by Beth Ehemann
“The guy obviously found out Jerry’s name, which isn’t a hard thing to do, and texted her to get her to come downstairs,” Detective Larson said as he put his notepad away.
“If only I’d been sitting at that desk—” Jerry’s voice cracked and trailed off.
“Jerry.” I rested my hand on his shoulder. “This isn’t your fault. Not at all. You saved her life, don’t ever forget that.”
“I’m gonna go call my boss,” Jerry said in a somber tone as his shoulders slumped. “You know where to find me if you need anything else.” His feet scraped along the concrete as he shuffled back into the lobby.
I turned back to Detective Larson. “What now?”
“Well, now I go grill this guy for the next twelve hours and try to figure out why the hell he’s been doing this.”
“Will you keep me in the loop?”
The corners of his jaw popped as he clenched it. “I will. And you keep me posted about her, deal?”
“Deal,” I agreed. The red-and-blue lights of the ambulance glowed and started spinning. “I gotta go. I’m following it.” I turned and started toward my car.
“Hey, Shaw!” Detective Larson called after me.
I spun around but kept creeping backward toward the street where my car was still parked.
“You noticed it wasn’t Cole Woods, right?”
I stopped moving.
Yeah, when I was bashing his face in.
“Yeah, I did. It doesn’t matter at this point whether she was right or wrong, though, right? He’s caught and this is over,” I hollered back.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and pressed his lips together. “Let’s hope so. I’ll be in touch.”
CHAPTER 34
Danicka
“Dani? Dani? Can you hear me?”
Barely.
“Can you open your eyes, baby girl?”
Dad?
“Honey, if you can hear me—open your eyes.”
I gathered up every cell in my body and had a quick powwow, begging them to work together just enough to lift my eyelids. Thankfully, they responded. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, but I slowly opened my eyes. Everything was a still a little blurry, but I was worried that if I closed my eyes to blink everything into focus, I wouldn’t be able to open them again. After a couple of seconds, my eyes adjusted, and I was able to blink.
My dad was sitting on the side of the bed, wearing the biggest smile I’d ever seen.
“Hi, princess!” he said through a cracked voice. His eyes glassed over as he bit his top lip to keep from crying.
I groaned but didn’t actually form words.
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to . . .” He reached out and squeezed my hand. “Do you know where you are?”
Pain shot through my neck as I nodded.
“Do you remember what happened?”
“Yeah,” I said with a weak voice, thinking back to the parking garage. “Did they catch him?” My jaw throbbed, and I lifted my hand to touch it.
“Be gentle,” he warned, “you’re pretty banged up. And that’s going to take a while to heal.”
I followed his eyes down to my left hand, which was wrapped over and over like a club. “It’s broken?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but they can’t cast it until the swelling goes down a bit. They think you covered your face with it and he kicked it. The good news is it probably saved you from a bunch of broken bones in your face.”
“My face hurts,” I said through clenched teeth. “Are they sure nothing is broken?”
“Yeah, they did a bunch of X-rays yesterday and a couple more again last night, just to be thorough.”
“Wait, it’s tomorrow?” I tried to sit up, but pain crashed through my body like lightning.
“Dani, slow down.” My dad scooted closer up the bed. “You’re not going anywhere for a while. And yes . . . the attack was yesterday. As brutal as Jerry made it sound, you’re actually in pretty good shape. You have a broken hand, a couple of broken ribs, a pretty good cut under your eye, and your face is going to be bruised for a few weeks, but it could have been so much worse.” Dad’s voice broke and his eyes dropped toward the bed. My father was not an emotional man, but seeing his only child in a hospital bed was obviously opening the floodgates.
“I’ll be okay, Dad. I’m glad that you’re here. Wait—when did you get here?”
“Late last night. Andy called me from the hospital, and I got on the first available flight out of California. He had a car waiting for me at the airport.” Once again my dad got misty-eyed. “He’s a good one, Dani.”
I was just about to ask where he was, but I was interrupted.
“Knock, knock,” a cheerful female voice said loudly as she knocked on the door. Seconds later a young doctor dressed in blue scrubs and a white lab coat sailed into the room and smiled at my dad. She froze, and her mouth fell open when she turned to me. “Oooh, you’re awake.”
“Yeah, for just a couple of minutes, though,” my dad said as he stood and backed away from the bed.
“No problem.” She walked up next to me and gave me a warm smile. “I’m Dr. Morris, welcome back.”
“Thanks.” I tried to smile at her, but any movement of my face hurt.
“How’s that feeling?” she motioned toward my jaw.
I grimaced. “Sore.”
“Yeah.” She nodded, giving me a crooked, sympathetic smile. “You’re going to be that way for several days. The pain should get better sooner, but the bruising will take a little more time. Concealer will be your best friend,” she added with a laugh. “Anyway, I’m going to check you out here real quick, and then I’ll leave you guys alone, okay?”
I nodded as she gently pushed and poked around my jawline, shined a bright light in my eyes, and listened to my chest.
She cringed as she gently removed the bandage under my eye. “Sorry if this hurts, I just want to take a quick look.” She leaned in close and peered down her nose at me. “Looks great. The plastic surgeon did a fantastic job of lining everything up just perfect. The scar will be minimal, and if you want to have more work done on that after it’s all healed, it should disappear easily.”
She placed the bandage back down and patted my leg, offering up another comforting smile. “Okay, I’m going to let the nurses know you’re awake, and I think you’re due for some pain meds, so I’ll tell them to get that, too. I’ll be back around in a little while, okay?”
“Thank you,” I muttered as she left the room.
Dad stretched his neck to the left, following her movements until she closed the door behind her. He looked at me and wiggled his eyebrows up and down.
“No.” I started to shake my head but stopped when it throbbed. “Dating my doctor is off-limits, even if I’ve only known she existed for six whole minutes.”
He let out a hearty laugh. “Can’t blame a guy for tryin’.”
I rolled my eyes. “So where’s Andy, anyway?”
“He’s at a hotel next door. He sat here all night, sleeping in that chair.” He pointed to the tiny, blue, fake-leather chair in the corner of the room. “When I got here, he looked awful. I told him to go home and get some rest, but he refused to go that far. Left me with strict instructions to call him the instant you woke up.”
“Of course he did.” I wanted to chuckle, but I didn’t have the energy.
“I’m just gonna text him, though, in case he’s still sleeping.” Dad took out his phone and thumbed in a message to Andy. When he was done, he set the phone back down on my legs and stared at me sympathetically.
“Thanks for coming, Dad.”
His eyes dropped to the white, woven hospital blanket that covered me. “I should’ve come when your car got vandalized, Dani. I haven’t been a good father.”
“Yes, you have,” I argued with as much gusto as I could muster up. “I’m an adult, Dad. There was no reason for you to fly across the country.”
“Yeah, well, you’
re my only child, my baby girl, and I wasn’t here when I needed to be. Maybe if I had been—”
“Stop it,” I groaned. “Why do men do that? Why do they automatically blame themselves and think if they’re around, bad things won’t happen? News flash, sometimes bad things just happen . . . regardless of who’s nearby. Does this suck? Totally! But at least it’s all over with now and I can go on with my life.”
Dad sniffed and gave me a small smile as he shook his head incredulously. “When did you become so damn sensible?”
“When you were out catching the early morning waves.” I gave him a lopsided grin.
“Yeah, well, there will be no more of that.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m trading my surfboard in for skis, my sweet Danicka. Minnesota, here I come.”
I shook my head as fast I could, not giving a shit about the pain. “You can’t do that, Dad. You love California.”
“Yeah, and I love you more. Yesterday really scared me. Getting that call from Andy and being that far away was excruciating. I couldn’t get here fast enough.”
“Even so, you love that house, you can’t leave it.”
“I’m not leaving it, I’m just turning it into a vacation home. I’m moving here, Dani, and that’s that. I spent too many years away from you, and I’m not getting any younger, so . . . Minnesota it is. Who knows, maybe I’ll find myself a real cute snow bunny, or a doctor, and we can cuddle around a fire together with hot cocoa.” A wink accompanied his devilish grin.
“Oh, Dad. Gross.” I cringed.
Another loud knock on the hospital door startled both of us.
“She still awake?” Andy asked before he was even completely through the door.
“Yep.” Dad nodded once, looking from Andy to me. One side of his mouth lifted into a lazy grin. “And feisty as ever.”
Andy walked around the corner, and just the sight of him overwhelmed me. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed seeing him until I did. I held my arms out, and he came right over and sat on the other side of my bed, hugging me as gently as he could.
Dad cleared his throat and stood. “Uh . . . I’m gonna step out for a little bit and make some phone calls. Let you guys have a minute . . .”
I lifted my head off of Andy’s chest and smiled as he made his way around the foot of the bed, toward the door. “Don’t go far, okay?”
He froze and turned slightly toward me. “Never again, Dani. Never again.” Before I could respond, he opened the door and slipped out.
As soon as he was gone, Andy pulled me gently toward him again.
“Ouch,” I groaned.
“Sorry,” Andy hissed, loosening his grip on me. “I can’t let go, though. I’m not done with you just yet.”
I didn’t argue. Didn’t even think about arguing. My head rested against his chest, the sound of his heart thumping against my ear, and I silently wished we could stay like that for the rest of the day. Not talk about the attack or my injuries or anything else. Just sit. Together.
After a minute, he let out a heavy, worried sigh. “You scared the hell out of me yesterday, Dani.”
“I scared the hell out of myself,” I joked. “I don’t ever want to do that again, okay?”
“I would appreciate that.”
“Have you talked to Detective Larson at all?” His upper body strained under my head as soon as the question was out of my mouth. “Uh-oh. You tensed. That’s not good.”
“Well, it’s not bad, and it’s not good. It’s just . . . nothing. The guy is refusing to talk.”
“The guy? It’s not Cole?”
He shook his head. “It’s not Cole. They know his name right now—Javier Delgado—and are still searching his apartment, but that’s about it. He has a squeaky-clean record with not so much as a speeding ticket, and so far they have found absolutely nothing incriminating in his apartment.”
Javier Delgado. I’ve never heard that name in my entire life.
My chest hollowed as deflation filled the spot where hope used to be. “Really? Nothing?”
“They’re still digging, and they’re charging him with attempted murder since he lured you into the garage, so he’s totally screwed, but they can’t seem to find any motive.” His hand gently massaged the back of my sore head, but his touch felt so good I didn’t dare ask him to stop.
“And he’s not talking? At all?” I finally sat back.
“Nope. When they ask him questions, he just sits there with a smirk on his smug, bruised face.” A vein in Andy’s neck twitched, something I’d learned happened only when he was really pissed.
I pulled my eyebrows down low. “Huh?”
His eyes shifted from mine down to the bed. “I lost it when I heard what he did to you and went after him in the police car.”
“You did?” My voice raised, but that ended with me wincing in pain instead. Instinctively I lifted my giant, bandaged hand to my jaw to touch it and give it some comfort but wound up punching myself in the cheek instead. “Ow,” I whined.
“Easy there, killer.” Andy laughed as he tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear gently. “But yes, I went after him. And I don’t regret it one bit. If the cops hadn’t pulled me out of the car, I honestly don’t think I would have stopped until he took his last breath.”
His words sent a chill through my body. No one had ever been that protective of me in my whole life, not even my dad.
“Thank you,” I said softly, dropping my eyes to the bed. Suddenly I was feeling shy, undeserving of a love and protection that extreme.
“Hey.” He dipped his head to try and catch my eyes again. “Don’t do that. Don’t go away.”
I swallowed and lifted my head. “Sorry. I’m not. This is all just . . . overwhelming.”
“That’s okay. Don’t fight it, let it be overwhelming. Just stay with me, okay?” His intense blue eyes bored straight into mine. I was hypnotized and couldn’t look away if I wanted to. “Stay tucked in close. Right up under my wing, remember?”
I was quiet for a minute, contemplating if it was the right time, but I was never one to get my timing exactly right, so I figured what the hell. “I remember what you said—in the ambulance. Everything else was foggy, but I remember that.”
“That I love you?”
I nodded, trying to ignore the painful heat creeping up my neck.
“Good,” he said in an arrogant, adorable tone. “I’m glad you remember it.”
“I mean—” I paused, wondering if bringing it up had been a mistake after all. Words started to fall from my mouth faster than my brain could filter them out. “Sometimes in those situations people are scared and they say stuff they don’t mean, so if you didn’t mean it, it’s totally okay—”
“Dani,” he interrupted. “I meant it then, and I mean it now. I love you.”
Knowing that he didn’t regret what he’d said in the ambulance allowed my heart rate to slowly return to normal as I relaxed back against my pillow and just let him talk.
“I know you’re a runner and this freaks you out, but you’re going to have to get over it, because in these last couple of months—long before you let me—I fell in love with you. And I’m not falling out anytime soon.”
I narrowed my eyes and stared at him, trying to decide what I did to deserve a guy as amazing as him, but for the first time in forever, I didn’t try to dissect it, didn’t try to reason it away, and I didn’t have the urge to run. Quite the opposite, actually. “Correction. I was a runner . . . but my legs are pretty damn tired, so I think I’ll sit down right where I am. At least for a while.”
He gave me a slow, relieved grin as he leaned forward and pressed his lips against my forehead. When he didn’t pull them away, I closed my eyes and leaned back into him.
Say it, Dani. Just say it.
“I love you, Andy.”
CHAPTER 35
Andy
The news of Dani’s attack spread like wildfire. At least half of the calls coming into th
e office were reporters wanting statements, and when Ellie told them ‘no comment,’ they somehow figured camping out in the lobby downstairs would get them the scoop they wanted.
Wrong.
It took some clever maneuvering on my part, but I wasn’t about to leave Dani’s side, and I felt bad leaving Ellie and Ethan alone to deal with the aftermath, so for the first time ever, I closed down the office for a couple of days. I rerouted all of the business calls to Ellie’s phone temporarily and told them both to work from home until things quieted down. I would’ve loved nothing more than to take those same couple of days to focus on Dani, but the sports world wasn’t about to stop just because mine nearly did. My laptop became my mobile office, and when Dani napped during the day, I rolled my sleeves up and got as much done as I could.
The pain meds were still making her sleepy on and off, but she was getting stronger every hour. She even tried to yell at me once to bring her her laptop, but that didn’t go over so well. I called all of her clients to let them know what was going on, but most of them had already heard.
Detective Larson and I were also in constant contact. He called a couple of times a day to check on Dani, and although there wasn’t always a lot to tell due to the snail’s pace of the criminal justice system, he kept me posted on all developments regarding Javier. He’d been arraigned on charges of felony assault and attempted murder, and hopefully, if they could connect him to the messages, the vandalizing, and Roxy, there would be many more charges coming. According to Larson, when they asked him a question, Javier just stared down at the table in front of him the whole time, saying nothing. The good news was that due to the brutality of the attack, his bond was set at half a million dollars, but the bad news . . . still no obvious motive, and he was still refusing to answer any questions. Larson had already spent two afternoons with Dani going over pictures of Javier and trying to connect the dots as to where she might have seen him, but nothing rang a bell. Nothing at all.
By day three, the fake leather chair in the corner of the room had my ass print permanently embedded in it. My back ached as I closed my laptop and relaxed against the back of the chair, cringing when it made a loud crinkling noise. Dani’s eyes fluttered open.