Claiming the Enemy: Dustin (Porter Brothers Trilogy 3)

Her exuberant smile widened. She was so happy at his decision to turn Dixon over to the sheriff that she couldn’t contain her joy.

“Dustin!” she called out, wanting him to hear how happy she was before she could reach him.

As she ran, he suddenly stopped, a strange expression crossing his face.

Frightened, she turned around to make sure Holt and Asher weren’t getting ready to shoot him as they had threatened. Seeing the concern in their eyes, she whipped back around toward Dustin, not understanding what was going on. Then she started running again when his features twisted into an agonizing mask as he raised his hands to his head.

Jessie started sobbing, trying to make her legs move faster. She was mere inches away when she knew she wasn’t going to make it in time.

His eyes rolled upward as his body crumbled to the ground as if every ounce of life had suddenly been sucked out of him.

In that split-second of terror, Jessie felt as if her heart had stopped beating, as if it had been ripped out of her chest, unable to be left behind without him.

“No, Dustin!” she screamed, raising her voice so the heavens above could hear her. “Please, God, don’t take him … Please …,” she pleaded helplessly. “Please don’t take him.”

33

Jessie threw herself down by his side, clutching him. While shaking him, she thought she could be having a nightmare and that he wasn’t lying in the middle of a parking lot. It couldn’t be real. She would rather relive the terror of waking up broken and exposed to the elements than be faced with the reality of losing Dustin.

“Holt! Call 911. Asher, get Knox! Dustin ….” Jessie started crying, terrified. She brought her hand up to check for a pulse, praying she was wrong about him being gone.

She was still searching for it when Knox dropped down to Dustin’s other side.

“He doesn’t have a pulse.” Knox started doing heart compressions. “Holt, run to the station and get me the AED. Hurry! Jessie, tilt his head back.”

Jessie followed his instructions, forcing herself to get in control. Dustin needed her. He had been there for her, and she would be damned if she was going to let him down now.

It seemed as if Holt was gone for an eternity before he came back with a state trooper Jessie didn’t know.

“Move,” he barked at her.

Holt pulled her away before she could get her mind to react.

Helplessly, she watched as Knox and the trooper worked on Dustin.

She had to bite down on her fist to keep from crying out when Knox used the AED on him. The ambulance arrived at the same time Knox shouted out he had a heartbeat.

As the paramedics stabilized him, Knox shot out, “Holt, drive Jessie to the hospital. If you go now, you can beat them there.” Knox reached down, picked up Dustin’s car keys, and handed them to Asher. “Go to the school and pick up Logan. Bring him to the daycare. I’m going to get Holly and take her to the hospital. I’ll radio Greer and call Tate from my car. Go!”

Jessie and Holt were already running to their truck. She didn’t want to leave Dustin, but she knew they wouldn’t let her in the ambulance in the condition he was in.

She prayed all the way to the hospital.

Holt turned on his emergency lights, flooring it through the traffic lights. She was sliding out of the truck when she saw the ambulance pull into the emergency entrance.

When they brought Dustin out of the ambulance, she knew she was going to lose him. She had known deep down when she had seen him grab his head.

With aching clarity, she now understood the melancholy expressions on his face she had witnessed last night. The way he had cupped her breasts, had lovingly touched her belly, as if imagining her pregnant. Innocently, she had believed he was thinking about building a future with her, when in reality, he was imagining what he was going to miss. That was why he didn’t want to get married, why he had stopped building the house for him and Logan. Dustin must have known he was sick, and not only that he was sick, but that he was dying and hadn’t wanted anyone to know.

Powerless, she was able to touch him for a moment as they rushed him by her and into the private entrance where the staff were already running to greet him, racing the gurney inside as fast as they could.

Jessie let Holt lead her inside the hospital. When he would have turned her to the chairs, she shook herself free and went to stand by the hospital personnel only door. The first one who would come out, she would beg them to take her to see Dustin.