Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mitch stopped at the hotel for a long shower and a short nap.
Mark had the girls at the hot tub, and it was perfect, because he was exhausted, and it was quiet and peaceful.
“Daddy? Granny Halley called and said to please call her.” Bekka smiled at him when she walked into his room. “Does this mean Cam is awake?”
“It does. He’s awake, he knows me, and he’s going to come home soon.” He sat up, blinking owlishly. “Are you three having fun?”
“We are having so much fun, and it’s good to see Uncle Mark, but we would rather you not be at the hospital. Cam too.”
He chuckled at her and shook his head. “I bet. Let me call your Granny Halley, and then I’ll probably head back up to the hospital and see if I can bring Cam some not-hospital food.”
She bounced at him, drying off her hair with a big towel. “He likes Big Macs.”
“Nuh-uh, it’s Quarter Pounders with cheese.” Sarah came in, rolling her eyes dramatically. “She likes Big Macs, which are gushy, and we don’t like that. Are you going to go to McDonald’s, because I could have some chicken nuggets with sauce.”
“I like chicken nuggets!” Rachel bounced in, soaking wet. “Hi, Daddy!”
“Don’t get on the bed. Hi, babies, I love you. He can have whatever he wants, but maybe he this time he just wants a milkshake. However, I will totally bring home McDonald’s when I go out. Why don’t you three go find out what Uncle Mark wants?”
Rachel shook her head. “Uncle Mark is in the bathroom because he is wet, and he has to get changed.”
“Well, aren’t you wet? Go dry off in the other bathroom and put on some clothes.”
He just needed five or six more kids to keep him busy…
“Okay!” Rachel ran out, leaving wet footprints in her wake.
“We could just go with you, Daddy,” Sarah pointed out.
“I’ll see how Cam feels, huh?” He knew he’d said they could all have lunch together, but Cam had been hurting pretty bad. “Thank you both for drying off first.”
They had wet hair, but they were changed and didn’t smell like chlorine.
“How can you see how Cam feels if he doesn’t have his phone, Daddy?” Sarah kind of gave him a hard look. She wasn’t being sarcastic. It was an honest question, which was sort of sad.
“There’s phones in the rooms of hospitals.”
She blinked. “Like phones? Really?”
“Yes, you remember when Daddy got hurt? They have phones in those rooms.” Bekka was trying so hard not to be evil.
“I thought those were just for the nurses and the people who brought you food.”
“Mostly.” He smiled at them, because they made him so happy. “But you can actually dial 9 to dial out, and you can get phone calls.”
“Wow.”
“I know, right? You know, when I was a little boy, every house had a phone like that. People didn’t have phones that you could just carry around if they weren’t really rich.”
“How did you look stuff up?” Bekka asked, and that was when the sarcasm hit because Sarah rolled her eyes like dice.
“Books. They used books.”
“We did. We had to use the school library a lot of times or the public library, and we used a lot of books to look things up — dictionaries, encyclopedias.”
Bekka’s eyes lit up. “Oh, Granny Halley has those in her house. She said that they were her momma and daddy’s. They’re old.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty cool.” He didn’t mock because to these little ones, the 1960s and 1970s were unimaginable.
Homes without microwaves or televisions with remotes or, hell, listening to his folks, they hadn’t even had air-conditioning until they were teenagers.
“Well, you should call him. If you call him right now, then we can talk to him.” And Sarah did love her Cam, maybe more than the other two…
“If I call him right now, then your little sister isn’t in here.”
“We would go get her. One of us. Probably.”
“Listen to you. I’m going to make it to where you can’t hang out with your Uncle Mark anymore if you don’t quit being sarcastic all the time.”
He could tell that Sarah wasn’t sure if she should be worried or not. He was fairly sure she wouldn’t even know what sarcasm was.
“I’m sorry. I just want to talk to Cam.”
“All right, baby.” He dialed the hospital and entered Cam’s room number.
It took a second, and then Cam answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey! I just wanted to let you know that I’ve got someone here who wants to talk to you. In fact, I’ve got two someones here.”
“Cool, let me talk to them.”
He put the phone on speaker. “Go ahead, girls, you’re on speaker.”
“Cam, are you okay? We miss you,” Bekka started, Sarah nodded and broke in when Bekka took a breath.
“I’ve been really good. I’ve been reading my book, and I went out and saw Fire twice in the arena lot and told them that you were okay and that you were coming to get him, and he was so unhappy, and he wants you to get better too.”
“Oh, honey, thank you. You be careful now. I don’t want you going in the trailer with him, especially if he’s grumpy.”
“Oh, I won’t. I promise. I just wanted him to know that it was okay and that no one was going to leave him here. Did you know there were two horses?”
Two horses? What?
“I don’t know what the other one’s name is, but she’s nice. She has a big scratch on her face. I think it’s a she.”
“There shouldn’t be two horses, should there, Mitch?”
“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry. I’ll run out there before I come to see you.” Just what they needed, a bonus horse.
“Good, good. Where’s my other girls?”
“I’m right here, Cam. Rachel’s getting dressed.
We were in the hot tub swimming with Uncle Mark.
I think we should get a hot tub for our house, Cam.
” Bekka grinned at Sarah as she nodded. “I think you and I could figure out how to budget it, and then I could get a babysitting job. There’s lots of kids around our house now. ”
“Do you think we need a hot tub?”
“I do.”
Mitch listened to this with half an ear, just shaking his head. This was the first time that he had heard her ask for something so confidently in an eon.
Also, how had they known where the horse was held?
“Well, I think you and I will have plenty of time while I’m healing to talk about it and plan it out. I’m going to need some help around the house. Especially at first. Do you girls think you’ll be able to help me?”
“We will.”
Sarah nodded. “We so will.”
“Is that Cam?” Rachel’s little voice was loud, and she came running in. “Cam! I heard you.”
“Hey, sweet baby. How are you?”
“I miss you. We went to the Lego store, and we went to the Walmart, and I bought you a present, and we’ve bought snacks. Are you hungry? We like snacks. Do you like chicken nuggets? Sarah says you like a Quarter Pounder — that’s a hamburger — but I think chicken nuggets are better.”
Cam’s chuckle was weak. “If it’s from McDonald’s, I want a milkshake.”
“I told them that. Anything else?” Mitch asked.
“Maybe just a cheeseburger this time? I do like a Quarter Pounder, baby girl, but that might be a little hard on my tummy today.”
“You hit your head. Is it making you urpy?” Rachel asked.
“Just a little.” Cam sounded tired as fuck. Mitch knew he’d been sleeping a lot, but they’d given him some pain meds, and that made a guy loopy.
“Well, we can make it better. We’ll come kiss your head.”
“I can’t wait to see y’all. I mean it.” Cam sounded like he was breathing through his nose. “Just bring me a milkshake when you come.”
“You rest for a bit. I’ll call again before I come down and see if you feel like me bringing this crew to you.” He held up a hand when the girl started to protest. “If they have to, they can wait and see you tomorrow morning.”
“Thanks, babe. Find out about that horse, okay?”
“I got it. I’m on top of it.” It felt good to be on top of things. It didn’t feel good to have Cam being so sick or sitting in the hospital, but Mitch was glad he could turn the favor around and be functional for a change.
“I love you all so much,” Cam said. “I’ll see you soon.”
“We love you,” the girls chorused. They were so sad not to be with Cam.
“I’ll see you soon, babe,” Mitch said, echoing Cam’s sentiment. “Love you.”
Bekka gave him a very serious look. “Cam doesn’t sound very good. Maybe we ought to stay here at the hotel while you go back, Daddy.”
“Yeah, I think that might be a good idea. We can go see him in the morning all together and take him breakfast instead. Okay? You guys can get lunch with Mark, and then I’ll bring McDonald’s back when I come back at dinner time.”
“I don’t want to make Cam feel any worse.”
“Yeah, I don’t think any of us want that. How about we go find Mark? I need to talk to him about this horse situation.”
“Okay, Daddy.” They all gave in with relative grace, and he was grateful. He knew they were impatient to see Cam. God knows he was ready for Cam to be out of the hospital. And he’d only been here two days waiting. But they couldn’t chance taking it too fast.
He got the girls rounded up and then headed off to Mark’s room. He knew the guy probably was happy to have a break because he had been taking a shower and maybe even fixing to lie down for a nap. But he really needed to ask about this horse thing.
Mark had been the one to go out to check on Fire at the rodeo arena, and then found a cowboy to deal with everything. He was the one taking care of Fire right now, as Mitch went to the hospital off-and-on.
So he knocked on Mark’s door while the girls did some sort of strange TikTok dance in the hallway and waited. It took Mark about five minutes to answer, so he had a feeling his friend had to get dressed, but that was okay. He could wait. While he was still waking up from his nap.
“Hey.” Mark’s eyebrows gyrated wildly when he opened the door, his white-blond hair spiky and going every which way from the shower. “I hope it’s okay that I sent the girls to you to get dressed and everything.”
“Of course it’s okay, they’re my kids. If I didn’t look after them once in a while people would think it was weird.” He winked. “Can I talk to you about something now?”
“Sure, you want to come in?”