Page 129 of Wild Card
“I’ll get you both some water,” Emory said, heading for the kitchen. He was always so quick to help however he could.
“How do you feel?” Gray asked tentatively.
“Like I just got hit by a truck,” I said, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t know why I freaked out like that.”
“This is a trigger for you,” Holden said. “Don’t you remember how you were when Gray left?”
Gray winced, a look of guilt flitting across his face. He’d apologized enough for all that. Our foster dad was the real villain for running Gray off and never telling us why.
“This isn’t the same,” I said. “Gray was my brother, and Dalton is…”
The man that I loved. Shit. My brothers had been right.
None of them said it. Probably too afraid they’d send me into another panic.
“So, what are you going to do now?” Gray asked. “Or should I not ask? I don’t want to make you feel worse.”
“It’s fine.” I shrugged. “I don’t know that I can do anything. Dalton needs to run for sheriff. It’s the right thing to do.” Emory handed me the glass of water, and I sipped it. “I don’t want to stand in his way, so I guess I need to figure out if I can really help him. If not, I think I have to let him go.”
“Axel…” Emory said, voice pained. “I used to think like that. Don’t sell yourself short. You deserve better.”
“Em’s right,” Gray said. “You deserve love. Let yourself have it. Hell, fight for it if you have to. Don’t just give up. Remember how pissed you were at me for leaving? How you threatened to kick my ass if I ever did it again?”
My lips quirked. “Yeah, so?”
“So, fight for Dalton likethat.If you do, he’ll never want to letyougo.”
I gazed at my brothers gathered around me, all in my corner, fighting for me, fighting for my happiness.
My heart clenched painfully. I’d pulled away from them, tried to keep my distance, but here they were, anyway.
They hadn’t left.
I didn’t know what would happen with Dalton or his run for sheriff. Didn’t know how I would fit into that picture or if I’d only shatter it.
But whatever happened, I wasn’t alone. I’d never be alone.
I had my brothers. My family.
And it was time I stopped pushing them away.
CHAPTER 31
Dalton
My phone buzzed halfa dozen times while I made the drive over to the Fieldhouse to meet Chloe and Zach for a beer.
The past day and a half had been surreal. One minute, I was a deputy storming out of his job, and the next, I was a candidate for sheriff.
I’d thought saying yes was the hard part, but it turned out there was alotof work ahead. I’d spent yesterday morning filing paperwork, fielded phone calls from the mayor’s friends for most of the afternoon, then been pulled into an impromptu campaign planning meeting last night. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was gathering all the evidence I could on Dallas’s illegal activities—which involved calling in a favor with Ava to get my old reports and snooping around his garage to confirm he really was the hit-and-run driver—so the mayor could work the problem behind the scenes.
I hadn’t seen Axel since our talk on the porch, and it was nagging at me. He had given me the courage to take this step. I wanted him by my side. But he had his work and his animalsand his brothers, and it wasn’t fair to disrupt his life with all this election madness.
Still, I fired off a quick text after I parked at the Fieldhouse.
Dalton:
Grabbing a beer with a couple of deputies to talk about the future before I go pack up my stuff at the station. Want to join us?
