

As soon as she was out of sight, he shifted into SEAL mode.

He walked out of the hospital to make a call to Colt. The phone barely blipped in the start of a ring before his brother picked up.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

Colt broke in, “Listen to me and don’t speak. Willow got a call from Denver.”

Tripping over the abrupt change in topic, he did a mental pivot to catch up.

“He’s in the hospital in Italy. Injured in combat.”

“Fuck!” He sliced his fingers through his hair. If he’d been wearing his usual cowboy hat, he would have knocked it onto the floor. “What’s his condition?”

“He’s able to talk. He’s with it enough to call home.”

“No wonder Willow wasn’t with Layne. She was distracted.”

“She went into worried sister mode. When I told her what happened to Layne, she was frantic. I had to send Oaks to calm her down.”

“What can I do right now?” He felt even more helpless.

“We wait. Denver is in good hands. He’ll be all right.”

He scrubbed his fingers through his hair again, spiking the longer strands. Forcing that new worry away—to be studied closer at a later time—he focused on the one right in front of him.

“What happened to Layne was no accident.”

“I know. After you took her away, I searched the entire property. The barn was rigged. Somebody set that trap, and goddamn if I know how they slipped under my radar. I’m sorry, brother.” Colt hated to fail as much as Carson did.

“What do you mean, rigged? What did you find?” He began to pace up and down the hallway between the waiting room and the door to the pre-op they’d wheeled Layne out of.

“It was like a fucking cartoon setup. I half expected a rabbit and a roadrunner to start chasing each other.”

“What the fuck did you see?” he growled, already picturing it.

“Someone rigged a heavy steel part from a tractor to swing down when the door opened. Carson, she couldn’t have avoided it even if she’d seen it.”

“Fuck!”

An older nurse glared at him, and he took off in long strides to the opposite end of the hall, gripping the phone tighter to his ear.

Colt went on. “I took photos of everything. I fingerprinted the doors and windows. The cops are here now, dusting everything down. When Oaks looked at the camera footage, he found the cams had been tampered with. But he didn’t get muchfarther than that because Willow called hysterical with news of Denver.”

Hell. Not being there for his family was one of his worst nightmares. Not being there for Layne, though…

He gripped the phone tighter. The fingers of his free hand snapped into a fist.

She’d looked so terrified going into surgery. It broke him. It—

The memory of her tapping on his hand struck.

Tap tap tap

Tap hold

Tap tap hold

His mind sped faster. What those taps translated to had his heart rocketing into his throat.

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