Page 77 of Single Mom's Bodyguards
Sean presses a wad of cloth against the wound, and Huck hisses, teeth flashing.
“He was planting something,” Huck goes on, as if he’s reading me the weather report. “Had a bag full of explosives. Already set one at the front steps.”
Explosives.
The word punches me straight through. My mouth goes dry, and I stumble back half a step, catching myself on the edge of the coffee table. “Explosives? You mean—bombs?”
“Yeah.” Huck opens his eyes, meets mine with a steadiness that terrifies me more than the wound. “Enough to take the house down and more.”
I can’t breathe. The room tilts. The walls feel like they’re bending inward, suffocating.
Wesley slaps Huck’s hand away when he tries to shift. “Hold still.” His voice is sharp, controlled. He works with quick efficiency, hands moving like he’s done this a hundred times.
Sean doesn’t look at me, doesn’t explain, doesn’t soften. His whole focus is Huck, but I can feel the tension rolling off him. It’s in the way he leans into the pressure, the way his shoulders are set like stone.
“I’m fine,” Huck mutters, though the line of his mouth betrays the lie.
“Shut up,” Wesley fires back. “You’re not fine, you’re leaking like a goddamn sieve.”
“I’ve had worse.” Huck tries to smirk, but it falters when Sean tightens the gauze. He winces, breath whistling through his teeth.
“You’ve had worse, we’ve all had worse,” Sean says finally, low and clipped. “Doesn’t mean you get to play hero and bleed out on Bailey’s couch.”
My couch. My house. My everything. All of it could’ve been blown sky-high if Huck hadn’t been out there.
The thought hits like a wave, harder than the sight of the blood. The bag he described, the device at the stairs—it wasn’t just him. If Sean and Wesley had been out there too, if all three of them had walked into it, I wouldn’t be standing in this living room watching them. I’d be standing in rubble, or worse, I wouldn’t be standing at all.
And then my mind goes where I don’t want it to. What if Maeve and Eli had been here? What if I’d tucked them into their beds,kissed them goodnight, and then the house had turned to fire around us?
Bile rises hot in my throat. I grip the edge of the table harder, trying to stop the tremor in my hands.
I can’t lose them. Any of them. Not my kids. Not the men who’ve somehow become my safety net.
But the more I look at Huck, pale and bleeding but still stubbornly upright, the more the panic sharpens to guilt. I did this. I brought them here. They’re targets because of me.
The words bubble up before I can stop them. “You have to leave.”
Sean’s head snaps up, eyes locking on me. “No.”
“You don’t understand,” I stammer, chest tightening. “If they’d gone off, it would’ve killed you. All of you. And for what? Because of me? Because some lunatic wants to scare me or silence me? I can’t?—”
“Bailey.” Sean’s voice slices the air. “We’re not leaving.”
Wesley glances up, his eyes hard, echoing the same truth. Huck, still bleeding, still smirking through it, rasps, “Sorry, sweetheart. You’re stuck with us.” He’s patched up. They don’t think he needs a hospital, or they’d have taken him. He’ll be fine.
For now.
The floor feels unsteady. My heart is hammering so fast I can’t slow it. I shake my head, whispering, “I can’t accept that. I can’t live with the thought of you being collateral damage?—”
Sean cuts me off, voice steel. “You don’t get to decide. We’re here. We stay. End of discussion.”
The heat in his gaze pins me where I stand.
I want to scream, to fight him, to make him understand how much this terrifies me. But the words won’t come. My throat is tight, my eyes burning. Something is clawing to get out. That gnawing in my brain, the panic in my bones, it’s loud and demands to scream or cry or punch a wall or?—
I cross the room in a rush, grab Sean’s collar, and crash my mouth to his.
He’s solid under me, steady, and the kiss is ragged, rough. Wesley’s hand comes to my back, sliding up, pulling me between them. Huck groans low from the couch, pain and want tangling in his voice, and when I tear myself from Sean long enough to crawl onto Huck and kiss him too, my whole body shudders with relief and desperation.
