by Karly Morgan
“Cut the bullshit. I’ll just worry about you more than my ankle if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on…” Then it hit me. Maybe the doctor had delivered the news about me not being pregnant. “Did the doctor come speak to you at all?”
“No. Why? Should he have?” Kolton demanded, instantly on alert, scanning me from head to toe as if there was some injury he’d missed seeing or knowing about.
“Other than a negative pregnancy test and the results of my X-ray, no,” I stated, drawing his eyes back to my own with my declaration. There. It was out in the open.
“You’re not…” I watched him struggle with the words I’d spoken as they sunk in, making him seem to age even more before my eyes.
“Not this time. Probably a good thing, with everything else we have to deal with right now. We can try later,” I assured him, stroking his hair back from his forehead and down his cheek. The sadness filling his eyes broke my heart, and I wished we didn’t have my father and Carver to deal with so we could keep trying to create the child we both wanted so passionately. I wouldn’t put an innocent in the line of fire, though, so attempting to create a life right now was out of the question.
“I’m sorry. I know how excited you were at me possibly being pregnant,” I whispered, sharing his grief, although I knew he still wasn’t telling me something.
“You’re right though. We need to wait until your daddy and Carver are dealt with. Your daddy already showed up here at the hospital demandin’ to see ya,” Kolton informed me, and I couldn’t hold back my gasp of shock at his audacity. “I refused to even give him an update. The sheriff threatened to arrest him, and he was hauled outta here by security.”
“I’m so sorry you had to deal with him. How did he know I was here in the first place?” I asked, my mind spinning in circles at all of the things that didn’t make sense about the timing of his arrival.
“Maybe his goon told him? He got here awfully quick as well,” Kolton pointed out, and I nodded, worry filling my eyes.
“Do you think he had been on his way here to take me back home after his guy took me?” I asked, fear welling up in my gut at the thought of being torn from Kolton and my newfound family.
“It’s a damned good possibility. Ya need to give the sheriff your statement soon so he can act on it before your daddy decides to haul tail back to New York,” he told me, determination pushing away the other emotions I’d seen swimming in his beautiful eyes.
“I will…after you tell me what else has you so upset,” I persisted. My gut told me he wasn’t telling me everything that had happened that had him in such emotional turmoil. Damned men and their stupid pride. A woman would’ve already filled me in on everything that had happened. Or so every romance book I’d ever read lead me to believe. It’s not as if I’d ever really had a true female friend to know from personal experience.
“Not now,” he said gruffly, and I knew whatever it was had to be pretty bad. His voice sounded raw from him stubbornly shoving back the emotion threatening to choke him.
I stayed quiet, watching the play of emotions he tried to hold back, running through everything I knew in my head and heart would hurt him to see if I could determine the answer on my own, since he was so unwilling to tell me on his own.
“Please tell me your mama’s okay,” I begged, remembering about the severe heart attack patient that had caused the medical personnel to completely forget to ask me about possible pregnancy. I prayed that patient wasn’t the woman who was more of a mother to me than the woman who’d birthed me was.
Kolton didn’t say anything as his eyes left mine and scanned the small room. His lips pinched together, and tears he refused to shed welled up in his eyes.
“No…” I whispered, knowing from his reaction that Bonnie was that patient. “Is she all right? Have the doctors told you anything? How bad is it?”
“Other than getting my signature for them to perform surgery, they haven’t told me much. She’s in the OR now,” he choked out, his pain filling me right beside my own. Tears rained down my cheeks for everyone’s pain and worry, and my heart ached for how terrified Kolton had to be.
“Your mama’s a fighter. She’ll pull through this,” I told him, swinging my legs over the side of the bed—even though it almost killed me to do so with my ankle in the condition it was—and pulling Kolton into my arms. His arms snaked around my waist as he laid his head against my chest. “Bonnie’s the toughest woman I know. She’ll come out of this ready to take on the world.”
“God I hope you’re right.” His gravelly voice vibrated through my chest and pierced my heart. Poor Kolton had been through hell and back several times over in the last few hours.
“You know how much she loves you. She’ll fight hard,” I told him, not knowing what else to say to bring him any comfort.
“What if—”
“We’re not going there. We’re going to stay positive and believe in the best possible outcome. Any other bridge, we’ll cross when we get there,” I declared, refusing to let him wallow in the possibility of his mother’s death. Only positive energy from us, sent to her, could possibly help her now, along with any and all prayers.
“Carissa—”
“No. Your mama is going to pull through this. Hell, her and I can share a room once she’s out of surgery, if I’m still locked up in this place,” I told him, denial at the true severity of her situation pushing me to refute anything negative he had to say.
I knew he knew her situation better than I did, but I didn’t care. Bonnie was the mother I never had. Mine was an uptight bitch who settled for being treated as if she were nothing more than the arm decoration of my father. Bonnie had shown me, in the short time I’d been living with the Reeds, that a real mother loves and cherishes her children. I wouldn’t settle for less than her recovering from this. I couldn’t.
“We have to be realistic,” Kolton said softly, pulling out of my embrace and meeting my eyes with his sad ones.
“We have to be positive. Screw realistic,” I argued, desperately praying for Bonnie to win this battle she was fighting.
I watched Kolton open and close his mouth several times, as if there was something he needed or wanted to say to get me to listen to him, but in the end he opted to keep it to himself, for which I was grateful. After the attack by the asshole my father sent after me, I couldn’t handle any more negativity. I desperately needed something good to happen, and Bonnie recovering had to be that good.
A knock on the door interrupted the silence filling the room, and both of our heads turned toward the door when it opened.
“You should have your ankle elevated, Mrs. Reed,” Dr. Stanton chastised me as he entered the room with nurse cheerleader right behind him.
Kolton immediately pulled away from me and went to work settling me into the bed the way I’d been before, ignoring my swats at his hands as he fussed over me.
“I have the results of your X-rays, if you’d like to have your guest wait outside so we can discuss them?”
“This is my husband. Anything you have to tell me can be said in front of him,” I replied with a wince as Kolton tugged on the blankets and jarred my ankle, shooting pain straight up from my ankle to my hip.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Reed. I’m Dr. Stanton and have been the one caring for you wife. I do apologize for all of the mistakes we’ve made so far and assure you we’ve got everything back in order the way it should be, and she’ll receive the best care from this point forward,” Dr. Stanton said as he shook Kolton’s hand.
Confusion filled Kolton’s face as Dr. Stanton mentioned the mistakes, and I realized I hadn’t told him about Curtis’ shitty behavior or them having forgotten to ask if I could possibly be pregnant before sending me up for an X-ray.
“What mistakes?” Kolton demanded, sending me an angry look that I hadn’t mentioned anything to him before the doctor had said anything.
“I’ll fill you in later. Right now, I need to know what you’re going to
do about my ankle because it’s throbbing,” I told the doctor, knowing Kolton’s focus would change toward getting me the help I needed for the moment.
“After going over your X-rays several times, I’ve determined you have a compound fracture and we need to operate to insert a few pins to help it heal properly. I have the orthopedic surgeon on his way in to read your X-rays as well and perform the surgery if he agrees to my assessment. As soon as he arrives, he’ll be taking over your case,” Dr. Stanton informed me, hanging my X-rays on the lighted box on the wall and illuminating them so Kolton and I could see exactly what he was referring to as he spoke.
“Who is the orthopedic surgeon, and how long will it take him to arrive? Also, why haven’t ya given my wife anything for her pain?” Kolton practically snarled at Dr. Stanton as he got to his feet, his hands fisted by his sides.
I was terrified he’d lose what was left of his fraying temper and take a swing at the man who’d done his best to take good care of me since I’d arrived in his ER.
“Dr. Mulberry should be here within an hour and in to see your wife as soon as he can after he arrives and looks over the X-rays and her chart. We have given your wife something for the pain, but it appears to not be having the desired effect, which we didn’t know until she said something about the pain when we first walked into the room,” Dr. Stanton shot back, and I could see the tension and simmering anger the doctor was doing his best to contain at Kolton’s aggressive stance. “I’ll look at her chart and see if there’s anything else we can give her to help with the pain for right now and send the nurse in with it as soon as we can.”
Before Kolton could reply, I grabbed his hand and pulled him back to me as the doctor turned on his heel and stalked from the room. The nurse quickly turned off the light to the box, slipped the x-rays down, and slid them into the large envelope before exiting the room. It was the first time I’d seen her timid and quiet since I’d arrived.
“What mistakes was the doctor referring to that ya haven’t told me about?” Kolton bit out between clenched teeth.
“Nothing I haven’t already handled. Go get the sheriff and tell him I’m ready to give my statement before this drags out any further. We’ll discuss everything else later,” I told him, refusing to tell him about Curtis while his temper was close to exploding. I couldn’t handle having to deal with him blowing his lid and ending up in jail with everything else going on.
“You made me tell ya about Mama. Now ya need to tell me what the hell happened while I couldn’t be back here by your side,” Kolton practically growled.
“I’m not telling you a damned thing until you calm the hell down. Nothing good will come from telling you anything right now. I’ve spoken to administration, and everything’s being handled,” I informed him, forcing myself to stay calm when all I really wanted to do was fall apart. The events of the day were beginning to overwhelm me. “I know you want to protect me, but there’s nothing you can do about anything that happened, so let it go for now.”
“Ya know I’m imaginin’ the worst here, right?” Kolton spat at me as he leaned over me in the bed, his eyes darkening the angrier he got. Somehow, he didn’t frighten me. Any other man, and I’d be ready to bolt, broken ankle or not. With Kolton, though, I didn’t feel endangered. Instead, the protective beast in front of me warmed my heart and made me feel safe.
“I need you to trust me. I promise I’ll tell you everything once things calm down. Right now, we need to stay strong for your mama and face possible surgery for my ankle, which means I need to get my statement to the sheriff done before they drug me up and it takes hours more before I can clearly and coherently tell him anything,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady and calm. “Those hours could be spent hunting down and catching the creep who put me here to begin with. Do you want that asshole out there free? I sure as hell don’t.”
Kolton stared into my eyes, assessing them thoroughly as if he were deciding whether to argue the matter further or back off like I’d requested. I didn’t cave to his silent demands that I start talking and tell him everything and we stayed locked like that for a few minutes before he relented and covered my mouth with his own in a searing kiss that owned me in ways I’d never experienced before. Suddenly, the pain in my ankle was forgotten as desire raged through my veins and my need for him took over.
His fingers stabbed through my hair and gripped it in his fist as he angled my head to just the right angle to plunder my mouth with his tongue. I met each thrust with my own, giving back as much as I was taking from him, gripping his shoulders as I dug my nails into him through his shirt.
The beep of my pulse and escalated heartrate intensified and echoed through the room from the monitor stationed next to my bed as my body responded passionately to Kolton’s assault on my mouth. I desperately wanted nothing more for him to strip both of us down and take me right here and now, but the screaming monitors brought me back to my senses. If we didn’t end this, we’d have nurses in here soon.
With every ounce of self-restraint I could summon up, I pushed Kolton away from me, gasping for air when he finally released my mouth.
We were both panting and staring at each other as we tried to rein ourselves in.
“I’d better go get Sheriff Donovan,” he said, finally having collected himself as my vitals slowly returned to normal.
I nodded my head, afraid the words that came out of my mouth would be me demanding he finished what he’d started, rather than handling the business at hand the way we should’ve been doing.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said and exited the room quickly.
I watched him go, wishing things were different and we didn’t have all this chaos surrounding us so we could’ve finished what we’d started.
Chapter Thirty
Kolton
Carissa was going to drive me insane. How the hell did she expect me not to do something about her being mistreated here? Why did she insist on keeping what happened to herself? And that kiss…
I veered off into the nearest bathroom to properly adjust the raging hard-on I was battling after that encounter. For just a few minutes, I was able to push everything aside and just focus on her, and it had been such a relief. I’d been shouldering so much on my own for so long, I didn’t know how to let anyone else share some of the burden, yet somehow, she’d managed to take some of it off my shoulders for that short period of time.
After splashing cold water on my face to cool the lust still roaring through my body, demanding that I go back to her room and finish what I’d started with her, I collected myself enough to go back to the waiting room to get the sheriff. This time, I refused to leave Carissa’s side as she gave her statement, and I fully intended on making that known as soon as possible.
“Is Carissa okay?” Sheriff Donovan asked as I entered the waiting room.
“Yeah. She’s ready to give her statement before the orthopedic surgeon gets here. I’m not leavin’ her side through this though,” I said, squaring my shoulders and preparing myself to be told otherwise.
“Hadn’t planned on askin’ ya to,” Sheriff Donovan replied, and we each nodded our heads in understanding. He understood my need to stay by her side as she relived her trauma.
“Let’s go then,” I told him and headed back toward Carissa’s exam room as the sheriff fell into step beside me. None of the nurses bothered to argue, which was a relief as the two of us strode through the corridors as if we owned the place.
I hated having to put Carissa through this, but it had to be done to put her attacker behind bars where he belonged. Anyone who’d attack a woman deserved to be shot, but unfortunately, it wasn’t up to me.
“Ready, darlin’?” I asked as I entered the tiny room with the sheriff. It had already felt claustrophobic when it had just been Carissa and I in here, but having Sheriff Donovan’s massive bulk in here with us, it felt as if we were trapped in a tiny box together. Not even having the doctor and the nurse in here with us befo
re had felt this confining.
“As ready as I’m ever going to be,” she replied, and I saw the apprehension in her eyes of having to relive the events that had landed her here.
I moved to her side and she leaned forward, allowing me to slide in behind her so I could hold her in my arms as she talked to the sheriff. I knew both of us needed this connection to get through this conversation.
“How’s your ankle?” Sheriff Donovan asked as he took a seat on the rolling stool I’d sat on before.
“Bad. I’m probably going to have to have surgery on it. We’re just waiting for the orthopedic surgeon to agree with the ER doc’s assessment, and we’ll go from there,” Carissa replied, and I heard the fear she was desperately trying to hide from me.
I hated that she felt she needed to keep her fear bottled up instead of trusting in me to protect her. Although, I did have to admit, I’d probably scared her with my earlier behavior. I’d come damned close to losing my head when the doctor had apologized for them not taking proper care of her.
“I’m sorry ta hear that. I’ll be prayin’ for ya ta heal up real quick,” he told her, and I knew his words came from the heart. I gave Carissa a little squeeze and leaned my cheek against her soft hair as I inhaled its soft, floral scent and sent a thank you into the great unknown that the sheriff had arrived to save her when he had. If he hadn’t, I’d have already lost my mind by this point.
“Thank you. Shall we get this over with?” she asked, her body tensing as she asked the question. I wished desperately I could make this all go away for her, but that was out of my control.
“Are ya sure you’re up for this?” Sheriff Donovan asked, concern filling his eyes as he gazed at my beautiful, strong wife.
“The sooner we get this over with, the faster you can catch the asshole who did this to me. So yeah, I’m as up for this as I’m going to get,” she declared, refusing to let that bastard get the best of her. I was prouder to have her as my wife as I ever could’ve been.