Patrick wasn’t that bad. He had thrown himself into the path of danger to protect her. It was unfortunate that he had wound up hurting her, but she didn’t think she was hurt as badly as she would’ve been if that mountain lion had gotten her teeth and claws into her. “Is he awake yet?”
“He is not exactly unconscious. They’ve just been sedating him. Trying to keep him from moving around and ripping all his stitches out. Zeke says he’s healing. I tried to look in on him, but Zeke and his daddy were having a big old fight so I just tiptoed away.”
“A fight? What about?”
Amber sat down again in the chair beside Heather’s bed. She patted her twin’s hand. “What do you think they were fighting about? Patrick’s marriage to you, of course. Daddy Bascom thinks Patrick has been conned by a hillbilly family. Married beneath him. He’s complaining that your marriage isn’t legal because it was performed under duress. As if Father Armstrong wasn’t good enough for those rich asswipes.” Her voice was scornful.
Heather felt her belly cramp even harder. It was perfectly true that their marriage wasn’t legal. No contract performed with a shotgun pointed at the signers was legal. “What did Patrick say?”
“He was mumbling and trying to get up. But I don’t think he was really properly awake.” Amber lowered her voice until it was almost inaudible. “They’ve got him on morphine. And you know what that does to us.”
Actually, Heather didn’t. But her whole life she had been told to be careful about taking even the most harmless seeming over-the-counter medications. Drugs had an unpredictable effect on bear shifters. Sometimes they were completely ineffectual. Other times they had totally unexpected side effects. Mostly of the unpleasant kind. “Zeke let them do that?”
Amber shrugged. “Patrick’s torn up pretty badly. They had to stitch him back together. The doctor said that unless he started healing properly they were going to go back in and do more surgery. I don’t think Zeke had much choice but to allow them to sedate his brother. At least that’s what Jenna says.”
“Where is she? I haven’t seen her today?”
“At work. She thinks you need bed rest too. She doesn’t want you walking around until your uterus settles down.”
Heather rubbed her belly. She couldn’t feel the babies bopping around inside. Not when her entire abdomen was firming and squeezing at irregular intervals. She had grown used to the butterfly wings tickling her insides at intervals. If they were still alive, surely she should be able to feel them?
Her foolish insistence on going to the river at dawn had endangered her babies, and gotten Patrick hurt. What had happened to her intuition? That man had seriously scrambled her senses. And her common sense. But it all came back to his cubs. “I’m going to lose my babies, aren’t I?”
“No,” Amber’s voice was very fierce and very certain. “Not if you do as you’re told.”
Heather’s belly cramped. This time the spasm was so fierce it made her sit up. She felt a gush between her legs. “Amber,” she screamed.
But Amber was already pressing the call button and stripping the covers back.
* * *
“How are you doing today, my son?” Father Armstrong settled himself comfortably in the chair beside Patrick’s bed.
“I feel like death warmed over. They tell me it’s a good sign.” Patrick responded.
The priest nodded. “When patients begin to complain, they’re usually on the mend.”
“What are you doing here?” Patrick demanded.
“I’m visiting my parishioners,” Armstrong rejoined. “I just paid a call on Heather.” He shook his gray head sorrowfully.
“How is she?” He was croaking again. No one would level with him. His popcorn was gone. He had fucking killed his babies.
Father Armstrong’s face fell. “You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t.” He swallowed hard. “Tell me.”
“She had a relapse yesterday.” The priest was calm but grave.
Shit. And no one had told him. Not Zeke. Not Jeremy. Not those goddamned nurses. He didn’t know what to say. Father Armstrong patted his hand. “I really came by, because your father called at the rectory. He is concerned about your marriage. He threatened me with all kinds of legal mayhem for performing an illegal marriage.” He raised his eyebrows. “I wonder what he thinks would’ve happened if I hadn’t?”
Patrick grunted. He wasn’t sure that the Duprés would actually have shot Father Armstrong. But they might have shot him. Those shotguns they had been waving had been loaded. And they had been drinking and egging each other. Mobs naturally led to mayhem.
“Marriages performed under duress are not legal,” he agreed. He felt as though he had taken a mule kick to the stomach. And was too stupid to move away from the flying hooves as they continued to pound into his abdomen. What the fuck? If Heather was no longer pregnant, what the hell hold did he have on her?
Armstrong cleared his throat. “We can file paperwork,” he said. “Or when you’re well enough, we can take you upstairs and you can say your vows all over again – without a lot of angry Duprés waving weapons at you.”
Patrick seized his opportunity. He bared his teeth at the priest. “I’m well enough today.”
Father Armstrong smiled gently and leaned back in the chair and crossed one leg over his knee. “Excellent. If we can get your nurses to agree, I’ll be happy to perform the ceremony this afternoon. And this time your family and Heather’s sister can be present.”
Now he had something else to worry about. He hoped Amber Dupré was not going to put a spoke in his wheel. What he needed was to get this deal signed, sealed, and delivered before Heather realized she didn’t have any reason to marry a surly son-of-a-bear who had killed her babies.
He smiled at Father Armstrong. “This afternoon will be fine.” Once he had her locked down, he could set about charming her. Given time, he was reasonably sure he could get her to love him back.
Father Armstrong flinched, but he smiled gamely back. “I’ll go back upstairs and speak to Heather when I’m done here. Now I have strict instructions you are to be kept calm. I’m not sure if you’re up to hearing about baseball, but we’ll start with how the Rockies are doing.”
* * *
Jeremy argued with him all the way to the maternity ward. Patrick tuned him out. Heather might be from the backwoods. She might be poor. She might even have laid a trap for him. But he didn’t give a flying fuck. He wanted her. And he wasn’t going to give her time to realize she didn’t have to marry him. Zeke had managed to shave. The nurse had ixnayed his own wish to be clean-shaven for his wedding. He had decided to save his breath to say his wedding vows.
They had cranked Heather’s bed up, and she was awake. Barely. She had lost her rosy glow and her cheeks were sunken again. Her hair in its tidy braid was slightly greasy. Probably they hadn’t let her have a shower either. He had had to endure Zeke scrubbing caked blood from his own bristly face with wet towelettes.
Heather tried a smile but her lips wobbled as if she couldn’t hold her sadness in. He wished Jeremy would push his wheelchair a little faster. It took some maneuvering, and they had to move her table away, but at last he was beside her bed and able to hold her hand. She gripped his back and set her teeth on her lower lip.
She was still wearing her wedding ring. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? “How are you feeling?” he asked her.
She looked around at the roomful of people and shook her head slightly. “Fine,” she lied. “What about you?”
“I’ll recover.” He cleared his throat. His thumb ran back and forth over the gold ring. “Are you going to marry me again?” he asked softly. Not softly enough apparently, if the broad smiles of their audience were any indication. You’d think they would give him and Heather a little privacy.
She nodded. “Yes.” She sounded very certain. His spirits rose. Despite their rocky start, maybe she was already falling in love with him?
Father Armstrong pul
led a shabby black book from his jacket pocket. He rearranged Zeke and Jeremy, Amber and Gilbert and Debbie. And then he began to read the words of the marriage service.
It didn’t take long before he was instructing Patrick to kiss his bride. There was no way he could reach Heather’s lips while seated in his wheelchair. Even if Zeke’s big hands weren’t holding him down. He had to settle for kissing her hand.
Then he signed Father Armstrong’s book, and the marriage license, and Gilbert broke out champagne – which he and Heather were not allowed to drink. Amber produced a bottle of carbonated water and poured them both glasses.
There was a lot of hugging and kissing and congratulations. He shook hands with his father and uncle and exchanged man-hugs with his brother. Amber bent to accept his peck on the cheek with a face that would’ve soured milk. But at least she didn’t denounce him as a sister-in-law molester.
Heather looked worn enough to faint. “You okay?” he whispered.
“Just a little tired,” she whispered back.
And just like that his wedding reception was over. Heather’s bed was lowered as tenderly as if she were at death’s door. Zeke wheeled him away. And the truth was he too felt as weak as a kitten. As tuckered out as if he’d gone on a fifty-mile hike with a full pack and no boots.
He didn’t make any objection when Zeke took him back to his own bed. He went off to sleep feeling the satisfaction of having closed a difficult negotiation. He had her now. He just needed a plan to keep her.
* * *
“You are going to have to do as you are told, if you want to keep your babies.” Jenna tidied up Heather’s night table as she spoke.
Heather wiped her eyes.
“Don’t you believe me?” Jenna handed her the box of tissues.
Heather blew her nose. “I guess. Are you sure they are okay?”
“I’m sure. The ultrasound showed them looking just fine. Developing on schedule. You just need to stop having those contractions.” Jenna smoothed out the already smooth covers.
“I’m not taking drugs,” Heather insisted.
“That is absolutely your choice. But staying in bed is not up for discussion. You can go to the bathroom – with help – but that’s it.” Jenna looked up from arranging the box of tissues and the water jug. “I’m going to suggest that Patrick hire a nurse to look after you when you are discharged.”
“I don’t know if there’s room for a nurse at the cabin,” Heather protested.
“You. Are. Not. Going. Back. To. Any. Hunting. Camp.” Jenna said.
“Patrick said we could find someplace else on the Ridge.”
“Don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
Jenna looked stricken. “Zeke and his daddy were talking about this plastic surgeon in Denver. They want Patrick to leave in two days. With you.”
Heather could feel her heart shrinking in her chest. She drew in a breath on a sob. Jenna was immediately beside her. She sat in the chair at the bedside and clasped Heather’s hand in both of hers. “Oh, honey, I shouldn’t have said a word. I didn’t think.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“How’s it going, buddy?” Lenny Benoit settled his bulk into the hospital armchair. He was so big that his head stuck up way past the high back. And his shoulders overflowed the sides.
Patrick looked groggily at his visitor. “I’m healing – so they tell me.”
Lenny got back up and closed the door. “We’ll have to talk fast. The nurse will be along to open that door in about a minute and a half.”
“What’s up?” Was something wrong with Heather?
“I hear you want to go running off to Denver,” Lenny said. “You thinking of leaving our girl behind?”
Patrick blinked. “Whoa. Where’d you hear that?” He was going nowhere without his bride.
“Fellas at the airstrip say your daddy ordered his plane fueled and ready to fly on notice. You’re supposed to be heading to Denver to see a plastic surgeon.”
“The backs of my thighs aren’t healing properly. The sutures keep pulling out,” Patrick admitted. “The doctor wants to go back in. Likely my father knows someone he thinks is better.” And the Bascoms could afford the best medical care. Jeremy might be a shitty parent, but he did his best.
“You know what you need is bear doctoring,” Lenny said. His big, broad face was sincere.
“Meaning?”
“You ought to go recuperate in the woods.” He held out his arm. Lenny held out a massive arm. “See that scar?”
“No.”
“That’s because there isn’t one. But you could expect that since it was a compound fracture with the bones poking through the skin, that there would be one. I’m not saying it would have healed right without a doctor putting the bones back correctly and sticking it in a cast, but I finished his work by following the old ways. If you see what I mean?”
Patrick remembered how the wound he had received in Syria had healed after just a few minutes in bear. And how both those lingering bruises from the thrashing he had received, and the fresh ones from his bungling attempts to climb the mountain, to say nothing of his headache, had disappeared when he finally shifted. Beneficial as that had been, shifting still made him feel deeply uneasy. He raised his eyebrows. “Convince me, Benoit.”
“This isn’t an experiment, my friend, this is how our clan has healed since Jacques Benoit brought the Salish woman to these mountains.”
“Who the fuck was Jacques Benoit? What the fuck is a Salish woman?” Patrick snarled.
Lenny looked pitying. “Didn’t your granddaddy tell you about Jacques Benoit?”
“My Grandfather Bascom died before I was born,” Patrick said. “And my great-grandfather never talked about Washington State.”
Lenny leaned forward. “What I thought. Still, I would have thought that Gil would have told you about your heritage.”
“He did his best,” Patrick said loyally. “But I don’t recall hearing about any Jacques Benoit.”
“Long story short, Jacques was a fur trader who wandered into these hills two hundred or more years ago. He had picked himself up a woman from the Salish tribes in Canada. They say she was as powerful as he was. They founded our clan and the clan founded French Town.”
“Huh.”
“You think there’s some other reason why you can turn into a bear and other mortals can’t?” Benoit asked in a gravelly whisper.
“Genetics,” Patrick snapped. “It’s just genetics.”
“Well, sure. That’s why in these parts it’s only the descendants of Jacques Benoit that have talent. If you want you can say that we just have genes for healing, and genes for wooing our mates. But whether you call it magic – or something else – it’s like playing the piano, if you don’t practice, you don’t develop your potential.”
Lenny looked at the shut door. “You need to develop some potential, Bascom. ASAP. You have a bride to look out for and you can’t look out for anyone lying in bed drugged up.”
Patrick remembered not to nod. His head still felt only weakly attached to his neck. “I don’t feel like I have the energy for that crap.”
“They’ve got you back on morphine.” Lenny shook his head disapprovingly. “Not good for your system. Not at all.”
“Heather doesn’t want to live in a city.” Patrick spoke his thought aloud.
“Cities are all right for a visit. Bit too crowded for bears.”
The door opened and a small man in scrubs walked in. “We have to keep this open,” he said propping it wide. A badge on his chest said his name was Alex. His hospital identity card swung from a coiled line at his hip.
“Sure,” Lenny said easily. He got to his feet. “We’ll make a plan for that physical therapy.”
The nurse’s face became even more disapproving. “Mr. Bascom is nowhere near ready for physical therapy. Now, it’s time to change our dressing.”
Lenny grinned. “Want I should shut the door while you’re tending to you
r patient?”
“We can draw the curtain.”
Lenny grinned wider. “Be seeing you, buddy.” He left whistling.
“Do we need help to turn over?” the nurse asked, pulling back the covers to expose Patrick from the chest down.
Patrick bared his teeth. “We do.” Running around in fucking bear was beginning to sound like fun.
* * *
Think. She had to think. “Would Zeke go back on his word to you?” Heather asked Jenna.
“Hell, no.”
“Then I shouldn’t assume that Patrick would.” He was a surly, ill-tempered city slicker. But she didn’t think her inner bear would let her fall in love with a liar. And it felt more and more like she had fallen in love with her husband.
“Patrick is not like Zeke,” Jenna said mournfully.
“That’s true. But you overheard Zeke and Jeremy making plans for Patrick. Patrick wasn’t there. And I know that Patrick’s daddy told him I was a gold digger – Amber heard them quarreling – and yet he waltzed up here from his sickbed to marry me all over again. Just how bad is he hurt anyway?”
“He was mauled pretty bad. He has deep lacerations to his neck and shoulders and the cat’s hind claws made a mess of his hamstrings. He can’t walk properly.”
Patrick had risked his life defending her. Automatically. That spoke well of his instincts. “Maybe he should see a plastic surgeon, Jenna. They don’t just make you pretty – they can save nerve and muscle function.”
Jenna snorted. “If you ask me, what he needs is to go into the woods and take bear.”
Heather looked around. The door was open but she saw nobody. She nodded and spoke low. “Wouldn’t occur to him. He is a mite conflicted about his beast. I am hoping he will get over that.”
Jenna looked thoughtful. She pulled her chair closer. “So was Zeke when I first met him. Damn fool nearly froze to death in the Big Nasty.”
Heather knew all about that freak winter storm when it had rained for weeks followed by a blizzard that had blanketed the fallen trees and mudslides in wet snow. Lots of animals had died in the Big Nasty. Zeke had been lucky to get away with just hypothermia. And to stumble on a nurse practitioner. But bear shifters were lucky. It was part of the package.
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