Now all she had to do was figure out what she was going to do about it.
Chapter Eighteen
Gator’s stomach rolled.
He’d never been under the knife before. The anesthesiologist had warned him that it might upset his stomach. The doctor had failed to mention that his insides were going to try to leave his body. Violently.
He kept his eyes closed and tried not to groan. He’d never felt sicker in his life. All because of his foot, of all things.
Suddenly, he needed a bed pan. Immediately. He struggled to open his eyes, to sit up, to call for help.
Gentle hands touched his bare shoulders. Avery’s scent drifted over his senses. “It’s right here,” a soft voice said, taking one of his hands and helping him feel the container below his mouth.
His stomach heaved. Since he hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon, not much came out, and he didn’t feel any better after. But soft hands touched his forehead and tapped a napkin to his mouth.
He leaned back, resting. The voice and scent were Avery’s, but he’d not told her where he was after his surgery, not heard from her since last night. He must be hallucinating. He opened one eye to check.
Blond hair. A concerned, familiar face. Sweet, rosy cheeks.
“How’d you find me?”
“I have friends in all the right places.” Avery grinned, but she took pity on him and didn’t make him ask again. “The trombone player from the Christmas parade is your anesthesiologist.”
“I see.”
“We exchanged numbers.”
“I see.” He cleared his throat and took a bit of the crushed ice she offered. “I was just thinking she didn’t do a very good job of explaining just how bad I would feel.” He moved the ice around in his mouth, breathing slowly and carefully. His stomach didn’t seem to be in such a rush to claw its way up his throat when he moved carefully.
“You don’t have to stay.” But he wanted her to. He’d never thought of himself as someone who loved to be taken care of, but he didn’t want to lose Avery’s soft touch.
“Jillian is with your mom. They discharged her a few minutes ago and she’s going to take her home.”
“Did the doc say anything else?”
“Not really. They just made an appointment for her for Monday and told her to go to the ER if she felt anything out of the ordinary before that. He’s pretty confident that the supplements will work.”
“Good.” Gator closed his eyes. Just for a moment…
When he opened them again, the nausea was gone and so was Avery. It felt like no time had passed, but the recovery room seemed to be busier with more monitors beeping around the hanging curtains and several nurses bustling in and out.
“Oh, Mr. Franks, are you awake?” A nurse carrying a clipboard and a plastic cup with shaved ice in it stopped when she saw his open eyes.
“What time is it?” He didn’t have his phone and there weren’t any windows.
“It’s four.”
Irritation at himself made him purse his lips. “I’d like to get out of here if possible.” He wasn’t going to be much help decorating the barn for Avery, but he was going to try. It wasn’t going to happen until he at least had underwear on.
“Please lie still, Mr. Franks.”
He tried to make his face not look as irritated as he felt. He must have succeeded somewhat since the nurse didn’t run out. “Your incision was draining a little more than we expected. That, along with your severe reaction to the anesthetic, is causing the doctor to think that you might need to stay the night.”
“No.” He cringed at his tone, but didn’t apologize.
“The doctor is just two patients down. He’ll be here shortly. Your wife stepped out to use the restroom, and I bet by the time she’s back, he’ll be ready to talk to you.”
The nurse must have meant Avery. It was the second time since he’d landed in the hospital he’d thought Avery and wife in the same sentence. The two words seemed to go together well. Regardless, he couldn’t stay. He’d promised her he would help decorate, and he knew she was counting on him.
“I’ll inform the doctor when he gets here that I’m not staying. Would you please bring my clothes in the meantime?” He lifted his head and neck off the bed as he spoke, phrasing it as a question, but the tone of his voice was commanding.
“The doctor will be here, soon, sir,” the nurse said, obviously not intimidated by a weak, naked man with a broken foot. She strode out.
Gator gritted his teeth. He hated being treated like one cow in a herd of them. He also hated the fact that they had the upper hand since they had his clothes. His life had not consisted of waiting around for someone else to tell him what to do, and he wasn’t so weak and wracked with pain that he was going to start now.
He sat up.
The room spun for a couple of moments, and he braced his hand on the edge of the gurney until it stopped. When he was sure he wasn’t going to topple off of the edge, he reached around, adjusting the thin sheet that had been covering him so that it wrapped around his waist.
His foot throbbed and he grimaced. Probably the doctor would tell him he needed to keep it elevated. Hopefully, the pain meds didn’t wear off too soon.
Bunching the blankets in one hand, he slid his butt to the edge of the bed, getting ready to slide off. He kept his broken foot up, not really wanting to damage it, but sure as heck not going to sit around waiting for someone else to decide when he was well enough to leave the hospital. He tightened his grip on the sheet and pushed with his other hand.
“Gator?”
His head jerked toward the incredulous voice.
“What are you doing?” Avery’s brows were lost in her hairline. One hand rested on the curve of her hip. Her usually smiling mouth was set in a disapproving line.
She didn’t wait for an answer, but marched over to the side of his bed and placed her little hand right on his chest.
“If you get out of that bed, I will chase you down and beat you to death.”
“Kind of pointless, isn’t it?” he mumbled, but he eased back. Not because he was afraid of her, of course. But because her hand on his bare chest did all kinds of things to his insides. He placed his hand over hers, curled his fingers around and threaded them with her fingers. The sparkly green nails with red tips made him smile. It was so Avery.
“Nice nails.”
She had opened her mouth, most likely to give him another round of bossy commands or to possibly berate him more. Now, it hung open. Her lowered brows eased and lifted, pulling her face into a shocked expression.
The best defense was a good offence, or something like that, he remembered hearing. Not that his hunting and work had ever left much time to play sports. Anyway, he took advantage of her being off-kilter.
“I need to get out of here. I promised a certain very pretty and very sweet lady that I would help her decorate for the party that she is having…” He paused, trying to remember what day it was. “Tomorrow,” he finally said.
Her shocked expression settled into a little smile. Just a ghost of her normal, light-up-the-room wattage. “I cancelled it.”
“What?”
“I cancelled it.”
“Why?” he asked, although it wasn’t too hard to figure out the answer.
“Between your mother and you, I wasn’t going to have time to do everything that still needed to be done.”
“Me? You’re blaming me?”
“No!” She pushed him back down on the bed, adjusting his sheets. “I’m not. But I did have to choose. I couldn’t be here, where I wanted to be, and also be at the farm, getting ready for the party.”
He lifted a hip so she could pull the sheets out from under it, and tried to ignore the feel of her hands on his skin.
“You don’t have to be here with me.”
“Someone obviously needs to be here, if only to strap you down.” She gave the sheets one final tuck, then crossed her arms over her chest.
&nb
sp; He lifted a brow. They both knew that, even in his current condition, she wasn’t strong enough to keep him anywhere he didn’t want to be.
“I know.” Avery dropped her arms and touched his cheek.
He resisted the almost overwhelming urge to close his eyes.
“Between you and me, it gives me a very powerful feeling when you do what I want you to, when you’re so much bigger and stronger than I am.”
He lowered his voice to barely a whisper and she leaned lower. “Between you and me, when you touch me like that, I’d do anything for you.”
Her eyes opened wide, and her throat worked. “That’s kind of why I had to cancel the Christmas party. I could have decorated without you, but I didn’t want to be there, doing my thing, when you were here.”
“We’re a pair.”
She nodded slowly.
His hand found hers again.
“Do me a favor, Gator.”
“Anything.” He’d do anything for her.
“Stay here tonight.”
He snorted. “That sounded almost sexy, until I remembered that we’re in a hospital.”
“That wasn’t a ‘yes, Avery, I’ll stay.’”
“It didn’t have to be. I already said I’d do whatever you asked.” He squeezed her fingers. “I feel really bad about the party, though.”
“Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be.”
Maybe it was the way her eyes searched his. Or maybe it was the tone of her voice, or possibly just her words. Whatever it was, it made his heart plunge to his toes. The easy, teasing smile slipped off his face, and he stared into her eyes, barely breathing. Waiting.
She bit her lips.
“What?” he finally asked.
“The orchestra accepted me.”
His throat tightened. His skin felt cold. But this was good news. For her.
He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. He had to be happy, and he had to be sincere. He swallowed and tried to make his lips smile, although he suspected he did not succeed.
“That’s great news for you.” His voice sounded strained. Her eyes showed what he already knew in his heart. It wasn’t great news. Not for them. For her and her career, maybe. But it was the death knell for any type of relationship for them. Still, he held her hand tighter, as though that would ward off the inevitable.
“When do you have to be there?” he asked, having no idea how words were coming out of his mouth.
“Rehearsals start after Christmas, but I don’t have a place to stay.”
“I can go with you. Help you find one.” What was he saying? The last thing in the world he wanted to do was actually help her leave him.
“I’d like that,” she said.
“So, you’re still here.” The doctor walked around the side of the curtain. This one wore a white coat and carried an iPad. It wasn’t the surgeon or any doctor he’d seen before. Not that it mattered. He barely paid attention to what the doc said, although he did notice that the doctor acted like Avery was his wife.
He glanced at Avery out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes were glued on the doctor and she hung on his every word, nodding and biting her lip. He half-expected her to grab the little notebook out of his lab coat pocket and start taking notes. Sure made it seem like she cared about him.
Maybe he could convince her that a long-distance relationship was possible.
Montana to Washington D.C. was almost an entire continent. But if he gave up his job and stayed in Pennsylvania, it was only a few hours. Four, maybe five.
A small part of him balked at giving up his job for a relationship. Especially a relationship that might not work out. One in which they’d not even discussed having a relationship, yet alone talked about any kind of permanence.
Two nurses came around the curtain. Gator noticed, but his focus was Avery.
“Is this thing between us worth doing anything about?”
The doctor stopped mid-sentence. The nurses halted at the foot of his bed. Avery’s head swiveled to him, her mouth in a big O, her cheeks pink.
Awkward seconds ticked slowly by in church-like quiet.
“Sometimes the anesthetic takes a while to wear off,” the doctor said slowly.
The nurses chattered in immediate agreement, but Gator didn’t look away from Avery’s eyes, which held awareness that it wasn’t the drugs talking. It was the distance that yawned between them.
He thought he saw her nod slightly, but then she turned back to the doctor, who had finished his post-op instructions and was listing all the reasons he felt Gator should stay. The top among them was his severe reaction to the anesthetic, which his asinine comment of a few moments ago hadn’t helped.
It had clarified in his mind, though, that Avery was worth it. Worth leaving a good-paying job that he loved and moving across the country. But only if she felt the same. He wasn’t chasing another woman who was only in it for something other than him.
Chapter Nineteen
Avery pulled into the farm. Her headlights hit the house before she shut them off. Full darkness plunged down around. She sighed, both hands at the top of the wheel, before she grabbed for her second wind and shut the car off.
A room for Gator had not opened up until almost seven this evening. In the back of her head, she’d been thinking that she could maybe run home after getting him settled and maybe throw enough decorations together to possibly still have at least a shadow of the party she’d dreamed of.
Until he got taken to his room—grumbling and complaining, she might add—and settled, he’d completely missed supper, and the hospital cafeteria, both of them, plus the gift shop, were closed. He hadn’t eaten since the morning before. So Avery ran to check on Mrs. Franks—Jillian had been caring for her in between helping at the Christmas tree cash register—grabbed a few things to make his room more cheerful and picked up fast food for Gator, who had very casually asked where his clothes and shoes were.
She, just as casually, had lied through her teeth and told him they were in the backseat of her car.
Thankfully, a nurse had come in before that whopper was out of her mouth. Avery had no poker face to speak of, and she had made a point, all of her life, to keep her lying skills rusty from disuse. Today, however, a lie had seemed fitting.
After all, she’d been lying to herself for a few weeks now. Because she’d realized today, while she was in the hospital holding the bedpan for that grumpy, surly, sleepy man, that the reason she’d told McKoy Rodning he could leave, that she was going to take care of Gator, was not because she’d felt like she had to, or even that she necessarily wanted to. After all, who wants to hold a bed pan?
But she couldn’t get the guy out of her head, couldn’t stop thinking about how much she loved being with him and how much fun they had together. She worried about him, wanted the best for him, admired him, and hey, she had to face it, she wanted the guy to kiss her again.
So, no. She didn’t stay at the hospital all day today and give up the chance to have the party she’d always dreamed about, disappointing Mrs. Franks, and losing the possible opportunity to show Fink and Ellie that the barn could make a profit because of anything rational. She stayed with Gator today, watching him sleep, listening to the doctor’s instructions, heeding the nurses’ warnings and making sure they didn’t give him the wrong drugs, because she loved him.
She loved him.
He was going to leave. It had scared her at one time, but after spending so much time with Gator, she had figured one thing out. He wasn’t like her father or her ex-fiancé. He might leave, but not for the next flavor-of-the-month. And that, she could live with.
The nurses had told them that the doctor usually made his rounds early, so Avery got up long before dawn, checked Mrs. Franks, fed Gator’s dogs and rushed to the hospital.
No light shone from the door crack under Gator’s door, so she knocked softly, and pushed the door open carefully.
“He was awake earlier,” a friendly nurse said as she p
ushed a blood-pressure machine down the hall.
“Okay. Thanks,” Avery said. She’d been blessed to have never spent the night in a hospital, so she had no idea whether she’d sleep well or not. Since Gator had spent most of the day yesterday sleeping off the effects of the anesthesia, and because he valued his independence and privacy, and because he had been in not-a-little pain from his foot the afternoon before, she was guessing he might not have slept well and might be just a little grumpy.
She pushed the door open a little farther and slipped through. Handel’s Messiah played softly. Gator, who was not supposed to be out of bed, stood at the window, staring at the waking downtown. At least his foot wasn’t on the ground. He had his leg bent with his knee propped on the lone chair in the room.
“Good morning?” she said softly as she walked closer. The table-top tree she’d brought in shone cheerfully from his bed stand, and the ornaments she’d hung from the window added a festive touch. To her, anyway.
Gator looked back. “Hey. Figured you’d be here early.”
“Yeah. I’d have told you before I left, but it was in one of your dozing times when they finally kicked me out.”
“It’s what I thought.”
She handed him the straight black coffee that she’d gotten for him, and pulled the tab on her hot chocolate.
Gator leaned over and sniffed her cup. “That smells good.”
“Christmas cookie hot chocolate. One can never have too much sugar in the morning.”
Gator grunted. “I was just thinking about that.”
“Sugar in the morning?”
“No. About how different you are.”
“Different from everyone. Or different from someone in particular?” she asked. Through everything that had happened yesterday, they had never talked about his comment mentioning “this thing between us.” Because of the anesthesia maybe he didn’t even remember it. She sure did. And she knew what her answer was.
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