I didn’t want my children to suffer from what I had.
Being bi-polar was only the tip of the iceberg.
I battled with depression during the winter months.
I had ADD.
And swear to Christ I didn’t want to put a kid through that.
I was a prime example of a person that shouldn’t have kids.
But I was Nikki’s, even if Nikki wasn’t mine. At least not anymore.
She would forever have my heart, but I’d never hold hers.
It was better this way.
I was so fucked up that I literally couldn’t handle anymore.
And I didn’t want a woman like Nikki, someone so pure of heart, to have to deal with my shit. Because there sure the fuck was a lot of it.
Watching her until she went inside, I finally pulled out of the parking lot and responded to the suspected double homicide.
And once again it reemphasized the fact that some people really shouldn’t have kids.
Pulling into the yard that housed a double wide trailer, I walked up to the front door where an elderly couple was standing.
The old man had his hands wrapped around the old woman’s shoulders, and he was holding her comfortingly.
As if, if he were not careful, she might very well fall apart.
Stepping out of my cruiser, my feet crunched in the gravel.
As I made my way to them, I took a survey of my surroundings.
The land surrounding the trailer was clean and well kept.
Flowers lined the sides of the mobile home with red bricks surrounding the flower bed.
A bass boat sat to the side underneath an awning, with a trailer that had two four wheelers on the back ready to ride to the dear lease at a moment’s notice.
An infant swing swung on the front porch, being pushed by nothing more than the wind.
And I got a really, really bad feeling.
The moment I got within speaking distance, both of them started speaking at once.
“They’re dead!” The woman cried, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Shot her, and then himself,” the man said gruffly. “The baby too. We didn’t touch anything.”
Bile already making the climb up my throat, I said, “Please go stand next to my cruiser.”
They both readily complied, and I was thankful.
I could tell that the man was a hard man.
He had a Marine Corps tattoo on his right forearm, and what distinctly resembled a knife wound just above that.
His eyes were hard and his demeanor even harder.
But whatever he saw inside had rocked him.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped over the threshold of the mobile home, and immediately turned around to lose my lunch over the side of the porch.
I’m not ashamed I have a heart.
But any man would’ve lost it over what I’d just seen.
Taking a few deep breaths, I said a silent prayer, and once again stepped over the threshold.
This time I was able to take in more of the scene.
Earlier I’d stalled over the child.
This time I was able to move past the child that was in front of a sliding glass door across the room to the man that crumpled against the far counter.
He was on his ass, a revolver had fallen just to the right of his hand.
He had a large hole at the top of his head where the bullet had exited.
Moving past him, I saw the legs of a woman on the other side of the island.
Walking carefully into the room, I skirted around the island and closed my eyes the moment I saw the woman.
She was beautiful. Long blonde hair laid around her in a halo. Cute skirt and skin tight top clinging closely to a very pregnant belly.
“Fuck me,” I breathed, dropping down to my knees.
Although I knew it was futile, I checked for a pulse on each of the parents.
But Rigor Mortis had already set in; I knew they were gone the moment my fingers met their skin.
Really not wanting to check the child, but knowing I had to do it anyway, I walked carefully over to the baby.
He was dressed in a red onesie that had little puppy dog prints on it.
His little feet were covered in a tiny pair of red socks, and I found myself thankful.
It masked the sheer amount of blood that was surrounding him.
His and his mother’s were mingling, and you couldn’t tell whose was whose.
But as my fingers met his cool skin, and I felt the rapid beat of his pulse, my whole body froze in shock.
He was alive!
Mother fucker.
He had a gunshot wound to his face, but he was alive!
Scooping him up, I placed him gently over my shoulder and started sprinting out the door.
I was thankful as hell to see that Bennett, another member of the SWAT team and fellow officer, was pulling into the driveway.
He saw me coming and his eyes flared.
I didn’t waste a second, however.
I ran to his passenger side door, fell inside, and said, “Drive!”
He drove, and the last thing I saw before I turned my attention to the little boy in my arms was the horrified looks on the two elderly people as we peeled out of the driveway, spraying dirt and gravel in our wake.
“Why aren’t we waiting for the ambulance?” Bennett yelled, taking a corner going way too fast.
“Because we’re two minutes tops from the hospital, and it’ll take the ambulance at least five to get to where we are. It’s easier and faster to drive, and this baby may not have that long,” I told him honestly.
He didn’t say another word, and I didn’t either.
Chapter 2
Damaged women are strong. And crazy. Don’t forget crazy.
-Coffee Cup
Nikki
“Nikki!” Lennox called from the nurse’s station.
I looked up from the man I was currently getting an IV on, and raised by brows at her in question.
“Nikki, Paxton’s going to get that IV for you. I need a hand. Now,” Lennox ordered.
Her eyes were haunted, and I swallowed at the look.
What the hell was going on?
I’d felt it the moment that the trauma had come in.
The entire room had gone into overdrive.
Not one to usually participate in trauma’s due to my lack of credentials, I stayed out of the way, helping where I was needed.
Handing off the IV for Paxton to tape and finish up, I patted the man’s hand and hurried around the foot of the bed.
My first indication that something was seriously wrong was when I walked into the room and saw a man’s black booted feet at the end of the exam table bending over the foot of the end of the gurney.
Then I followed it up to see the cargo pants that KPD wore.
But what really gave me pause was the fact that the man wore long sleeves.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, wore long sleeves in the middle of a Texas summer.
Unless your name was Michael ‘Saint’ Perez.
“What do you need?” I managed to ask Lennox, looking away.
I’d yet to see what was on the gurney, but I knew it was bad.
Michael’s entire body was shielding whatever it was, and I knew it would be bad before I rounded the end of the gurney.
“I need you to get an IV in him,” she said softly.
That’s when Michael moved, and I nearly lost my legs out from under me.
“Sweet Mary mother of God,” I whispered in devastation.
Michael’s eyes were blank.
No emotion in them whatsoever.
But I could tell he wasn’t doing it because of me.
He was doing it because he knew that if he showed even the least bit of emotion, he’d lose it. Just like I was about to do.
Taking a page from his book, I steeled up my defenses and said, “22 gauge.”
Then I went to work on getting an IV in a baby less than ten months old, with quite a bit of blood loss, and a gunshot wound to his head.
All the while Michael, the man I’d been in love with for over two years, watched me, holding a kid in his arms and talking to him like he was his father.
Heart panging, I found a vein, and started an IV.