Starting Over

Chapter 40- Redbird

The door began to open and I found myself holding my breath. I watched as Special Agent Drane entered the room followed by Luke. Luke! Luke was okay. He looked really rough though. He had bandages around his wrists and stitches in his forehead. I immediately took off running towards him and he did the same. He pulled me into his arms and kissed me like he never had before. It was passionate, but it was so much more than that. I pulled out of his kiss and just looked at him. I slowly slid my hands down his arms forgetting about his wrists being bandaged. When I touched them he winced in pain.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to him.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m just happy to be with you. Where are the kids?” Luke said to me.

“They are with everyone at the Deer Camp. I’m so happy you are home. I was going crazy,” I answered him.

“We’re all glad you are home,” Jason said as he patted Luke’s back.

Everyone crowded around us and welcomed Luke home, but I could tell he wasn’t quite feeling the company. After a short amount of time with our friends Detective Pierce and Special Agent Drane came back into the room.

“We have a few questions for you Luke,” Special Agent Drane said.

“Look, I’m exhausted. All I want to do is go home with my girl, relax, and wait for our kids to get there. Can we do this tomorrow?” Luke explained.

“Luke, where are we going to go? Our house is destroyed,” I questioned.

“I have a surprise for you,” Luke told me. I just smiled. This was obviously something he had planned before all of this went down.

“Okay, we will set up a time to stop by tomorrow. Do you need a ride home?” Detective Pierce asked.

“That would be great,” Luke told her.

“Okay. I will get that taken care of right away,” Special Agent Drane said, “You all will have accommodations here until tomorrow afternoon then there will be a flight to take you back to Kansas.”

“We are good here,” Brittany said politely, “We can have our bags shipped home. And Adam and Jennifer are more than welcome to stay with us for the night. There’s no sense in you paying for a room when we live not even an hour away.”

Detective Pierce and Special Agent Drane nodded their heads in agreement before exiting the room. Moments later they were back again letting us know that our rides were ready. Luke and I loaded into a black SUV and headed towards the house. Luke leaned up and told the driver something when we got off the interstate in Franklin, but was extremely quiet about it. When he did his shirt rose up a little and I noticed a huge bruise on his back.

“What happened to your back?” I asked as he leaned back in the seat next to me.

“What are you talking about?” Luke questioned in return.

“There’s a huge bruise on your back. What happened?” I asked.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t remember much from the past few days,” Luke answered my question.

“I’m so sorry this happened,” I said as I pulled Luke into an embrace.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m okay now. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere,” Luke said as I started to cry.

We held our embrace for the rest of the trip. I saw out the window as we passed by our house and found myself wondering where we were going. Moments later we pulled into the farm. It was crawling with black SUVs and police cars as well as tons of agents and officers. I pulled away wondering why they were all here.