Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
The phone rang, and Mitch’s belly clenched.
He’d been feeling this crazy sense of foreboding all day. And since it was Cam’s momma calling, the feeling intensified.
“Hey, lady? Did you need some help?” The Halley house was still down with the stomach flu. Hopefully no one had gone to the hospital.
“Mitch?” She sounded like she’d been crying. “There’s been an accident.”
His mouth went dry, and he thought he might hear a little ringing in his ears. He ran worst-case scenarios in his head. “What happened? Who’s hurt?”
“It’s Cam. He’s in the hospital in Las Vegas. Somebody threw some fireworks in the ring when he was hazing for one of the bulldoggers. He went ass-over-teakettle, and they don’t know what’s broken yet. He’s got a concussion and he’s out.”
Shit, shit, fuck, damn shit. He couldn’t fucking cope with this. Just when things had gotten where they were running decent. He knew, he knew this was going to happen.
“No one knew how to get a hold of you, so they called me. None of us can go, Mitch. We’re all still sick. We can’t go and pass it around a hospital.”
“Don’t worry. I’m gonna take care of it. I’ll go get him and bring him home when it’s time.”
“The girls have school and…”
“If I have to, I’ll bring them with me. It sure isn’t gonna kill them to miss a week or so of school. Like they do anything at this time of the year anyway.” It was so close to the holiday break that everybody sat in class and read or did silly things because the kids couldn’t concentrate.
She sniffled, and she sounded so freaked out that he worked hard to keep his voice calm. “Don’t you worry, Momma Halley. I’ll take care of him. He’s going to be fine.”
“I knew I could count on you, Mitch. He’s at University Hospital.”
“Is someone taking care of Fire for the time being?”
“Yes, the man he was hazing for. His name is Dale. I’ll send you his number.”
“Text me everything you have. As soon as I can get all the girls rounded up and in the damn vehicle, we’ll be on our way.”
“I’ll Venmo you some money too, so you can get gas and a hotel room. Don’t argue with me,” she said when he drew in a breath, ready to do just that. “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”
He didn’t argue, even though he wanted to. She didn’t need him fighting with her right now. And he was probably going to need that money because he had no idea how long Cam could be at the hospital.
Feeding four people on the road was going to be expensive.
“All right, keep in touch if you hear anything new. I’m going to head out as soon as I can.” He would pack the girls a bag each and grab them at school.
“Thank you, Mitch, bring my boy home safe, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll do my best.”
He packed four bags, three stuffies—one moose, one goofy ostrich, and one yellow teddy bear made from the blanket Bekka had come home from the hospital with—along with a great big bag of things to do and all the electronics he could grab.
Then he called Mark who picked up immediately. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
He arched an eyebrow, putting the first set of bags in front of the door. “How do you know anything’s up?”
“You never call in the middle of the day. What’s wrong?”
Mitch chuckled softly, the sound rough and without any humor at all.
“Cam’s hurt real bad. He’s in the hospital.
I’m going to take the girls to Vegas to go and do whatever I can because everybody in his family has got the stomach flu.
I’m going to need some help. I can’t leave those girls alone in a hospital. Or in a hotel room for hours.”
He was desperate, and he needed Mark.
“All right, I’ll meet you in Vegas. I’ll tell you when my flight gets in. You’re what? Six, seven hours out?”
He nodded. “Something like that, yeah.”
“All right, no problem. I can get myself a bag together and some stuff for the girls, and then we’ll just coordinate that while you’re driving. I’ll fly out, and we’ll be good.”
He blinked—he’d called and asked for this, and he’d known Mark would do it, but it was the ease, the immediacy of the whole thing left him shocked. “I—I really appreciate this. Are you sure? We can do this?”
“Hey! That’s what friends are for. You go get the girls. Get on the road, and I can’t wait to get reacquainted with your man.”
He nodded and hung up the phone before he could burst into tears because, Jesus, how cool was it that he could just call, and Mark would say “I’m on my way” like it was nothing. Like there was nothing else in his life that took priority. He was a lucky son of a bitch. He shook his head.
Then he called up to the elementary school, and Miss Maydel answered the phone. “Nellie Pecina Elementary. Can I help you?”
“Hey, this is Mitch Gonzales. There’s been a family emergency, and I’m going to have to pick up the girls. Could you please get the three of them ready and get whatever homework they’re going to need for the next week, please? I’ll be up there in about half an hour.”
“Is everything all right?”
“It’s going to be I hope, but I got to go. I’ll be up there in half an hour.” Give or take. “Thank you for this.”
“Yes, sir, no problem.”
He texted Wilder to ask if he could get someone to come out and feed the horses and pick Rosie up so he wasn’t lonely.
Rosie came wagging up to him as he loaded the back of the car with snacks and juice boxes, the big guy pushing at his hand, trying to get up in the SUV.
“Oh, sweet boy, I can’t take you. There’s not a hotel in Las Vegas that would let me have your big, goofy body.
” He leaned down and rubbed ears and stared into Rosie’s eyes.
“Don’t you worry. Someone’s going to come feed you.
Wilder’s going to take you home with him for the duration, and then when I get home, I’ll bring the girls.
We’ll have Christmas together, all of us. It’ll be okay.”
Leastways it’d better be fine or he was fixin’ to be grumpy. He shoved all the stuff in the truck, and then headed out.
When he got to the school, he was faced with three terrified little girls in their coats, carrying their bags and books and papers, all three of them staring.
Rachel was crying, Sarah was stony-faced, but it was Bekka who simply asked, “What’s wrong, Daddy?”
He opened his arms to them. “Cam got hurt in Las Vegas, and he’s in the hospital, and we’re going to go pick him up because he needs his family.”
Rachel’s eyes got wide. “Are you gonna leave us at home?”
He snorted. “Did I say I was going to take you home and leave you there, and then go to Vegas? No, I did not. I’m taking you.
We are driving to Las Vegas. We are going to have an adventure.
We’re meeting Uncle Mark when we get there, and then we are staying in a hotel.
There might even be swimming—I don’t know, I’m not making any promises.
I did pack your swimming suits just in case.
I have all the stuff. We’re going to go to Vegas to go see Cam now. ”
“Okay, Daddy.” Sarah nodded very firmly. “We’re going to go get him, and we’re going to bring him home, and he’s going to be okay.”
Rachel ran to him and hugged him, but he thought it was just so she could wipe her nose on his coat. “Is he very sick, Daddy?”
And Mitch was terrified, absolutely nauseated, and hoping to God when Cam did wake up, he was in there. “His momma told me he’s got a concussion and probably some other stuff, but he hasn’t woken up yet. He’s having a nice long nap to get over it.”
Bekka was the one who was old enough to get all the implications of that. She loved to watch movies about people who woke up from comas. So she looked at him with wounded eyes. “He’s just going to have to be better in time for Christmas.”
She grabbed her sisters’ hands and marched them toward the SUV, but didn’t try to walk out into the parking lot until he was there to help look both ways and herd them a bit.
He got them all settled in their car seats and boosters, and then got in the driver’s side.
He would stop and get them a snack after they got on the road.
The girls loved those truck stop places with a Subway and a Burger King or whatever in them.
They liked to browse through the shelves and get things like Slim Jims, pistachio nuts, and Little Debbie cakes.
He glanced in the rearview mirror, and he hated how pale they all were.
“What about Rosie, Daddy?” Sarah asked, her voice very prim and proper.
“Wilder’s going to take care of him, baby girl. He wanted to come with us, but I told him he couldn’t. He had to stay and Wilder said he could go stay at their house.”
She looked relieved. “Is he going to take care of everybody else too? The goats and the chickens and the other horses, and everything?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned his eyes back to the road, but he did glance back every so often to make sure the girls weren’t crying or having hysteria.
His baby girls were practical as hell, but they’d been to a lot of hospitals between him and their mom. Well, at least Rachel didn’t remember that part. She just knew she had lost someone.
“Is Uncle Mark driving in to meet us or is he going to fly?” That was Bekka, who had already pulled a tablet out of the webbed pocket in the seat back in front of her.
“He’s going to fly, and he says he’ll get us a hotel, so that we have a place to stay when we get there.
” Mitch had a feeling Mark would also get the lay of the land of the hospital, even if the doctors and nurses probably wouldn’t tell him anything, because he didn’t have a claim of being any kind of next of kin to Cam.
Maybe if he called Ms. Halley, she could give them permission to talk to Mark.
Rachel swung her legs a bit. He could hear her feet kicking the seat, but he wasn’t going to complain. “We love Uncle Mark.”
“I do too, kiddo, and he’s really helping us out. I’m not sure we could do this without him.”
“Are Granny and Grandpa Halley still sick with the stomach flu?”