“Just because you’re some rich business man—“
“That has nothing to do with it. I could crush you without my money and my high powered lawyers.”
I saw doubt flash in the man’s eyes. Once again, I started to back off, but then he threw a punch at me. I saw it just out of the corner of my eye and ducked. Then, almost completely out of instinct, I buried my fist in his gut. He doubled over and I caught his shoulder to keep him from hitting the asphalt.
“Harry!”
I glanced over my shoulder. Libby, Finn, and Julia were rushing across the street toward me. I leaned close and said, “If I let you go, will you try to hit me again?”
“No,” he gasped.
I let go and he immediately sank to the ground, leaning back against the fender of a Toyota.
“What the hell?” Finn cried. “Why are you beating up the other side’s council?”
“He threw the first punch. I was just defending myself.”
Libby looked from me to the lawyer and shook her head. But Julia began to laugh.
“Some things never change,” she said.
“What’s going on?” Libby asked. “Where’s JT?”
And that’s when my cellphone rang.
Chapter 19
Penelope
My head was spinning. I was driving as fast as I could without ending up in the hospital myself. Maneuvering around slow moving cars, honking my horn almost continuously to make these idiots get out of the way. Didn’t they know that my world was collapsing around me? Didn’t they know I needed to get to the hospital before...before what?
Nick wasn’t particularly specific in his phone call.
It’s JT. We’re at the hospital. It’s bad, Penny.
It’s bad. Nothing else. No details about what happened, no specifics about his injury. Just that it was bad.
I told him to stay home. I told him that I needed to know where he was all day. I told him that if he left, he should send me a text. He didn’t.
My hands were shaking as I took a sharp left turn, causing the car to skid a little to the right. I needed to slow down. I needed to catch my breath. But how could I do that when I didn’t know what was happening to JT?
I felt like I should call someone. But who? Everyone I cared about was already at the hospital.
And then Harrison’s face flashed in front of my eyes.
Shit, shit, shit!
What would he do when he heard about this? Would he use it against me, bar me from ever seeing JT again? But then I realized that I was being selfish. Harrison was JT’s biological father, and I’d just signed over all my rights over JT to him. I had to call him. I had to let him know what was going on.
I pulled into the hospital parking lot and pulled the car to a stop haphazardly, taking up more than one parking spot. I took a deep breath and pulled out my phone to bring up Harrison’s number from my call log.
My heart was pounding as I listened to the hollow rings that I knew were no representation of the ring tone Harrison’s phone played each time someone called. He preferred a popular pop song whose title I couldn’t remember at the moment. Which was just great because I knew it would bother me…
“Penelope? Where are you?”
For a second I thought he already knew about JT. He sounded almost relieved to see my number on his phone.
But then I realized he couldn’t know. I didn’t tell Jack, and Nick never would have called him. The only way he could know would be if Susan had called him, but she wouldn’t do that. Would she?
“Penelope?”
“There’s been an accident,” I said slowly. “JT’s at the university hospital here in Lubbock.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Was it stupid that I felt as though an immense burden had just been lifted from my shoulders?
The ER was exceptionally busy. I walked in and paused in the doorway to search for a familiar face. Then I saw Nick - dear, sweet Nick - leaning against a wall. One of JT’s friends, Sean, was there, too, with his mother.
“What happened? Where’s JT?”
Nick stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. “He’s in with the doctors.”
“What happened?” I demanded again.
“It was my fault,” Sean said, his low and broken. “I thought it would be funny. I didn’t see the car until it was too late.”
“Car?”
Panic was building inside of me, threatening to turn me into a hysterical shrill.
A car? JT was hit by a car?
“I skipped class because JT wanted to hang out. We were skateboarding down 4th street and this car came out of nowhere…”
“Oh, God!”
I doubled over. If Nick hadn’t been there to catch me, I might have hit the ground. He pulled me against his chest and walked me a little distance away from the Wallaces.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Nick said. “He hit his head and scraped up an arm. Might have a few broken ribs, too.”
“You said—”
“I know. I shouldn’t have said that.” Nick lifted my chin, forcing me to look at him and the expression in his eyes wasn’t reassuring. “It’s his leg, Penny. The car hit him just right and…” He stopped, but the horror that came into his eyes made ice spread from the pit of my stomach throughout the rest of my body.
“The Monroe family?”
I turned and found myself facing an exhausted doctor. He made an impatient gesture, pulling me away from Nick and the others to a quiet section of the hallway outside the exam rooms.
“I’m Dr. Campbell,” he said, not even looking at me. He was studying an iPad in his hands. “We’ve sent the boy up for x-rays. At the moment, I can tell you he likely has a concussion and a broken rib. The right wrist is a little bruised and will require a brace for a few weeks.”
“And the leg?”
He looked up. “We’ve called in an orthopedic surgeon. He will evaluate it and come speak to you.”
He started to walk away.
“Dr. Campbell?”
He paused, sighing in such a way that left me no doubt that he was extremely busy and I was keeping him from something much more important.
“Can I see my brother?”
He gestured at the door behind me. “He’s in x-ray. You’ll have to wait until they bring him back down.”
I stayed where I was, staring down each and every person who bothered to look at me, afraid this would be the person to ask me to leave. But no one ever said anything. Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty, making me wonder if they had taken him somewhere else. But then I spotted him coming down the hallway in a bed, an IV hanging off of one corner.
I held the door open to his room and watched as the orderly settled the bed back where it belonged.
“Goodbye,” he said touching JT’s shoulder. “Good luck.”
JT opened his eyes a slit and lifted a hand, but that was about all he managed. His head was wrapped in bandages, as was one of his arms. The other arm had a splint around the wrist that began in the center of his hand and moved up half of his forearm. He was in a hospital gown, a thin sheet draped over him. His right leg was exposed, held in place with a crude splint that was wrapped in white gauze.
It physically hurt to see my strong, rebellious brother in such a condition.
I walked around the bed and pressed a hand to his chest, reassured by the strong beat of his heart underneath.
“JT?”
He peeked at me through a slit in one eye, then smiled.
“Hey.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Great,” he said, vaguely indicating the IV with one hand. “Pain killers.”
I smiled despite myself.
“I told you to stay home.”
“Got restless,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”
And that’s when the tears began to flow. I couldn’t help myself. But I don’t think he noticed. He was snoring.
I bent and kissed his forehead, my heart aching for the little boy he once was, the little boy he still was, and for everything that had gone so terribly wrong in his life these last few years. What more was he supposed to put up with before fate or whatever was done with him?
I ran my hand over the top of his head, aware of the tiny pieces of asphalt that were stuck in the strands of his dark hair. I wanted to pick them all out, wanted to make this all better for him. I wanted to be the one in the bed, not the one sitting there, wondering what came next. I wanted to go back a few hours and get home sooner so that I could stop him from going out and getting hurt in the first place.
I shouldn’t have gone. I should have let Jack take care of the agreement. But I had felt I owed it to Harrison to tell him I’d changed my mind myself. Or was that really it? Was that the real reason I insisted on going to the courthouse even though Jack assured me it wasn’t necessary? Or was it that I wanted to see Harrison again?
Damn this! Damn all this!
Why did Harrison have to come into our lives? Why did he have to complicate everything? We were doing just fine before him.
Really.
Not really.
I ran my fingers over JT’s jaw, feeling just the hint of a teenager’s beard. I’d failed him. I’d failed to keep him safe and well provided for. And those were the things Harrison wanted to do for him. I never doubted that he could. I just…I was just thinking of myself. Maybe it really was time to think more of JT. Maybe what I’d done this morning really was the right thing.
JT deserved so much more than I could give him. Maybe living with Harrison was the answer.
They moved JT up to the surgical floor a few minutes later. I stayed with him as long as they would allow, but then the surgeon came and told me I would have to go to the waiting room.
“The procedure will take a few hours,” the doctor explained.
He was an older man with kind eyes. He stood close to me, his hand on my elbow as he quickly, but patiently explained the procedure. JT had what they called a compound fracture that protruded from the skin. They would have to expand the open wound and push the bone back into place, then apply metal plates that would hold the bone in place and keep it strong until it healed.
It sounded incredibly complicated to me. I wasn’t even sure I understood it all.
“Like I said, it should take a few hours, but I will come find you the moment we’re done.”
I nodded. “Thank you, doctor.”
Just as the doctor turned to leave, I felt hands on my shoulders. I turned, and Harrison was there. I half expected to see accusation and anger in his eyes, but all I saw was concern.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I told him to stay home. I told him—”
“It’s okay. Sean was downstairs. He told us what happened.”
Before the word ‘us’ could register in my head, a blonde woman I vaguely remembered from the courthouse appeared beside us.
“Hello, Penelope,” she said softly, a big smile on her lips that just seemed so inappropriate to the moment. “I can’t tell you how lovely it is to see you again.”
I glanced at Harrison. He stepped back slightly to include this woman in on our intimate circle.
“This is Julia. Julia Castiano Rowell.”
The birth mother.
My heart seemed to stutter in my chest as I caught a look between her and Harrison that just seemed too familiar. I remembered her. Remembered meeting her as a child. I’d thought she was so beautiful then.
Now? I just thought she didn’t belong here.
My knees seemed to grow weak. Lack of sleep was catching up to me.
Harrison wrapped his arm around my waist and guided me to a chair in the small waiting room. He sat beside me, not removing his arm. I leaned forward, trying to take a few deep breathes. An image of Harrison with Julia passed through my mind. She was exactly the kind of woman I’d imagined he would date: tall, thin, model-like, and blond. Don’t all billionaire playboys date blondes?
Why was I thinking about this now? I should be thinking about JT, thinking about his surgery and the chances that he would never be able to walk without a limp, let alone play football again.
“Did you get to see JT before they took him to surgery?”
I turned my head, resting my cheek against my knee for a second before pushing myself back up into a sitting position.
“Yeah.”
“How is he?”
I shook my head. “They have him on some pretty strong painkillers. He was asleep most of the time.”
Harrison nodded. “That’s what they said downstairs.”
“Downstairs?”
“Harry harassed the entire ER staff until they found someone who could tell him what was going on with JT.”
A beautiful, dark-haired woman appeared in front of me, dressed quite stylishly in a tan suit that fit her figure perfectly. She wasn’t straight and boyish like the birth mother, but she wasn’t as curvy as me, either. She had a nice smile and green eyes that were so much like Harrison’s that there was no way I could mistake for anyone but a relative.
“Penelope, this is my sister, Libby. Lib, this is Penelope.”
Libby. I’d seen that name on his phone. I’d assumed it was a girlfriend.
That’s what I got for making assumptions.
“It’s nice to meet you, Libby,” I said.
“I just wish it was under better circumstances,” Libby said. She touched my shoulder lightly. “Is there anything I can get for you? Anyone I can call?”
I was touched that she would be so considerate, considering I was currently embroiled in a custody battle with her brother. I forced a smile.
“I don’t think there’s anything to do now but wait.”
Chapter 20
Harrison
The wait has got to be the worst part of a crisis. And everyone seemed to have a different way of handling it.
Julia picked at her nails for about forty minutes, then she slipped out, disappearing for the better part of two hours before she came back with lukewarm coffee for everyone.
Libby sat quietly in one corner of the room, texting on her phone almost the entire time.
Nick came up to check on Penelope four times before I finally suggested he would be helping out much more if he’d just go back to the bakery and make sure everything was running smoothly.
Sean and his mother handed me a phone number and left.
My mother was nowhere to be seen.
Finn smoothed things over with the judge and went home, promising to bill me three times his normal fee for the aggravation of coming here without actually doing anything. As far as he was concerned, the hearing was just delayed until JT was better. I hadn’t told him about Penelope’s legal forfeiture yet.
Penelope remained glued to her seat, barely moving and not talking. I could feel the tension rolling off her shoulders. I desperately wanted to do something to relieve it, but I didn’t know what. Watching her struggle to stay calm only reminded me of all she’d already lost with the deaths of her parents, and how much more she stood to lose if I followed through with my fight for JT.
Not that there would be much of a fight if I took her up on her offer. But, right now, it didn’t seem right to even consider it.
The doctor finally came out after about five hours. I stood too quickly, my back protesting after sitting in that hard, plastic chair for so long. I turned to Penelope, but she was already out of the chair and ducking around me to speak to the doctor.
“He came through the surgery like a champ,” the doctor was saying as I moved up behind Penelope. “The break was a little more complicated than we originally believed. We had to insert four sets of plates in order to stabilize it.”
“I assume he’ll need rehab,” I said. “How soon can he start?”
The doctor looked at me, his eyes darkening just slightly. I could see the hesitation in the way he looked at Penelope. I was about to give this doctor an education,
a sudden wave of exhaustion shortening my fuse. But then Penelope said, so softly I almost couldn’t hear her, “It’s okay. He’s JT’s biological father.”
That was the first time I heard those words leave her lips. It was like someone had shoved cotton in my head, I was so lost in the wonder of her words. I almost missed the doctor’s next words.
“He’ll need extensive rehab. I would suggest waiting until the bones have begun to calcify, about six to eight weeks. After that, he will require months of therapy. It will be a long, drawn out process.”
Penelope’s shoulders sagged. “And football?” she asked.
The doctor shook his head. “It’s unlikely he’ll ever play again.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t accept that.
“He’s young. If works hard at rehab—“
“The break was significant,” the doctor said, looking me in the eye. “The chances are slim that he’ll be able to walk without a limp, let alone play something as rough as football.”
“You don’t know JT.”
Penelope glanced back at me. I half expected her to be annoyed by the fact that I was arguing about something she could legitimately say I had no knowledge of. Instead, there was gratitude in her eyes.
I’d actually done something right for once.
They let us visit JT the moment he was moved to a private room. I stood at the end of the bed and gazed down at the son I didn’t even know I had until a few months ago. He was pale, an IV still attached to his arm, bandages wrapped around his arm and head, a splint on one wrist. And his leg, covered from foot to knee in plaster, was slightly elevated, his toes a slightly purple color. It was difficult to look at him, to know how much pain he would be in when he finally woke. But what was more difficult was watching Penelope hold his hand and stare at his sleeping form. I wanted to take this from her, to lift the burden that was making her shoulders curve inward. But I couldn’t. All I could do was sit beside her and try to share it.
Libby came into the room after a while and stood at my shoulder.
“Did they say how long he’ll have to be in the hospital?”
JOSS: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Page 88