by Wendy Byrne
He smiled. “How are you feeling?”
“Good after I convinced that doctor to give me a morphine drip.” My voice remained hoarse and scratchy from the damage Stu had done to my vocal cords when he tried to choke me to death. “You know all about my pathetically low threshold for pain.”
He laughed. “The doctor said your voice will be okay in a month or so. He’s going to operate on your foot later when the swelling goes down a bit.” Shane looked and sounded uncomfortable. “I brought some flowers and your iPod and earbuds.” He set them on the table next to me. The colorful bouquet of wild flowers brought a splash of life to the sterile room. “The nurse is getting a vase.”
“Thank you. The flowers are beautiful.” I eased my body upright as much as I could, trying to make myself more comfortable. Then I realized it wasn’t my position making me uncomfortable, but a wedge that had fallen between us. Which I didn’t understand. We’d been through more together in less than a month than most couples go through in a lifetime. I’d shared more with him than with any other man in my life even after years of being together. Why this sudden wall of uncertainty?
The nurse came inside the room and handed a vase to Shane. After checking the monitor, she left without a word. She must have sensed the pervasive awkwardness as well.
“Was I hallucinating or did The Rock show up with you and Patrick and Donna to rescue me? You know, the wrestler turned actor Rock, the guy with arms as big as—”
“That was Garrett. People mistake him for The Rock all the time. Just to mess with folks, he does the eyebrow thing.” He had a tentative smile.
“Garrett? Good. For a while there I thought Garrett might be your...imaginary friend.” I raised my eyebrows up and down and giggled. When I shifted slightly in the bed, a stabbing pain shot up my side. “Oooouch.”
Shane grimaced. “Are you sure you’re all right?” He moved toward the door. “I can get the nurse to give you something.”
“Stop. It’s only karma paying me back for making fun of you.” I patted the side of the bed to urge him to sit.
It was as if he wanted to get closer but was afraid I’d break. “The doctor says they’ll release you after the surgery. They need to put a pin in your ankle before they cast it. Patrick and another officer will be coming by to get your statement, but it shouldn’t take long.”
I winced. “As long as the doctor gives me something potent to take the edge off, I’ll be fine.” I drew in a breath and tried to figure out why I felt the bite of tension in the room. “I must look a mess, but I can’t be that frightening, can I?”
I resisted the urge to look Shane in the eye, knowing he’d have that same deer-in-the-headlights look on his face he’d had when I’d told him I loved him. It had been pretty obvious he wanted to hear that about as much as he wanted to hear he owed twenty thousand dollars in back taxes.
Before, when we didn’t talk, there had been a level of comfort in our lack of communication. But now it felt as if the Grand Canyon separated us.
“You look beautiful. You always look beautiful.” His voice was soft, barely above a whisper.
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head again?” I brushed at my faded blue hospital gown for distraction.
I sensed a ‘but’ coming and didn’t want to hear it. Every other relationship I’d had in the past had prepared me for this. If I hadn’t kissed all those frogs, so to speak, I wouldn’t have appreciated what I had with Shane so much.
He’d sung for me. That had to mean something.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” He drew in a breath. Intertwining his fingers with mine, he sat on the side of the bed. “You almost died.”
“But I didn’t.”
“That doesn’t change the fact it was my fault.” He drew his free hand through the hair that had started to grow out. “I can never forgive myself for putting you in the middle. You’re here in the hospital drugged up on painkillers. You had a piece of glass slice through your side; your throat’s badly bruised; your ankle is broken. If I’d been one minute later...”
“But you weren’t.” He had tears glistening in his eyes when he looked at me, and I felt a lump the size of a Cadillac forming in my throat.
“I should never have involved you. It was my fight, not yours.”
“Half dead in the alley, you needed help or you wouldn’t have made it. Besides, I was involved in this way before that happened. They would have come after me regardless.”
“Don’t you get it? I’m responsible for what happened to you. While I didn’t personally harm you, this rests on my shoulders.”
Despite the serious intent of his words, somehow the whole thing seemed so ironic I started to laugh. For a second or two, I thought he might call for help, worried I’d gone off the deep end.
“Don’t we make a pair? You think you’re responsible for everything, and I don’t think I’m responsible for anything. Do you think there’s a halfway point where we both take responsibility for our own actions?”
He smiled. I wasn’t sure if that meant I had gotten through to him or he was pacifying me.
“I feel so bad.” He ran his hands down his face. “It should be me that’s in the hospital, not you.”
I smirked. “Except you’d be too macho to go. You’d tough it out with your busted-up ankle and hobble around for the rest of your life.” I pulled both of his hands toward my mouth and kissed each one, then linked my arms around his neck and kissed him.
“Stay with me, Gabriella. Help me figure this all out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
An IV drip went into one arm, and my foot was bandaged in a swath of white gauze. Swollen, but still numb from my surgery, it was elevated. I’d be stuck doing nothing for a while. I wondered if Shane had been serious when he said he wanted me to stick around.
That made me smile. For once, it felt like the right thing to do. The really right thing to do.
It wasn’t about him helping me, or me helping him. We were equal partners, sometimes rational, sometimes totally dysfunctional pieces that somehow fit together to make a cohesive whole. This weird symmetry between us worked.
And, of course, I couldn’t forget the sex.
I couldn’t see us doing the horizontal tango for a while, regardless of how much medication I received. We’d have to make up for lost time once my body healed.
Despite my nearly blissful feeling, I felt myself slipping back into the land of slumber as I pondered when I could get out of the hospital. Soon, I thought, if they sent me home with a couple of these wonderful painkillers. I wondered if they did IV morphine drips to go. If they didn’t, they should. Maybe I could sweet-talk some nice young doctor into letting me have one.
With a smile on my face, I let myself relax, the sounds of the traffic outside fading away little by little. A rumble of a noise outside the door brought me back around. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was real or a dream.
It sounded like Shane arguing with somebody out in the hall. But it also sounded like my brother Enrique’s voice. Seconds later, the door burst open, and both men barreled inside.
“Where were you when my sister was almost killed?”
I tried to pry open my eyes, but they didn’t want to stay open. Without my consent, they kept closing. But I was pretty sure, unless I was dreaming, Shane and Enrique were standing inside my room arguing.
“She got away from me.”
“I looked you up. You’re ex-Special Forces. How is she in the hospital while you’re walking around without a scratch? How could you let that happen?”
Shane’s voice ratcheted up to match Enrique’s. “If you know your sister, you’d know how strong she is. You’d know she does what she wants when she wants and nobody, not even you, can stop her.” Maybe our talk had worked. He sounded convincing.
But I hated that they were doing their macho posturing within earshot, especially since both were doing their own version of the ‘control Gabriella’ dance. But when I op
ened my mouth to speak, only a tiny squeak came out. Then I remembered Stu’s hands around my neck, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe, and I shuddered.
“She could have died.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think the idea scares me to death even still?” Shane bit off a stream of curses I hadn’t heard before.
“You have no business being around my sister if you can’t protect her.”
I finally found my voice, although barely above a whisper. “All right, that’s it. Do I have to drag my broken body out of this bed to kick both your asses?”
Both men stopped their yammering and stalked to the side of the bed. I couldn’t help smiling. They were so much alike it was scary, even to me.
“Gabriella, you’re awake?” Shane kissed me lightly on the lips, impervious to my brother’s death stare from the other side of the bed.
Enrique bent down to place a kiss on my cheek. “You look like hell, little sister.” He smiled right before he went back to giving Shane the death stare.
To his credit, Shane didn’t back down. Not even an inch. Then again, I wouldn’t have expected him to.
I glanced between the two of them and smiled again. “I’ll survive. But I’m not sure about you two. You look like you’re going to kill each other any minute now.”
Ignoring my comment, Enrique spoke. “You shouldn’t talk too much. The doctor said you should rest your vocal cords.”
Shane laughed as he eased into position at the head of my bed, taking the hand unencumbered by the IV into his. “Gabriella not talk? I don’t think that’s possible.”
“How do you get off talking about my sister like that?” Enrique folded his arms across his chest and glared.
I rolled my eyes. “Do you have any idea how ludicrous you sound? Where’s Sammie? She needs to come here and reel you in.”
Enrique’s face flushed, and he shrugged, an iota of the tension easing out of him. “While we were waiting for you to come out of surgery, they decided to go shopping. Water Tower Place is just around the corner.” He turned his wrist to look at his watch. “I imagine they’ll be here any minute.”
“They?” I barely got the word out of my mouth before ‘they’ trouped in: Enrique’s wife, Sammie; my sisters, Juliana and Francesca; my niece, Santana; my mother, Marguerite; even my little brother, Joaquin. “Am I dying or something?”
After I received the usual round of hugs and kisses from the group, they gathered in a semi-circle around the bed. To his credit, Shane stayed right where he was, but I could tell he felt overwhelmed when his fingers tightened in mine.
My mother spoke first. “We were worried sick about you.” She tsked as she took in my injuries with a motherly perusal. “That guy really did a number on you.”
Enrique and Shane exchanged looks, but neither said anything, even though I could tell my brother itched to do exactly that. Instead, Juliana spoke. I could have predicted the lawyer in her would dig into the specifics of what happened. “I spoke with the state’s attorney and the Internal Affairs Department. As far as they can tell, they’ll be indicting about ten officers. You probably won’t have to testify for at least a couple of months.”
I knew what she’d implied in her comment. I could come home as soon as the hospital released me. That way, they all could keep a collective eye on me and hover incessantly.
“Once the doctor releases you, we’ll put you on a plane to Florida so I can take care of you,” my mother said.
I’d known my mother would bring that up sooner or later. They weren’t going to like what I had to say, but somehow, someway they’d learn to live with it. “Actually, I thought I’d stay in Chicago for a while.”
Enrique gave Shane an accusatory stare. “That’s not going to work.”
“Why’s that, Enrique?” I’d always let Enrique come to my rescue, but I didn’t need him anymore. It had taken a near-death experience to convince me I could handle myself quite nicely.
“You know why.” He folded his arms across his chest as did Joaquin, which was more than a little embarrassing.
“Why? Because I’m a screwup? Is that what you’re saying?” I stopped to take a gulp of water. “Guess what I learned over the last month on my own? That I’m pretty darn good at taking care of myself, even when you’re not around to bail me out.”
His face softened. Rather than his usual response of shouting back at me, then in turn me shouting back at him, he’d taken a different approach. It might have to do with pity, or he’d decided being nice would work to his advantage this time. Instead, he patted my hand and whispered, “You almost died.”
“But I didn’t. And you know why I didn’t? Because I saved myself. I did what I had to do and came out of it relatively unscathed.” I drew in a deep breath. “I’m a lot stronger than any of you give me credit for.”
“We know that, dear. But physically you won’t be able to do much for yourself with a broken ankle.”
“I’m going to take care of her. It’s the least I can do after she saved my life.” Shane twisted his fingers in mine.
Joaquin spoke this time, taking over for Enrique, with a nicer smile and definitely more charm. “What do you mean?”
Shane scooted closer to me on the bed. “Gabriella found me close to dead in an alley. She didn’t abandon me like she should have to save herself. She got me to safety and kept us both alive.” He squeezed my hand tightly. “She’s the hero here and the strongest woman I know, both emotionally and physically. Is it any wonder I fell in love with her?”
I didn’t think Shane had ever said so many words at once since I’d known him. Which mirrored the fact that I didn’t think my family had ever been silent for that long, let alone allow someone else to speak.
But knock me over with a feather. He couldn’t profess his love when we were alone, but he could announce it to my family? Still, I couldn’t suppress the smile. I knew he loved me.
I felt so elated I thought I might burst. And I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the pain medication.
“Now that all that nonsense is out of the way, show me what you bought at Water Tower Place. And let me feel your tummy, Sammie. I can’t believe I’m finally going to be an aunt again.”
Close to two hours later, my family took their leave. If Santana hadn’t wanted something to eat, they might have stayed into the night. None of them relished the idea of hospital food when a plethora of great restaurants were all within a couple of blocks.
Shane seemed shocked at first, but then accepted it as my female family members hugged and kissed him goodbye. I knew it signaled he was officially part of the Santos clan, like it or not.
“How’s Patrick? I thought for sure he’d stop in to see me.”
“He’s doing good, but he’s really busy doing cleanup at the department. We made peace with each other just like we should have a long time ago.”
“No kidding. But how about your stepdad?”
“Near as I can tell, he really did come to warn me off the case. Who would have thought? And Cara sends her love, by the way.”
I tsked in an I-told-you-so way. “How’s she doing?”
“Great. She’s got a lot of rehab in her future, but she’s already talking about coming into the office.”
“And Vince?”
“Recovering, but it’s a little slower than they expected, probably due to his age.”
“Hmmm, now that I’ve got the update on everybody, I have to tell you I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately,” I said with a smile.
“I should be afraid. Very afraid.”
I held out my hand and drew in a deep breath. “Since I won’t be able to do much singing for a while, I could probably help out in the office. I’m not so good at computers, but I’m awesome at detective stuff.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “What have I gotten myself into?” His smile belied his words.
“How does O’Neil, Ryan & Santos sound?”
“A bit like a ni
ghtmare.”
“Deal with it. Life around me is usually pretty darn scary.” I kissed him long and hard, loving every second of it. I couldn’t wait to get home to be alone with him. “But you’ll get used to it.”
“Doubt it. But then again, what fun would that be?” He stretched out next to me in the hospital bed. “I really do love you, Gabriella.”
“Heck, I’ve known that all along.” From my estimation, this was about as perfect as it could get.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wendy lives in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband. She has a Masters in Social Work and worked in the child welfare field for twelve years before she decided to pursue her dream of writing. She has several books published with two different publishers and has self-published both a Novella and a traditional length novel. Several of her novels have been finalists or winners in contests over the course of her writing career. Most days you can find her pounding away at her laptop spinning tales and inflicting mayhem on her hero and heroine until they beg for mercy. She loves to write contemporary romance or romantic suspense all infused with a touch of humor and, of course, the happily ever after.
Other titles by Wendy:
Romantic suspense titles, Hard Target Series
Hard to Kill http://bit.ly/HardtoKill
Hard to Trust http://bit.ly/HardtoTrust
Hard to Stop. http://bit.ly/HardtoStop
Boxed set: http://bit.ly/HardTargetsboxedset
Accused http://amzn.to/2emJnvy
Cozy Mystery, Izzy Lewis Mysteries
Nearly Dead in Iowa https://amzn.to/2DYXDbE
Double Trouble in Iowa https://amzn.to/2HbGlda
Shady Shenanigans in Iowa https://amzn.to/30bu3sP
Boxed set: https://amzn.to/2HgfImo