Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek #1)(109)

Maybe this wasn’t his last chocolate after all.

Ignoring the intermittent beep coming from his cell phone the entire time, he shoved his phone in his back pocket and boxed up his new chocolate. Everything could wait until after he kissed Dani awake, until after he convinced her that he was there to stay in her life and that she was his for good. His life, his future, his...everything.

He wasn’t sure how he was going to accomplish the latter if she put up an argument but he figured there would be some convincing bouts of sex involved.

Along with his new red and white chocolate fed to her in bed.

The perfect start to the rest of their lives, as far as he was concerned.

At ten to eight, Luke dashed out to his car, barely pausing to give Quinn a fast high-five hello when she came in to open up shop. His beeping phone was driving him crazy, putting a serious buzz-kill on his grand plans. Digging it out of his pocket to silence it, he stopped in his tracks when he saw that the persistent reminders were for a text from Dani.

>> COULD YOU MEET ME AT OCOTILLOS THIS MORNING? I NEED TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING.

Shit. The text had come in over an hour ago. He didn’t even stop to lock his car back up; he just spun around and raced over to the brewpub.

Seeing another text come in mid-sprint, his heart flipped over when he read it.

>> I’M GOING TO SIT AND WAIT FOR YOU UNTIL YOU COME HERE, DAMN IT. I’LL EVEN SHUT DOWN THE BREWPUB FOR THE DAY IF I HAVE TO.

Well hell.

That was just about the most romantic thing that Dani could say. That brewpub hadn’t been closed since the day it opened its doors, as far as he knew.

Christ, he loved the hell out of that woman. He was so going to kiss her silly the second he saw her. Smiling now, he yanked open the back door.

And got blown ten feet back into the alleyway.



*



SON OF A BITCH! Coughing, Luke rolled to his side with a loud groan, pushing up from the dirt, wondering what the hell had just happened. It took him a second to realize he was in the lot next to Ocotillos and there was black smoke billowing out all around him. His head whipped to the brewery. Already the sound of folks on the street screaming confirmed his worst nightmare.

There’d been an explosion.

“DANI!” Luke ran at a dead sprint. Inside was a horrific scene from a movie—the corner tank wall of the brewery looked like a bomb had detonated right through it. Debris was everywhere with blackened metal shards littering the ground. Beer was still shooting from the pipes above one of the brewing tanks like a liquid firework show.

Luke screamed Dani’s name again.

His heart plunged when he saw her finally, lying in a heap next to the spot where a full tank used to stand, not just the metal remains that looked like the pit of a jagged cauldron.

A few other men raced in behind him but he got to Dani first. She was eerily still; he wasn’t even sure if she was breathing. “Dani! Oh my god. Wake up sweetheart.” He didn’t want to shake her, not knowing what her injuries were. Pulling a large metal panel off her body, he just kept talking to her, praying for her to be alive, demanding that she be okay. He stroked her char-smudged face. “Please, please. Just open your eyes for me—”

Shaking erratically now, he smoothed her hair back to check her pulse. It was faint but there. Why the hell wasn’t she waking up? “Dani, honey, can you hear me?”

Strong hands tried to pull him away from her body.

He shoved them to the side and pleaded, begged for Dani to come back to him.

Soon, more people appeared and forcibly hauled him out of the way as firemen swarmed over Dani’s body to give her first aid. The voice shouting in his ear to let the firemen do their jobs washed over him, went through him numbly.

He fell to his knees helplessly as they took Dani, lifeless and limp, away on a stretcher.




LUKE SCRUBBED his face with his hands, furious that the goddamn hospital *s still wouldn’t let him see Dani. She was his...no, not his wife, which was why they wouldn’t let him go to her yet. Only family they’d kept repeating to him. When they’d asked who he was to her, ‘boyfriend’ didn’t seem nearly strong or true enough an answer. Still covered in the blackened blast dust he’d found Dani lying in, he stared back at them, unable to speak.

Patiently, they rephrased their question, this time asking who she was to him.

“She’s the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with,” he whispered back.

The nurse looked stricken, sympathetic, but still, no one would let him through.

Minutes later, Derek ran in and shouted for someone to tell him where his sister was. He ran up to Luke and grabbed him by the shirt. “Is she okay?” he demanded.

“They won’t let me see her. Only you. Go. The doctor is right there.”

Nodding shakily, fear in his eyes, Derek rushed over to the doctor and they swept him straight into the back. Derek’s husband Jonathan stood next to Luke. Silently, they both watched Derek disappear behind the swinging doors.

Then they waited.

Quinn and Rylan arrived at the hospital soon after. Xoey and the entire bartending and wait staff came next. A little while later, all of the workers from Ocotillos joined them, along with many other concerned business owners, vendors, and friends.

The waiting room was soon packed.

And for the next two hours, they all sat there and heard nothing.