Page 139 of The Bitterroot Inn (Jamison Valley 5)
“I’m coming.” I turned back to the conference room and looked at Maisy.
“Go,” Brock mouthed as he comforted his daughter. As much as I wanted to bring her along, she was too fragile. Instead, I’d bring Coby back to her.
I nodded to Brock and then followed Jess out of the station.
“Ambulance will meet us there,” Jess said as I climbed into his truck.
“Right. Drive fast.”
Forty-five minutes later, Jess pulled his sheriff’s truck with lights flashing into a small airstrip one county over.
The grass around the rough runway was brown and untrimmed and the lines on the pavement had long since faded to near invisibility. The tin hanger that had once been gleaming silver was now spotted with brown rust. A worn, three-seater airplane was parked in the middle of the runway.
And Nell’s black sedan was crashed into a row of sand barrels at the far end of the runway. It was surrounded by three of the neighboring county’s cruisers.
Jess pulled up to the cluster, and before he’d even put his truck in park, I was out the door, racing toward the little boy who was sitting on the hood of a cop car.
“Coby!” I shouted.
He slid off the car in a flash, darting past the cops to race my way. “Hunter!”
I ripped the knees of my jeans when I landed, skidding to a stop to wrap my boy in a hug. He fell into my chest, his arms looping around my neck as I enfolded his small body.
“You’re okay,” I breathed. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
And I’d never let go.
He started to cry and I hugged him closer. While I’d been living a parent’s nightmare, Coby had spent three hours in terror. His shoulders heaved as he cried and clung to me with every ounce of strength in his skinny arms.
“I want Mommy,” he cried into my neck.
“Okay. We’ll go get her.” I pried him off my chest and did a thorough inspection, feeling my way along every inch of his arms, legs and torso. “What hurts?” He had a small cut on his forehead and another on his arm.
“My head hurts here.” He pointed to the cut. “And my hand.”
“Show me.”
He pointed to his left wrist. I palpated it carefully, doing my best not to move it too much in case it was broken. “I think you just sprained it. Once the ambulance gets here, we’ll get it all wrapped up. Okay?”
He nodded as more gigantic tears slid down his cheeks.
I pulled him back into my arms at the same time the ambulance’s siren sounded in the distance. I held him tighter, turning to whisper in his ear, “I love you, Coby.”
“I love you too.”
I vowed right then to tell him every day. I’d never feared that my dad hadn’t loved me, but he’d rarely said the words. Coby would know without doubt.
“How is he?” Jess asked, coming to my side.
I scooped up Coby and stood. His legs wrapped around my waist and his arms around my neck gripped even tighter, nearly choking me. “Scared mostly. A couple cuts and probably a sprained wrist. It might be broken. What happened?”
Jess had been so focused on speeding to the airstrip our trip here had been in complete silence. Now that I had Coby back in my arms, I was ready for answers.
“Pilot called it in.” Jess pointed toward the deputies who were standing around a cruiser and talking to a man in a tan jumpsuit. “He saw the AMBER Alert come through, and when she showed with Coby, he stalled her. Deputies got here and she tried to make a run for it. Guess she grabbed Coby and got him back in the car. They blocked her in but she tried to bust through the barrier. Got stuck instead.”
I pried Coby off my chest a bit. “Does your head hurt? Are you dizzy? Do you see any white spots when you look around?”
He shook his head.
