He wrapped her in his arms so tightly that she could barely take a breath, it was the best thing she had ever felt.
“Of course I did, I love you.”
“I love you too,” she cried.
“Sorry, guys. The ambulance is here.” Alexis recognized the voice as Dylan’s.
Pulling back, Cliff only adjusted his hands toward her face and placed the most gentle kiss on her lips. She would melt into a puddle at his feet if they weren’t in this particular situation, the kiss was that sweet and potent.
Stepping out of the vehicle, Cliff lifted Alexis into his arms and carried her tenderly down the same path that her father had dragged her through in his means to escape.
“Did you catch the man that fled?” Cliff asked Dylan who walked behind them.
“They have the dogs on him,” he said. At first, Alexis didn’t know what he meant, but then she saw the Asheville police SUVs with K-9 unit emblazoned along the side.
As they reached the ends of the truck a round of applause sounded. It began softly, just one or two people, then the noise became a thunderous pulse. Alexis rested her head on Cliff’s shoulder as they made their way through the crowd. Some of the truckers patted Cliff on the back; others sobbed in their happiness of her escape. The emotions were overwhelming and exhaustion tugged at Alexis.
“Sleep, sweetheart. I’ll be right by your side.”
As he laid her on the stretcher, he followed the EMTs into the back of the ambulance.
The paramedic wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her bicep and the other attached a pulse monitor on the tip of her finger.
“Hey, Cliff,” she whispered, turning her head away from the machines to face him. His clothes were covered in mud and dust, his face still a slight shade of gray from where he must have fought death and won.
“Yeah,” he replied, reaching over to take her free hand in his.
“You never did tell me your real name.”
She cracked a smile as he chuckled. “You’re right, I didn’t. My real name is Michael.”
Closing her eyes, Alexis let the desire to sleep overtake her, but not before mumbling, “Michael, my angel and protector.”
Chapter Ten
The pounding of the hammer in his hand vibrated against the newly formed calluses on his palm. The ache was bittersweet. He could use the air compressed nail gun to set the boards for the frame of the living room, but he enjoyed the feel of the tool in his hand.
“We’d be done by now if you would use a power tool,” Austin complained, the rest of the Connelly men joining with a few chuckled as they helped him finish framing the inside of his new cabin.
Well, it wasn’t going to be a cabin any longer. Once Cliff was cleared to build on the land, he and Austin drew up the plans for a proper mountain lodge. It was going to be everything he had ever dreamed of. But one thing was missing.
It had been over a month since he heard from Alexis and his heart stung whenever he thought about her or was reminded of her. And here on his property, everything reminded him of Alexis. He lived in a perpetual state of heartbreak, moping around the town no matter how many times Amy tried to cheer him up. Somehow the woman found out his love of Butterfinger candy bars and he’d found bouquets of them at his shop every day since he returned to Carson.
> Cliff’s phone buzzed in his back pocket and he set down the hammer on the workbench and fished it out.
“Finally, maybe now I can get the drywall up,” Austin mumbled as he took over nailing the board in place that Cliff had been working on.
Cliff couldn’t hold back his look of disappointment at the image of the familiar truck cruising down his driveway.
He prayed every night that Alexis came back to him, even knowing that her return wasn’t something she could control. The moment she had been admitted to the hospital, the FBI had swarmed the building and forcefully shoved him away. He barely got to say goodbye to her before he was kicked out and told that everything was now part of a criminal investigation.
He had been treated like a second-class citizen when he probably had a higher clearance than most of the men and women in Alexis’ room. His only consolation was that Heath had returned and was by her side. He messaged Cliff daily to keep him in the loop, Cliff only wondered why Alexis couldn’t do the same.
“Are we ready for walls?” Cliff asked as he shoved his phone back in his pocket and turned toward the three men in the same room. The rest had ventured upstairs to finish the framing.
“Can we take a break? It’s fucking hot as hell in here.” Logan leaned against the wall that would be the foyer, sweat dripping down his face.
It was hot. The middle of summer in Carson could be brutal on an average day, but they had extreme temperatures for a week now. Luckily, the HVAC system was scheduled to be installed the next day.