Braydon(71)

Oh, God. He didn’t like the sound of that. Braydon mentally gauged the distance to the hospital from where they were and told Sawyer that he’d see him in twenty minutes.

“Hold up,” Sawyer said before Braydon could hang up.

Braydon’s stomach tightened; his chest felt like he was carrying that anvil around again. “What?” he barked, darting across two lanes to hit the overpass that would take them to Round Rock, rather than Coyote Ridge.

“He’s gonna be all right, but you do need to get there. I’ll be there before you, but not by much.”

Braydon took a deep breath. He had needed to hear that, and Sawyer obviously knew it.

“Are you driving?” Sawyer asked.

“Yeah.”

“Is Jessie there with you?”

Braydon looked over at her and then answered Sawyer, “Yeah, she’s here.”

“Let me talk to her.”

Braydon handed the phone to Jessie and focused on driving. He glanced down at the speedometer, doing his damnedest to keep to the speed limit so that he didn’t risk a ticket, but that was harder than he would’ve thought.

“Hey, Sawyer,” Jessie said into the phone.

For the next twenty minutes, he heard Jessie’s side of the conversation. She didn’t panic and she didn’t freak out, so he figured that was a good thing. It wasn’t until they were pulling into the hospital parking lot that she disconnected the call after telling Sawyer they’d see him in a minute.

Jessie didn’t wait for him to get out before she started pushing him toward the door. That had Braydon’s heart clenching painfully in his chest. She hadn’t bothered to tell him what was going on, and he wasn’t sure whether that was because the news was bad or because he hadn’t asked Sawyer to explain it to him.

Either way, he wanted to know.

“Brendon was drinking and driving, Bray,” she said simply when they were out of the truck. She closed the door behind them, took the keys from his hands, and clicked the lock. “He hit a tree.”

“Are you f*cking serious?” he asked in disbelief.

“He was at Moonshiners,” she informed him. “Mack tried to keep him from leaving, but Brendon did anyway after Mack cut him off for the night. Mack called Sawyer and let him know.”

“Drinking and driving?” Braydon whispered, still not believing it.

Jessie looked up at him, sadness in her gaze. “Yeah.”

Fuck.

“Sawyer was at home. He was heading to Moonshiners when he saw Brendon’s truck in a ditch.”

Jessie put her hand on his arm, effectively slowing him down. Braydon stopped and looked at her.

“He’s gonna be fine. It’s just a bump on the head.”

But it could’ve been so much worse, Braydon thought to himself. So f*cking much worse. What the hell was Brendon thinking?

Wanting to ask his brother exactly that, Braydon nodded at Jessie and then turned toward the emergency room doors. Once inside, the clinical smell assaulted his senses and brought him a moment of lucidity. A quick scan of the room had him coming up empty. His family wasn’t there.

What the f*ck?

“Your mom and dad are already here. Sawyer called them as soon as he found Brendon.” Jessie paused, coming to a stop in front of him. “Sawyer was going back to see Brendon before he got off the phone with me. Travis, Zane, and Kaleb are on the way. Ethan and Beau are only a few minutes out.”

From that point on, just as she clearly had with the phone call, Jessie took complete control of the situation as she made her way to the check-in desk. He didn’t hear what she told the nurse sitting there, but a moment later, a set of doors opened and she was pulling him along through them.

Braydon tried to ignore the overwhelming smells of the hospital. Surely that was what was making him sick to his stomach. It wasn’t the fact that his brother had gotten behind the wheel after he’d been drinking. How could he be that f*cking stupid?

The rooms were cordoned off by curtains rather than walls. Braydon heard his father’s voice long before they made it to the room where Brendon was obviously being kept. Jessie was still two steps in front of him, her hand in his. That’s when Braydon realized he was barely moving.

He was f*cking scared out of his mind to see Brendon. The fact that his twin was so messed up that he’d done something so damn stupid . . . It terrified him. Worse than that, Braydon immediately felt responsible.

“Hey,” his mother greeted him just outside the small area that held a bed and several machines. “Hey, Jess.” Braydon stopped walking when his mother reached out and hugged Jessie tight and then turned her attention back to him. “He’s gonna be fine,” she told him, but even hearing the words didn’t make him feel any better.

“He’s lucky,” Sawyer said gruffly when he joined them. “Mack tried to stop him before he left Moonshiners, but apparently Brendon was determined.”

And stupid, Braydon thought again. “Why the hell did he do this?” he asked, knowing the answer to that already.

“I tried calling him this morning,” Lorrie explained, looking between him and Jessie. “He didn’t answer. I texted him two or three times, but he never texted me back. I should’ve gone over to the house to check on him.”

“Ma, he probably wasn’t there. To be this messed up, he’s been drinking all day. Hell, possibly since yesterday. He doesn’t even remember getting in the truck, or the accident,” Sawyer explained, meeting Braydon’s gaze when he finished. His brother’s eyes darted down to Jessie and then back to him.