The Last Letter(128)

This was one fall we hadn’t seen coming.

Havoc whined, curling up next to Colt’s other side. She knew.

“You’re absolutely right.” I checked his pulse. So damn weak.

“I think I’m dying,” he whispered.

“You’re really hurt,” I said, my voice choking on the last word. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I didn’t want his last minutes to be spent in terror. There was nothing we could do at this point. I was going to lose him.

Ella. God, she needed to be here.

“It’s okay. Don’t be sad. Tell Mom and Maisie not to be sad, either.” He took several labored breaths. “I get to see Uncle Ryan.”

I couldn’t breathe. My chest only rose and fell with his, my heart syncing to his frail rhythm.

“Just hold on, bud. There’s so much you haven’t done yet. There’s so much to do.”

He looked at me, love shining out of his eyes. “I got to have you. Just like a dad.”

Tears fell from my eyes, running down the side of my face to the earth below. “Oh, Colt. We were going to tell you. We were just waiting for Maisie to be okay, but I adopted you last year. You’ve had a dad for a while. One who loves you more than the moon and stars.”

His breaths came slower and slower, each one a Herculean effort, but he still managed a smile. “You’re my dad.”

“I’m your dad.”

“So this is what it feels like.” He reached over, his hand cold as he laid it against my cheek. “I love having a dad.”

“I love being your dad, Colt. You are the best little boy I could have ever been given. I’m so proud of you.” The words barely came out.

His eyes closed as another breath shuddered through him.

I heard the sound of rotors in the background.

“I’m a Gentry,” Colt said, managing to pry his eyes open again.

“You are. A Gentry and a MacKenzie. Always.”

“Always?” he asked.

“Always. I will always be your dad. No matter what. Nothing will change that.” Even death. My love for him would cross however far God took him.

“Colton Ryan MacKenzie-Gentry. I got everything I ever wanted.” His eyes closed, and his chest rose only half as high. CPR wouldn’t help, not when he didn’t have any blood to circulate.

“Me, too,” I told him, kissing his forehead.

“Tell Mom and Maisie I love them.” His words were slower, punctuated by partial breaths.

“I will. They love you so much. You have a mom, and a dad, and a sister who would do anything for you.”

“I love you, Dad,” he whispered.

“I love you, Colt.”

His chest rattled once more, and then his hand fell from my face as he faded.

“Colt?” I felt for the pulse that wasn’t there. “Colt! No!” I slid under him and sat up, cradling him in front of me, my arms wrapped around him as his head rolled back against my chest.

A primal scream ripped from my throat. Then another, until my body shook with sobs. Beside me, Havoc sat up and started to howl, the sound low and keening.

Take care of him, Ryan.

“Beckett,” Mark said softly. When I looked up, he was kneeling next to me, his eyes full of unshed tears. My eyes rhythmically blurred, then cleared.

“He’s gone.” My arms tightened around his little body.

“I know. You did everything you could.”

“I made him pinwheels this morning,” I said, running my hand over his soft hair. “He wanted extra cheese, and I gave it to him. I made him pinwheels.”

That was hours ago.

Hours.

And now he was gone.

“What do you want to do?” Mark asked.

I realized there were half a dozen guys standing around us. Jenkins kneeled down and did the same checks I had, only to press his mouth in a tight line and stand again.

Want? What did I want to do? I wanted to scream again, to rip everything in this forest to shreds. I wanted to pound the mountain down to rubble with my fists. I wanted to look at my little boy and hear him laugh, see him run on the deck of his tree house. I wanted him to grow up, wanted to meet the man he was supposed to become. But he was beyond my reach.

Want didn’t matter when nothing was in your control.

“I need to take him to his mother.”





Chapter Twenty-Eight


Ella


The helicopter landed in the small clearing about thirty yards in front of me, and my heart sank. There were only two reasons they would land. Either they hadn’t found Colt, or…

“Breathe,” Ada told me. Larry had taken Maisie home. I didn’t want her here, didn’t want her on the front lines of a tragedy.

A group from County stood behind us, all watching. Waiting.

“If they found him, they would have airlifted him to Montrose,” I said. Trying so hard to push down the fear that held my stomach in a vise.

“Beckett will find him. You know he will.”

I’d seen the map, knew how far that fall was.

The door opened on the helicopter, and Mark got down first, then Beckett. He was wearing a long-sleeve shirt but no blue fleece.

He looked at me, and I didn’t need to see his face from the distance. His posture said it all. “No.” The sound was barely a whisper. No. No. No.