“First off, she asked,” Jace said. “You said you wanted to give her honesty and we honored that. Second, I think you’re selling her short. Up until she left this morning, we couldn’t peel her away from you. Even went so far as to say she’d been wrong to send you in without letting you know she’d have your back.”
“But you still sent Danny and Beck after her.”
Jace chuffed a short laugh and twirled his toothpick with his tongue. “I might be optimistic, but I’m not stupid.”
Zeke snatched the phone up off the bed. Knox intervened enough to let the fingerprint reader do its security magic then handed it back off to Zeke. Despite his fingers feeling like over-plump Vienna sausages from all the fluids, he fumbled through the contacts to Danny’s number.
It barely finished the first ring before Danny’s clipped voice barreled through the line. “Hey, Knox.”
“Not Knox. Zeke. Where’s Gabe?”
A rock station droned low in the background, buffered by heavy traffic.
“Danny, where the fuck is she?”
“She’s okay.” In the awkward silence, he could almost picture Danny fumbling for his skull cap. “She’s...” A car door slammed shut and a cluster of feminine laugher rose then faded off to nothing. “Just sit tight, will ya? Honest to God, I’m a little shocked. Surprised as hell actually, but Gabe’s fine. I just don’t think she’d want me knowing where she is right now, let alone you. Not yet.”
The steady throb around his wound sharpened as if they’d replaced the bullet’s path with razors and a vision-wrecking stab pierced his temples. Zeke checked his IV. Antibiotics, fluids and a morphine self-dispense. Sucked that it was in his right arm, but he could handle taking it out left-handed. Scrubs would be easy enough to drum up, but he’d have to get past his brothers first. Tricky.
Danny’s voice dropped, low but about as sincere as a man could get. “Zeke, listen to me. She’s fine. I think this is a good thing. Me and Beck are keeping an eye on her. My guess is we’ll be back in one, maybe two hours. Just hang tight and let her tell you what she’s doing.”
A good thing. As in not betraying his brothers or doing anything that could get her hurt. He gripped Knox’s phone tighter and the high-tech miracle creaked in response. Every heavy breath lashed with more pressure on his wound. “You sure?”
“Very. I swear to you, man, if she’s doing what I think she is, it’ll be worth the wait.”
Debatable. Danny was the one with eyes on Gabe, while he was on his ass and immobile. “Right.” He thumbed the phone off and tossed it on the bed. “Fuck.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
For a place where people spent a whole lot of time sitting on their ass waiting, one would think hospitals would at least offer up decent pay channels. Zeke eyed the morphine dispenser next to his right hand. He wasn’t a pussy. Not by a long shot. But in the last hour waiting for Gabe to show, the throb in his back had morphed from bad to branding-iron hot with no hope of relief from the heat. If anyone knew better than to let the pain get out of control, it was him, but damned if he’d be jacked in the head when Gabe showed.
He closed his eyes and focused on Axel and Jace working through some new promo idea for Crossroads. Knox hadn’t budged so much as an inch for the past thirty minutes, his lightning-fast fingers on the computer excluded. Just watching the guy settle into his zone made Zeke itch to move around.
And Trevor. You’d have thought he was kicked back in his living room the way he navigated the remote control. The only thing missing was a beer dangling from his fingers.
A soft knock rapped against the door a second before it whooshed opened.
Zeke snapped his head up, his heart jolting hard enough to leave tracks on the monitor’s screen. “Gabe.”
Her cheeks were red and her eyes puffy, but a tentative smile curled her lips. “You’re awake.” She scanned the room and hesitated, her smile dimming. “Okay if I come in?”
“No one here gonna stop you from seein’ your man, lass.” Axel stood and jerked his head toward the door.
Jace followed his lead. “We’ll wait outside.”
She started to step out of everyone’s way, then shook her head. “Actually, could you stay?” She bit her lip and rested her gaze on each man. “And could you find Danny and Beckett?”
“Find Danny and Beckett for what?” Danny’s voice filtered through the room before he came into view, Beckett prowling right behind him. With a chin-lift to Zeke, Danny wrapped Gabe up in a casual half hug. “Hey, Sugar Bear. What’s going on?”
“I need to talk to Zeke, but I’d like for you to stay.” Her gaze slid to Beck, the uncertainty behind them enough to jolt Zeke into action.
“No one’s talking about anything until you’re about ten feet closer.” He motioned her toward him, the lack of pain meds making the simple gesture on par with the breast stroke, even on his good side.
Careful to skirt Beckett in his crossed-arms, badass pose, she faltered to his bedside, her white-knuckled grip on her purse strap holding steady even once she’d reached him. She laid her other hand inside his outstretched one, the touch tremulous. Her lashes were clumped together, more confirmation that however she’d spent her morning, she’d done it crying. “Hey.”
“Hey, gatinha.” Leveraging her hand in his, he tugged her closer and smoothed her hair away from her face. “You okay?”
She smiled. A shaky one at best, but the promise of it chiseled at least a layer or two of the worry he’d built up in the past few hours. “I think I’m supposed to ask you that question.”
Cupping the back of her neck, he urged her toward him. “I’d be better if I got a kiss.”
Her gaze skittered to the men watching on the other side of the bed and braced one hand beside his head. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she muttered. “I mean, you’re hurt and—”
“I’m a doctor. First thing they teach us is kisses make everything all better.”
She studied his face, gaze roving over every detail as though searching for some assurance he was really awake and alert. “You scared me.”
So much in one simple statement. Whether the comment related to what he’d done with his brothers, or the fact that he’d bled all over her utility room floor, he wasn’t sure. Maybe both. But there was no missing the depth and sincerity behind it.
“Then I’ll kiss you and make it better.” He kissed her, using what little energy he had to draw her mouth to his. So simple. A perfect mesh of his lips against hers, lingering and soft. Mindless of their silent audience.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his mouth.
He tangled his fingers in her hair, the thick silk spilling against his forearm and her sun-and-sin scent eradicating the room’s grating sterile stench. Grazing his nose alongside hers, he drew in a deeper breath, reveling in it. In her warmth and sweet innocence. “Nothing for you to be sorry for. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But I did.” She backed away, covering his hand with hers and twining their fingers together. “I should have listened to what you were telling me. At least tried to understand why you were doing the things you were instead of making everything cut-and-dried.”
She swept her wary gaze around the room and swallowed big. Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin. “I talked to April.”
“This morning?”
“No, after you left Saturday night. She reminded me that the law might be black-and-white, but people are all kinds of shades of gray.” She squeezed his hand, her palm clammy against his. “I want to be able to see more gray. To not feel so trapped by old ideas.”
His breath hitched, and for a second it felt like his body might float right out of the bed, even with the pain weighting him down. As first steps went, what she was saying was huge. Especially with her history. “Okay.
We can work on that.”
“No.” She focused on their joined hands and her mouth hardened for a second before she looked back up. “I need to work on that.” She glanced at Jace. “I can’t freak out every time something happens. If we’re going to have a healthy relationship, then I need to be willing to deal with the stuff that happened with my mom. I can’t hold every situation for the rest of my life up against one finite time in my life and use it as an excuse to keep people away.” She cast a quick, but soft smile at Danny. “And I need to make friends. To learn how to be comfortable in social situations without anyone there as a buffer.”
Danny smiled big enough to show teeth, his whole face lighting up like he’d won the lottery. “Atta girl.”
“Proud of you, gatinha,” Zeke said. And he was. Damned proud. But even after what she’d shared, her body was still strung up tight and her movements jerky. Definitely not the body language of someone who’d finished unloading whatever was on their mind. “You understand that no one expects you to tackle all this shit overnight, right? Least of all me. There’s not a person in this room who hasn’t faced a demon or two.”
“I know. But there’s something I could do to help.” For the first time since she’d walked into the room, she pried her hand off her purse strap and wiped it on her hip. “I remembered what you said. How you compared the anxiety stuff to diabetes or cholesterol. So I called the doctor’s office when they opened this morning. The psychiatrist who saw me in high school. The receptionist probably thinks I’m a basket case since I broke down and bawled on the phone, but she took pity on me and gave me a cancellation slot.”
“That’s where you were this morning?”
She nodded, rooted around inside her purse and pulled out a small orange bottle. The pills rattled against the hard plastic as she handed it over. “I had it filled on the way here. The doc said it’s a small dose to start with. That I’d work my way up.”
Paroxetine. Twenty milligrams.
A perfect choice for her with minimal side effects.
“I’m going in every two weeks,” she said. “At least for a while until he’s sure I’m good with the medicine. He said we’d work on some coping techniques, too. New ways for me to think about social situations.”
Okay, not just a huge step. More like a monumental leap. But even with the big olive branch thrown out there in front of him and his brothers, it was the underlying heart in her, the gentle guilelessness that wound through everything she did and how she approached life, that left him dumbfounded and head over heels. “Love you, gatinha.” Not giving two shits how bad his body protested the move, he snagged her around the waist and pulled her to him, hugging her tight against his side and kissing the top of her head. “For the record, though, you didn’t need to lay all this out in front of the guys.”
“Yeah, I did.” She gently eased back and tucked her hair behind her ear. Unlike the mottled red that had stained her cheeks before, now they were an endearing pink. One by one, she met his brothers’ stares head on. “I need you to know I trust you. I may not always like the way you do things, but I know you’re good people.” She saved Danny for last. “And you’re good to my brother.”
“Hell yeah, they are.” Danny came up behind her.
He’d barely gotten a hug in before Jace had rounded the bed and pulled her into one of his own, kissing the top of her head the same way Zeke had. “Gonna be good to you, too, sugar.” He chin-lifted toward Zeke then winked at Gabe. “Think you’ve had enough social practice for today, though. We’ll clear out and give you time with Zeke. Figure you’re the only shot we’ve got at keeping him in that bed until he’s discharged.”
“Welcome to the family, lass.” Unlike Danny and Jace’s tame, brotherly hugs, Axel grunted and did a mountain man bear grab. He dropped his voice to a mock grumble at her ear. “We’ll guard the door while you give your man a proper good morning.”
The rest of the guys followed suit, offering their praise and support in their own unique ways, but the hug from Beckett had to be the most entertaining. Given how big he was compared to the rest of the guys, Zeke was a little afraid Gabe was going to leap across the bed to keep her distance, but then she squared her shoulders and wrapped him up around the neck. Honest to God, even the bullet was worth it to see that awkward hesitation while Beck recalibrated and returned the embrace.
With everyone else but Gabe out in the hall, Danny paused at the door, his hand braced on the latch and his eyes on Zeke. “The day you came into my shop? Best day ever. For me and her.”
“Thinking it was my lucky day, too.” He waved Danny out the door. “Now beat it. My woman’s had a rough morning and needs some one-on-one.”
Danny’s sharp bark of laugher echoed down the hall even after the door clicked shut.
Zeke patted the bed beside him. “Crawl up here.”
Her eyes popped wide, gaze darting to the tubes and wires forking out to all the high tech around him. “No way. I’ll hurt you. And besides, the nurses would kill me.”
“They tussle with me, I’ll tussle back when I’m healed up. Payback’s a bitch.” He shifted to the far side of the bed, his back protesting the commotion with a good old-fashioned stab that made his eyes roll back in his head. He waved her toward the sliver of space, moving the tubes out of her way while his breath sawed in and out of his chest. At this point, even breathing hurt. “Come on. Had a rough few days. Need you up here to make it better.”
She crawled in, careful not to jar him or put any pressure on his torso. Only when she’d snuggled up beside him did he take a decent breath. She rested her hand over his heart. “This okay?”
“Almost perfect.” He motioned to the morphine pump tethered to the lowered handrail on her side of the bed and closed his eyes, forcing his thoughts to center on Gabe’s soft body beside him instead of the hammering throb at his back. “Wouldn’t mind if you push that red button, though.”
The bed wiggled for a second, the waterproof covering on the mattress an unfortunate reminder of his surroundings. A tiny beep sounded, assuring him a fresh dose of pain relief was on the way.
Slowly, Gabe eased back against him and he guided her head to his shoulder. Now he could relax. Could concentrate on healing and getting the hell out of this place where he could hold her like she deserved to be held. Tucked up close with her legs tangled with his.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up,” she whispered.
Bit by bit, the morphine unwound his muscles, a soothing numbness rolling through his body in an unhurried glide. Even though logic insisted it wasn’t real, the world around him shifted into slow-mo, Gabe’s presence a protective cocoon against both the pain and reality.
He rubbed his cheek against the top of her head and gave into the drug’s pull. “You were where you needed to be. Not going to complain when you’re taking care of yourself. You’re here now. That’s all I need.”
Epilogue
If you had to be outside in mid-July in Texas, the best way to do it was poolside on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Adding your boyfriend, six brothers (those by blood and those by choice), one of their wives and two mothers (also by choice) made it a little slice of heat wave heaven.
Gabe smashed out the last of enough half-pound hamburger patties to feed all the men two times over and let Sylvie and Ninette’s easy chatter settle over her. Beyond the kitchen window, Haven’s property stretched as far as she could see, a mini paradise of thick, plush grass so green it probably cost Jace a fortune to maintain it. In the center of it all sat a lagoon-style pool surrounded by wispy, tropical plants you’d expect at a high-end beach getaway. A mountain-resort gazebo perched off to one side, the bridge to reach it spanning crosswise across the pool while a bubbling brook meandered along the opposite side.
Zeke’s laugher rang out, muffled by the thick, double-paned glass between the
m, but still rich and warm despite the distance, his wide smile stretching ear to ear. Reclined on an outdoor lounger big enough to hold a three-hundred-pound man, he had one leg cocked with his forearm resting on top of his knee and the other stretched out easy in front of him. Most of his brothers surrounded him, Jace, Axel, Knox and Trevor all in similar loungers lined up in a haphazard half circle. Every one of them was shirtless, their Haven tags and board shorts the only attire they’d bothered with after rolling out of bed.
Zeke took a pull of his beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the simple act and sending her stomach on a pleasant dipdy-doo. Unlike the rest of the men’s boring navy blue or black trunks, his were a pale turquoise. On anyone else, they might’ve come off girly, but on him they were a GQ Summer Special Edition centerfold equivalent. Especially with his dark tan skin accenting the exotic hue.
Jace’s mom, Ninette, sidled up next to her at the counter, perusing the stack of hamburger patties while she wiped her hands on a dish towel. “How many more do we need?”
“You said two for each of the guys and one for each of us, so this should give us at least three left over.”
Ninette patted her arm and smiled. “You’re learning.” She turned to Viv stationed at the monster kitchen island on hamburger-garnish duty. “Jace say what time Beckett and Danny are due out here?”
Viv checked her watch and tore another lettuce leaf in half. “They were headed out thirty minutes ago, so unless they got a wild hair on the way here, I’d say they’ll be here anytime.”
“All right, then.” Ninette folded her towel and tossed it on the counter. “Let’s get the food outside and put the men to work at the grill.”
“Ach, don’t let Axel man the meat this time.” Axel’s mom, Sylvie, was just as boisterous as her son and a good enough cook Gabe had put on five pounds within a month of knowing her. “My boy might tend ta the lasses’ needs, but he’s got no attention span when it comes ta cooking.”
Wild & Sweet (The Haven Brotherhood) Page 32