“Granny,” she said.
“Yes, child. I’m here.”
To her left, Savannah saw the cloud of silver hair, the bright blue eyes, so like her own, and the concerned, sweet smile.
“Don’t worry,” she told her grandmother. “I’m all right.”
“I know you are, darlin’,” Granny replied in her thick, Southern drawl. “I been prayin’ for three days and nights, and I knew you would be.”
Savannah chuckled. “And the Good Lord wouldn’t dare say no to you!”
“Well, he has a couple of times, but, thank goodness, not this go-around.”
Savannah looked to her right and saw Dirk sitting in a chair, a tired, but happy smile on his face.
“You been here three days and nights, too?” she asked him.
“How can you tell?” he asked.
“Your eyes look like a road map o’ Georgia, and that’s a three-day whisker growth if ever I saw one.”
“He wouldn’t go home,” Gran said. “He wouldn’t even go down to the waiting room to get some sleep. He’s been sitting right there in that chair the whole blamed time.”
Savannah glanced at Dirk and they exchanged a little knowing look.
“Oh?” Savannah said to him. “Since Granny arrived you’ve been glued to the chair, huh?”
“Just sitting here with my teeth in my mouth, as y’all say,” he replied.
“We’ve been here, too.” Someone wriggled her toe through the blanket.
She looked down to the foot of her bed and saw Tammy, John, and Ryan. Ryan was the toe tweaker.
“Hi, guys,” she said.
“You had us worried there, love,” John said. “But you’re looking so much better now.”
“I feel a little better, too,” Savannah told him.
She looked at Tammy, who was standing there, staring at the floor, the picture of guilt and sadness.
“You, kiddo,” Savannah said. “Get over here and give me some sugar.”
Shyly, Tammy skirted around the bed. Dirk moved his chair aside to make room for her.
She bent down and placed a quick peck on Savannah’s cheek.
“Well, that was short and sweet,” Savannah said. “I’ll need another one just like it.”
Tammy gave a small, grateful laugh, and did as she was told. “I’m so, so sorry, Savannah,” she said. “I never thought I’d cause you to be hurt. I—”
“Hush up,” Granny told her. “We’ll have no more of that nonsense talk. This ain’t no more your fault, Tammy, than the man in the moon. The feller who did it done paid for it, and that’s the end of that.”
Savannah smiled at Tammy. “Granny’s ruled. Case closed.”
“Besides,” Dirk said, “if you’ve got any residual guilt, the doc says she’s gonna need a lot of physical therapy on that arm and leg. You can work it off that way.”
Tammy lit up. “Oh, sure! I’ll have her walking, jogging, and lifting weights, and I’ll blend up some special, healing drinks for her. Let me go get a pen and some paper. I’m going to start making notes, coming up with an exercise regimen, and …”
As she scurried from the room to get her writing materials, Savannah shot Dirk a withering look. “Healing drinks? Exercise regimen? I hate you.”
“No ya don’t.” He stood and turned to her grandmother. “Granny, there’s something I need to do, an errand I have to run. Could you watch our girl here for just a little while?”
“I ain’t goin’ no place.” She waved him away. “Skedaddle, boy. Do whatcha gotta do.”
Dirk leaned over and kissed Savannah. “I’ll be back before long.”
As he walked by Ryan, he said, “If you aren’t too tied up for the next hour or so, could I ask you to come along with me? I’d sure appreciate it.”
Ryan looked surprised, as did the others in the room. But he quickly nodded and said, “Sure. No problem. Be glad to.”
As they watched Dirk and Ryan leave the room, Savannah said, “What do you reckon he needs Ryan for? It’s not like he needs help with a shower and a shave.”
“Mysterious,” John said. “Quite mysterious, indeed.”
Several hours later, Ryan and a freshly shaven and showered Dirk returned, carrying several shopping bags each.
Dirk looked around at Granny, Tammy, and John. “Could Ryan and I see all of you out in the hallway for a moment … please?”
“Can I come, too?” Savannah asked as she watched them leaving the room.
“Yeah, right,” Dirk said. “Don’t you so much as twitch. Be right back.”
He left, closing the door behind him. And a few moments later, she heard a lot of giggling and chattering in the hallway.
“Probably get-well balloons,” she said to herself. “Hopefully somebody thought to throw a get-well box of chocolate in there, too.”
It was at least three or four minutes before he returned alone. “All right,” he said, grabbing the privacy curtain and pulling it on its runner all the way around her bed. “We’re just going to close you in here for a minute.”
Good heavens, she thought, never saw such a fuss over some balloons. Maybe flowers, too … a spring bouquet with lots of daisies.
She heard much shuffling of feet, some tittering, whispers, a bang, and an under-the-breath curse as someone crashed into something.
Finally, there was a noisy exodus out the door.
She heard someone closing the window shade. Then they flipped off the overhead light.
“What’s going on out there,” she called.
Dirk pulled back the privacy curtain.
There were no balloons or daisies. But there were flowers.
Her hospital room was filled with red roses and white candles, dozens of both, everywhere. Their beautiful perfume filled the air as the flames flickered, softly lighting the scene.
She felt like she had stepped into a moonlight rose garden.
“What is this?” she asked.
Dirk laughed nervously and walked over to her bed. “Hopefully,” he said, “it’s romance.”
“Romance? In a hospital room?”
He shrugged and looked like a little boy offering his first valentine. “Yeah. How’d we do?”
“It’s beautiful! But why?”
He dropped onto one knee beside her bed, then realized his head was too far down for him to even see her. So, he dragged a chair over, and knelt on it.
“I know I should wait,” he said, “until you get out of this place, and I can take you to a beach or a nice restaurant or whatever, but … hell, Van, we’ve waited long enough.”
“For what?” she asked, her heart starting to pound.
“This thing scared me, Savannah. I was thinking, what the heck, we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us, but you never know. Nobody knows how much time they’ve got. You can’t waste time. It’s too precious.”
“Okay. But what does that have to do with …?”
“I love you, Savannah,” he said. “I loved you from the minute I met you. You walked into that station house with your uniform on. And I said, ‘Wow! Look at the rack on that one and … ’ Oh, sorry, that’s not very romantic, but … well … anyway … And then you shook my hand and said something to me in that sexy, Southern drawl of yours, and looked at me with those blue eyes of yours, and I never had a chance. I was a goner.”
“You were? Really? A goner?”
“Oh, totally. And all these years, I thought, maybe she’d have me if I worked on my table manners and left the toilet seat down and didn’t put my feet on her coffee table, but you seemed to like living by yourself. After all those brothers and sisters, I don’t blame you for that, but … damn … I’m messin’ this up.”
She reached over and ran her fingers slowly through his hair. “You’re not messin’ up anything, darlin’,” she said softly. “Take a deep breath. You’re doing just fine.”
He paused to regroup, then continued more calmly. “Savannah, my friendship with you, it’s the best thing
that’s ever happened to me. And I’ve always been afraid I might lose it if I … you know … reached for more.”
She nodded. “It’s so good, I was afraid to change anything. I was afraid, if it didn’t work out, then we couldn’t go back to being … us.”
“Me, too. But the other night, when you were so bad, and I laid down by you … That was the first time in my life I ever held someone in my arms the whole night long.”
“It was? But you were married before.”
“Just trust me,” he said. “It was a first for me. And it felt really good. It felt really right, holding you, being strong for you. For the first time I knew that someone really needed me. And it was you. I was so glad it was you.”
“Oh, Dirk. It meant a lot to me, too. It meant everything to me.” She said, her voice choking as her eyes filled with tears.
“Then, what I’m trying to say is”—he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small box—“Savannah, if you’ll marry me, I promise you, I’ll try my very, very best to be a good husband to you, because you’re the finest person I’ve ever known, and you deserve it.”
He flipped the lid of the box open, and Savannah caught her breath when she saw an exquisite engagement ring. Its enormous princess-cut stone twinkled with a hundred rainbow prisms in the candlelight.
“I hope you like it,” he said. “Ryan took me to his jeweler, and he said it’s a really good stone.”
“Oh, Dirk! It’s absolutely gorgeous! It’s … it’s huge! How can you afford …? I mean …”
He laughed. “Didn’t expect cheap old Dirk to buy a diamond the size of a doorknob, huh?”
“Well … I …”
“I make a good salary,” he said. “And, as you know, I never spend a nickel I don’t have to. So, I’ve got a ton of money in the bank. Marry me, and I’ll pay for a new roof on your house.”
“You got a deal, buddy!” she said, slipping the ring on her finger.
“So, that’s a yes?”
“It’s a big yes!”
He stood, gently wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her.
It wasn’t like any short, routine, doesn’t-mean-anything kiss they had ever shared before.
Dirk took his time, and when he was finally finished with her, Savannah was feeling simply incredible from her head to her toes—five GSWs or not.
“Wow,” she said, breathlessly. “If I’d known you could do that, I’d have married you a long time ago.”
He gave her a sexy smile and a throaty laugh that went straight to heart and then traveled to other, more intimate, areas. “There’s a lot more where that came from, babycakes.”
“Ummm … something to look forward to. Maybe I’ll put you in charge of my physical therapy.”
He turned to the door and yelled, “She said yes!”
Instantly, shouts of joy erupted in the hallway.
“Can we come in?” Tammy called out.
Dirk looked at Savannah. She nodded.
“They’re gonna kiss us and hug us to death,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, they will.” She held up her hand and turned it this way and that, admiring her ring. “Open the door and go with the flow. If you fight it, it’ll just make it worse.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Readers,
As you may have guessed from reading this book, I have deep feelings and strong opinions about domestic abuse. Everyone has the right to a life that is free of the fear of violence. For even one woman, man, or child to be denied that freedom is a tragedy.
Every day, abuse happens to thousands of people, regardless of their gender, age, race, financial standing, educational background, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, occupation, or social status. It occurs among people who are married, divorced, separated, dating, and sometimes even between people who have very little history together. Abuse can happen to anyone.
Chances are high that you know someone who is being abused. Or you may be yourself. If you are, and you have children, there is a fifty percent chance they’re being abused, too.
What is abuse?
Abuse is a set of behaviors used by someone in a relationship to control the other person. Among others, these behaviors may include:
Calling you names, putting you down
Humiliating and embarrassing you in front of others
Cursing and shouting at you
Shoving, slapping, choking, or hitting you
Saying you’re a bad parent, threatening to take the children from you
Exhibiting jealousy and suspicion
Controlling who you see and speak to and where you go
Insisting on making all the decisions
Preventing you from working or going to school
Interfering with you seeing your family and/or friends
Destroying your property (or threatening to)
Harming your pets (or threatening to)
Intimidating you with guns, knives, or other weapons
Controlling the money, making you financially dependent on them
Acting like the abuse is no big deal, saying it was your fault, or denying it
Forcing you to have sex or some form of sex that you don’t like
Forcing you to drop charges
Threatening to commit suicide
Threatening to kill you (and/or people you love)
If you recognize your situation or someone else’s in the list above, please know three things:
You aren’t alone.
It isn’t your fault.
Help is available.
If something about your relationship scares you, and you need to talk, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at this number:
1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
The National Domestic Violence Hotline receives more than 21,000 calls a month from people just like you, who find the strength to reach out. When you call, a compassionate, nonjudg-mental advocate on the other end of the phone is there to listen. Everything you tell them is completely confidential and anonymous. (They don’t even have caller ID.)
It may be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done, making that call. It takes enormous courage to tell someone your secret. But think of all the things you’ve already endured in your life. You may be a victim of abuse, but you’re also a survivor! You’ve done a lot of hard things, and you don’t have to handle this alone. If you call that number, you’ll find there are people in this world who understand what you’re going through, who care about you, and who want to help.
You deserve to live the life of your dreams. A life of your design and your choosing. A life free from fear.
My dear friend, this is my wish for you: May your wounded heart find healing, your heavy spirit be uplifted in joy, and your troubled mind find peace profound.
Sincerely,
Sonja Massie
(G. A. McKevett)
National Domestic Violence Hotline recommended reading:
Why Does He Do That? Lundy Bancroft. Berkeley Trade, 2003
Saving Beauty from the Beast. Vicki Crompton & Ellen Zelda Kessner. Little, Brown, 2003
In Love and In Danger. Barrie Levy. Seal Press, 1998
When Violence Begins at Home: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding and Ending Domestic Abuse. K. J. Wilson, Ed.D. Hunter House, 1997
Helping Her Get Free: A Guide for Families and Friends of Abused Women. Susan Brewster. Seal Press, 2006
A Decadent Way to Die: A Savannah Reid Mystery Page 25