Finally, I sucked in a breath and bent my head, so my mouth was next to her ear. “You need to go and pack, baby. I’ll get my stuff together, and then we can get whatever Toby needs. He’s going to stay with either my parents or Carrie’s for a couple of days with Wrecker, and then he’ll come to be with us, okay?”
Her crying was breaking my heart, but then she took a shuddering breath. “W-what hap-pened to Croix?”
Relaying what Jerry had told me, I stroked her hair as she howled, the pain she was feeling blatant in the noises that came out of her. I felt powerless as I rocked her gently, letting her get it out before I had to make her function and get her shit together so we could leave.
Each buck of her body and whimper made me feel sick, and I felt powerless because all I could do was pray that Croix made it through this.
Suddenly she jumped up and sprinted out of the room. I could hear drawers opening and closing and knew she was packing to go, so I got up and did the same. Jumping in the shower quickly, I got out and dressed, then threw my toothbrush in my bag and zipped it up just as Marcus called.
“Hey, I’m—”
“I heard, man,” he said solemnly. “Mom called.”
I should have known Tana’s mom would call his. Ronnie, Carla, and my mom were all friends and had been for years.
“I’m taking Tobe to stay with my parents or Carrie’s, and then we’re heading down to Arlington.”
“Not a problem. You guys need to be there, so don’t even think about the ranch. I’ll keep it all ticking until he’s better, and you can come home.”
“I’m taking my computer so I can work on some stuff, so if there’s anything you need doing on that side of things, I’m down to do it.” I shoved my hand in my hair and growled. “It’s so fucked up. I just spoke to Jerry and he sounds fucking broken. Tana can hardly speak, and the crying’s breaking my heart, Marcus. What the fuck do I do?”
“Be yourself. They’re going to need someone with a logical brain who’s calm to guide them through this, Remy. That’s where you come into it. Be the one who can make sense of shit while they struggle to do it themselves.”
I grabbed another bag as I made my way out of my room and down to Tobe’s, the need to get moving now eating at me. “Right, I can do that.”
I paused as I got to his doorway, the sight of Tana holding him and rocking him gently as he patted her head hitting me in the gut.
“I’m gonna pack his stuff, baby,” I said softly, pulling the phone away from my ear for a moment. “Can you go and get his sterilizer and make sure we’ve got the stuff to make him up some formula while we’re on the road?”
“The sterilizer and the stuff I had at my place is still all boxed in the garage. We can take that with us, and then I just have to get his food, bottles, and sippy cups.”
Pulling her into me with a hand behind her head, I kissed her firmly on the forehead, then dropped one down on Tobe’s nose. “Okay, you do that. We’ll be on the road in no time.”
“I don’t want to be away from him,” she croaked, looking up at me with tears trailing down her cheeks. “It hurts to even think about it.”
“Right now, we need to be able to focus on Croix and your family. We don’t know how many hours we’ll be at the hospital while we wait for news, and Tobe would get irritable if he had to stay on our laps.”
She looked down at him. “I don’t want him crawling on a hospital floor.”
“Exactly.” Cupping her chin and tilting her head to look back at me, I said firmly, “Mom or Clarice will bring him to us the second we tell them to. Let’s just get over this first hurdle before we involve him in it, okay?”
She didn’t look happy about it, but finally, she nodded. “Okay.”
As she left the room, I lifted my phone back up to my ear. “This is going to break my heart.”
“Yup,” he agreed. “But that’s how you know you’ve found the one because they get to put it back together for you.”
Given what he’d been through when Addy had been kidnapped and what his brothers Jackson and Elijah had been through with their wives, I knew he was telling the truth.
She was the only one who could put me back together, and I was going to do the same for her.
FOURTEEN
REMY
Hearing her crying as we’d handed Toby off to Clarice had been a test of my strength. I’d already been struggling with leaving him behind, and seeing a crying Toby and Tana as they said goodbye… If I never had to see that again for the rest of my life, I’d be the happiest man in the world.