"Cole, I can't ask you to."
"You didn't ask," Cole said. "That's the whole beauty of it. You don't have to ask. That's what I'm trying to tell you. The corner of his mouth pulled up rough and real.
Now Cody's going to bring the truck around and I'm going to carry you out to it myself and we're going to go get that leg looked at by somebody good. And you're not going to say one more word about what it cost because that's handled. You understand me? It's handled."
Emily looked up at him at this man she'd been quietly afraid of for a year at the four faces gathered around her that had gone from strangers to something else entirely in the space of a single afternoon. And the wall, the wall she'd built so high and held so long finally completely came down. She didn't have the words for what she was feeling, so she just nodded once and let the tears come and let Cole Walker slide his arms under her and lift her up off that concrete floor like she weighed nothing at all.
And as he carried her toward the door, past the bike she'd saved and the men who'd never see her the same way again, Emily Carter, 18-year veteran master mechanic, the woman nobody had ever bothered to see, laid her head against the shoulder of a Hells Angel, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, stopped carrying it all by herself.
Behind them, Reese looked down at the old timing chain, still lying on the workbench where Cole had set it. And very quietly to no one he said we had a hero standing behind that counter for a year. Marcus didn't look up and we called her the parts girl. Nobody said anything after that. There was nothing left to say.
The truck ride to the clinic was the longest 40 minutes of Cole Walker's life and he wasn't even the one in pain. Emily sat in the back of the crew cab with her bad leg stretched across the seat. And every time Cody hit a bump, she'd suck in a breath through her teeth and grip the door handle. And every time she did it, Cole's jaw would tighten a little more. He was up front in the passenger seat, turned halfway around so he could watch her. And about 20 minutes in, he'd stop bothering to pretend he wasn't watching her.
"You're staring," Emily said, eyes closed. "I'm making sure you don't pass out." "I'm not going to pass out.
I've done this a hundred times." "Yeah," Cole said. You keep saying that a hundred times and you know what I keep hearing when you say it? I keep hearing that a hundred times you were somewhere by yourself hurting like this and there wasn't a soul around who knew.
He shook his head. That's not a comfort to me, Emily. That's the opposite of a comfort.