“Hmm? Oh, yes, the Catatumbo Lightning.”

“It occurs at the mouth of the Catatumbo River,” I spoke into her neck. “Ceaseless, extraordinary bursts of lightning descend from a body of storm clouds that form a voltage arc more than three miles high. It’s magnificent, Cricket. It’s a constant barrage of remarkable light and it burns over and over. I sat at the outermost peak of the Andes nearest Lake Maracaibo and was dazzled for hours. If the sun had never risen, I couldn’t have left it. I would have been a prisoner to its overpowering beauty.” I sat up a little and looked at her. “You are Catatumbo Lightning, Cricket. You’ve caught me.”

My hand covered her throat and I let my thumb circle the side of her neck over and over. Our breaths got heavier, cumbersome. My lids felt weighted and I closed them briefly when her hands found my shoulders.

Oh my God, you’re going to kiss Cricket Hunt.

My hand slid to the back of her neck, my thumb smoothed across her jawbone. I drew near her, my heart pounding through my shirt. I let the weight of my body sink into hers.

“Am I too heavy?” I asked.

Her drowsy eyes found my own. “I like the pressure,” she sighed, giving me a greater buzz, “the potency of it.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to kiss you,” I confided. “Can you feel my heart exploding?”

She nodded. “Can you feel mine?”

My hand moved to a pulse point on her neck and I counted the beats.

“Nervous?” I asked.

She nodded again. “Overwrought, thrilled.”

I forced myself to relax and ran my hand down her throat. Lazily, I unbuttoned the top of her coat and ran my hand over the lace across her breastplate. I breathed deeply in and out of my nose. My hand followed back up her neck and gently closed around her throat once more. I lowered my face and hovered just above her lips. Ever so lightly, I ran my bottom lip across her hers eliciting a shiver. I did the same thing once more, but this time I skimmed the tip of my tongue as well, just so I could taste her, just so I could know what I was in for, and my God did she taste extraordinary.

I pulled away and she objected, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me so close, I could taste her without touching.

“Kiss me,” she ordered, and I was helpless to comply.

I crushed my mouth with hers and she moaned into my throat, spurring me on. I moved with her and we kissed like we were made for each other. Her saccharine tongue melted with mine, and I found my hands pressing her back, pushing her deeper into me.

We broke to catch our breath and to gauge the other, to see if it was truly as powerful as it appeared. Click. It seemed it was. Her labored breaths fanned across my face and she grappled to get nearer. I drove my tongue into hers once again, and I felt intact once more, as if a piece of me hadn’t gone suddenly missing.

“Blackwell,” she exhaled into my lips.

“Hunt,” I answered against her mouth.

But she forgot what she needed to say and showed me instead, sitting up, never breaking our kiss and tossing her jacket to the side, her arms now completely unconstrained. She threaded her hands through my hair, frenzied in her need to get closer, and pressed the kiss even deeper.

The kiss broke and my lips found her throat. “You belong to me,” I claimed possessively, biting her carefully, reaping me a cottony gasp.

Her lips found mine again and we kissed with renewed fervor, eager to learn the other’s lips and mouth and tongue.

We kissed for hours, no one curious as to where we were, more than likely because my truck was still outside the main house. When the sun started to make an appearance, I knew it was time to go, though I was loath to leave.

“Cricket,” I pleaded between kisses, “I have to take you back or your grandmother will kill me.”

“No,” she defied, making me laugh against her lips.

“Please,” I groaned, “for Ellie.”

“Fine,” she said, sitting back, before attacking me again, knocking me back.

My hands found the small of her back and I kissed her once again. I pulled her away and sat up once more.

She huffed and her mussed hair flopped in front of her face.

“You look beautiful after I’ve ravished you,” I teased.

“You look awful, just awful,” she ribbed.

“It won’t work,” I told her, laughing.

“What won’t?” she asked, a brow raised.

“Taunting me.”

She smiled her clever smile at me.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing our coats and helping her down the bales.

Once on the ground, she sat on a bale and put her shoes back on that had found themselves somehow removed throughout the night.

“You have hay all over you,” I told her.

“So do you,” she said, giggling.

“Stand up,” I ordered, and picked straws of hay out of her lace dress and hair.

She shook out her hair and swept her bangs. She looked flawless, like she hadn’t just rolled around in a hayloft, as cliche as that sounds. She did the same for me and we put our coats back on.

I picked her up and she whooped when I swept her legs beneath my arm.

“How chivalrous,” she said, smiling.

She was so light, I sort of manhandled her, bouncing her around in my arms. When she rolled her eyes, I kissed her nose.

“What a lovely first date,” she commented.

“We didn’t do anything but make out,” I laughed.

She winked. “Exactly.”

“You’re a cheeky little thing.”

“Um, you also got me a present. A very beautiful present, actually.”

“It was nothing,” I told her.

“It was not! It was so thoughtful!”

“I’m glad you like it,” I said.

“How could I—” she began, but the smile on her face fell. “Oh God,” she said, her back stiffening.

I set her down.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Cramp?”

“Uh, n-no,” she said, her hand at her back. “I need—” She stopped short, falling against me.

“Cricket?” I asked, worried.

“Home,” she whispered, the color draining from her face.

“Cricket!” I yelled, scooping her up in my arms as she collapsed toward the ground.

“Cricket,” I demanded, panicking, but she didn’t respond.

I checked for a pulse but it was weak. She was breathing though, shallowly. I ran with her in my arms up the deck and into the living room, shouting.

“Ellie! Emmett!”

I laid Cricket on the sofa and reached for the phone, dialing nine-one-one.

“Ellie!” I shouted once more before the operator answered.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“Uh, my girlfriend just collapsed and I’m not sure what’s wrong with her. Please,” I pleaded, “send an ambulance immediately.”

Ellie came bounding into the room, tying a robe around her waist. “What’s wrong?” she began but took in Cricket on the sofa.

“Emmett!” she shouted and ran over to her. “Oh Lord! Cricket,” she said, crying, “can you hear me?”

I hung up the phone and kneeled at her side. “I don’t know what happened,” I explained. “One minute she was fine, and the next she was grabbing at her back.”

Ellie was crying and smoothing Cricket’s hair from her face. “She, uh, she has kidney failure, Spencer.”

It felt like a bomb had just been dropped, shattering my perfect world.

“What?” I asked.

“The past year, she’s needed dialysis several times a week. She needs a transplant.”

My chest felt constricted and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t have time to worry about anything other than getting Cricket help.

“What can I do?” I asked.

“Are they sending an ambulance?”

I shook my head. “No, a medevac.”

“Keep an eye out and guide them in?” she asked.

“Of course.”

I felt so helpless. I paced the deck back and forth, praying harder than I ever had before, begging God to save her, to keep her here. An agonizing, seven minutes later, the helicopter made its appearance in the sky. I jumped on the balls of my feet in anticipation. It felt like they took forever to set down in the bit of driveway in front of the main house. Two EMTs emerged, and I led them into the house while the pilot sat ready to leave as soon as possible. They rushed past me and into the house. I followed them, panicked, on the verge of falling to my knees and yanking out my hair. I had no idea what was going on. Just an hour before she was normal, happy, in my arms. I was kissing her. Falling more and more in love with her.

In a whirlwind, they had her on a gurney, and had flown off with the love of my life. I was left standing alone on the deck wondering what in the hell I was supposed to do.

“Come on, son,” Ellie said, wrapping her arm around me. “The hospital,” she explained.

I bounded down the deck stairs and opened Ellie’s door for her. Emmett promised to follow within minutes after he informed Jonah, Bridge and the rest of the hands.

The thirty minutes it took to drive to Kalispell were the longest of my life. We drove in absolute silence, both praying, both hoping when we got to the hospital that she’d be fine. That it’d be a false alarm. That she would be walking, talking, being her normal, happy, funny self.

My hands gripped the steering wheel, the whites of my knuckles shining through. I periodically would run a hand down the length of my face in disbelief. I was so pissed at myself for not seeing the signs. Her multi-weekly trips to Kalispell with Ethan. Her refusing the alcohol. She told me on more than one occasion that the ranch, the people of her town, did not define her correctly. At Bridge’s doctor’s office, that receptionist asking how she was doing. Ethan and her “fight.” Ellie crying at the bottom of the stairs. Cricket’s profound thoughts of death. Her mother. Ethan and the list.

“Oh my God, Ellie,” I said, my body starting to shake.

“Yes,” she spoke quietly.

“Was Ethan Cricket’s kidney donor?”

She looked at me. “Yes.”

“Oh my God,” I said, feeling the need to wretch. “Oh my God,” I said again, my hands shaking so badly I could barely clutch the wheel.

That day, in the trailer, before their fight. You’re only in your relationship with Ethan because he’s giving you something you think you can’t live without, and you’re too scared to give up.

I pulled over, opened the door and vomited everything I had, which wasn’t much since my stomach was empty. When I came back up, Ellie had found an old t-shirt on the ground and handed it to me.

I wiped my mouth. “Thank you,” I could barely say.

She nodded and I pulled back out on the road.

I was selfish. A selfish asshole who, no matter where he went, what his intentions were, wreaked havoc on everyone he got near. I was toxic, making good people around me pay for my past sins.

Chapter Thirty-Three

I parked quickly and Ellie, still in her bathrobe and slippers, and I headed directly for the E.R. We approached the check-in nurse.