Dylan’s Redemption(48)

Dylan didn’t get a chance to explain anything before Jessie bolted past him and sprinted into the street.

Horns honked and tires squealed. Dylan didn’t know what happened, but he ran after her too late to catch her before she scooped up a child from the middle of the street. A car skidded to a screeching halt, hitting her, and throwing her up onto the hood and windshield with a loud thud. She held the child protectively in her arms. The car came to a jarring stop, and she flew off the hood and landed about ten feet away, hitting her shoulder and thigh, sliding several feet across the pavement. With her arms circled around the child’s head and body, he could barely be seen. All Dylan needed to see were the child’s shoes.

Panic squeezed his heart. His chest seized. He couldn’t breathe. He recognized the shoes he put on his son this morning.

Stuck behind two cars that crashed, trying to avoid hitting him, the sense of unreality made everything around him quiet. Dylan came back to himself with an explosion of sound filling his ears. Several vehicles had rear-ended each other as traffic came to a jarring halt and Jessie had gone flying off one of the vehicles with his son in her arms. He tried to get around the cars, but they were a tangled mess. He jumped up and over a few before he made it to Jessie and Will.

From across the street, Dylan’s mother called to Will and screamed for help. Dylan fell to his knees beside Jessie and Will in a few quick strides. Jessie lay on her back holding on to Will with all her might. Will cried out for him.

“Daddy!”

“I’m right here, son. Are you okay, little man?” He ran his hands over his boy, checking for scrapes, cuts, bumps, and—oh God—broken bones. He didn’t find a scratch on him. By the way he moved, Dylan didn’t think he broke anything. His son was safe, thanks to Jessie.

“Jess, don’t move. You’re bleeding.” His training and experience kicked in at the sight of her blood oozing out of the gash on her head. He took out his cell phone and called his office.

“Lynn, it’s me. I need four deputies on First Street and an ambulance. There’s been an accident. A woman is down and my son may be hurt as well. Several vehicles are involved. Hurry,” he ordered and hung up.

Jessie’s eyes opened wide, her voice came out hoarse and disbelieving. “This is your son?”

“Yes. He’s who I wanted you to meet. The person I live with. This is Will.”

“She’s my mommy. Okay, Daddy?”

Dylan smiled at his son and kissed him on the head to reassure his own distressed head and heart Will was okay. Jessie didn’t look so good, and she grew even paler when he made the comment.

“He doesn’t have a mother,” Dylan explained. “Apparently, he nominates you.”

Dylan’s mother kneeled beside him and bent toward Will, placing her hand on his back. Tears streamed down her face. She pressed her other hand to her heart. “Will, I thought I’d lost you.” Her hands shook as she sat back on her heels and held her hands tightly to her breast.

At three, Will was fast as lightning. Dylan’s mother looked at her son. “Dylan, he must have spotted you across the street and took off without a word. I looked down to say something and he was gone.”

“Mommy saved me.”

His mother gazed down at Jessie, and her eyes went wide with such fear, Dylan didn’t understand her reaction. “Jessie.” She gasped.

Jessie focused on her, years of hate burned in her eyes. “You said he didn’t want me. He never wanted to speak to me again. I was nothing but a distraction, discarded like the trash I am. You said he was tired of me using him. I believed your lies and I never got a chance to tell him . . . He’s a father.” The words came out haltingly.

The color drained from his mother’s face. He’d never seen her look this haunted in his whole life. “Jessie, you saved Will?”

“I need to tell you . . . about Hope.” Jessie’s eyes closed and her whole body went from rigid intensity to utter relaxation.

“She’s confused,” his mother said, her eyes pleading with him to understand something he couldn’t comprehend.

Jessie’s words rang in his head, but he couldn’t seem to sort them out and make sense of them. Everything happened too quickly, chaos reigned around them, and he needed to get Jessie to the hospital. Panic overrode his common sense.

“Mom, I swear to God, if you know what she’s talking about and you haven’t told me, like you didn’t tell me she was alive, this is your chance.” He pinned her with a glare, disappointed when she stood on unsteady legs, opened her mouth to say something, but pressed her lips together, holding back whatever words she might have said in her defense to make him understand. She glared down at Jessie, then staggered away.