Chapter 27
Hog
The clean scrubs and blanket they gave me don’t seem to be enough to keep the shivers at bay.
With the river temperatures in the mid-forties, it’s not a surprise I ended up with mild hypothermia. Anika not only ended up with a severe case, but came out of that freezing water with a hole in her shoulder.
Luckily, the wound is through and through, and she’ll recover with only a superficial scar as a visual reminder of the ordeal. But I’m afraid the emotional damage done is going to crater much deeper.
They have Anika under heated blankets and are flooding her with warm, intravenous fluids. She was asleep when I left the room a few minutes ago.
I wouldn’t have let the nurse shoo me out if I wasn’t expecting the Jones family to descend any moment. Both my phone and Anika’s are toast from being submerged, but Evans said he’d let the family know. I was almost surprised Bodhi hadn’t already found out and beaten the ambulance to the hospital.
I didn’t go far though. I’m leaning against the wall at the end of the hallway from where Anika is being treated, with a clear view of the emergency entrance.
That’s how I catch Bodhi walking in, his eyes immediately locking in on me. He doesn’t slow down, and for a moment I wonder if he’s going to whale on me so I push away from the wall and brace. Instead of a fist to my face, I find myself wrapped up in a bear hug, Bodhi’s hand pounding on my back.
“Fuck, man. Fuck.”
One more good slap and he lets me go.
“How is she?”
“She’s sleeping right now. She has hypothermia and was shot in the shoulder—a through-and-through—but she should recover.”
“Evans said it was Monique? What the fuck?”
Bodhi, who doesn’t swear often, is letting the F-bombs fly.
“Don’t ask me. I’m clueless.”
Behind Bodhi I see Trin rushing toward us. She wraps me in a hug as well.
“How is she?”
I let Bodhi answer. I’m sure we’ll hear that same question a couple more times.
My knees are getting a little shaky with the adrenaline letdown, and I have to lean my back against the wall again before I hit the floor. I wish there was a chair close by I could sink into.
“Are you okay?” Trin asks, putting her hand on my arm.
I’m saved from answering when the nurse, who sent me out of the room earlier, walks up.
“She’s asking for you.”
“She’s awake?” Bodhi interjects.
The nurse glances at him.
“This is her family, her brother and sister-in-law,” I clarify. “Can they come in?”
“You’ll have to take turns. Only two at a time, I’m afraid.”
“You guys go,” Trin offers when the nurse disappears down the hall. “I talked to your parents when I was parking the truck, they’re on their way, I’ll wait here for them.”
When I push away from the wall and start moving toward Anika’s room, Bodhi is right behind me.
“Jesus, you’re about to hit the fucking floor,” he comments, grabbing on to my arm.
I guess I’m still swaying on my legs.
Her amber eyes are open and fixed on the door when we walk in, and I’m overwhelmed by a wave of feelings that almost takes my legs out.
“Sit the fuck down,” Bodhi growls.
He shoves me onto a chair next to the bed, as he leans over the bed to kiss his sister on the cheek.
“You scared the fuck out of me,” he grumbles.
“He’s not kidding, he’s cursed more in the past five minutes than he normally does in a year,” I point out.
Her beautiful eyes come back to me and I reach out to take her hand in mine.
“Hey.”
Her voice is little more than a whisper, probably lost her voice in the river from yelling for help.
“Hey,” I echo.
Lifting her hand to kiss her palm, I notice dark marks circling her wrist. That wrist kept her tethered to me against the pull of the river.
“I hurt you.”
She looks at her wrist and back at me.
“And I couldn’t be more grateful,” she whispers, wincing a little when she shifts in the bed.
Bodhi notices too. “Are you in pain?” He reaches for the call button.
“Leave it,” Anika commands. “Pain is something I can handle better than feeling out of control.”
“You were shot, goddammit.”
“I’m aware,” she returns dryly. “But right now, I welcome the pain, it reminds me I’m alive.”
I bend down to kiss her knuckles, as her brother grunts. But he lets go of the button.
“Let me go see if Mom and Dad are here,” Bodhi announces, already making his way out the door. “Hog?”
I guess I should go and give her parents a chance to see her, but when I try to retrieve my hand, Anika holds on.
“Please stay…”
I turn to look at Bodhi, who gives me a small nod before disappearing out the door.
“I feel better with you here.”
My eyes slide back to her.
“Then I’m staying right here.”
She swallows a few times and licks her lips.
“I’m thirsty.”
There’s a Styrofoam cup of water with a straw set on the nightstand, and I offer it to her. She takes a sip and then blows out a heavy breath.
“It was Monique. She shot at me.”
“I know, Sweetheart.”
Her eyes well up.
“She hates me so much. I don’t understand, all those years I thought we were good friends.”
“She’s clearly not in her right mind,” I point out.
“She said I stole you from her…”
I lean in closer.
“That only proves she’s nuts, because I was never more than a customer to her.”
Not that she didn’t suggest for it to turn into something more on a few occasions, but I’ve only ever had eyes for Anika.
“And I never gave her reason to think so,” I add.
The next moment the door opens and Nira slips in, her focus on the bed.
“Oh, my precious girl.”
I reluctantly let go of Anika’s hand and sacrifice my chair to make room for her mother. There’s a comfortable chair in the corner of the room by the foot end of the bed where I take a seat.
From here I can keep an eye on her and on the door. I settle in and listen to Nira’s soft voice talking to her daughter.
In no time at all, my eyelids get heavy.
Anika
“Hello, my boys.”
I can barely walk in the door with the puppies jumping up around my legs.
If it had been up to Hog, I wouldn’t have been walking at all. He insisted on lifting me into the Suburban when we left the hospital, and was ready to lift me back out when we got home just now. I put my foot down though, and insisted on walking.
“Zeke! Ryder! Settle down,” Hog orders with debatable results. To me he says, “Sit in the chair, ’cause if you sit on the couch, they’re going to be all over you.”
He’s not wrong, and I’d prefer they don’t bump my shoulder.
I can’t remember who it was who told me day three was the worst in terms of pain when recovering from most injuries, but I’m feeling the truth of it. I almost asked for a painkiller this morning—because the over-the-counter stuff definitely wasn’t cutting it today—but was afraid they might not let me go home.
And I desperately wanted to come home after two days in a hospital bed. I haven’t slept well at all, and I’m pretty sure it’s not because of the quality of the bed. Someone had to be home with the puppies, so I made Hog go home at night, but to be honest, he doesn’t look like he’s had a lot of sleep either.
“I’m not sure if you’re up to it,” he says, after making sure I was comfortable with the ottoman under my feet. “But Landon wanted to come by this afternoon. He was very upset, so I told him okay; but I can always change that.”
More evidence of how much Hog cares about me; he was at the salon yesterday morning helping my staff deal with yet more cancellations and disgruntled customers.
In absolute record time, Hog has managed to become almost indispensable in my life. Since childhood, I don’t think I’ve relied on anyone else as heavily as I do on him. There have been a few times—especially over the last couple of days—where I’ve wondered what it is I offer him in return.
But I don’t doubt he loves me. He may not remind me in words, but I see it in everything he does.
“No, that’s fine. Did he say what time?”
“I told him after lunch.”
I glance over at the clock on the stove. It’s almost noon now, and I know Bill Evans mentioned he’d be dropping in as well.
He came by the hospital yesterday morning to question me, which wasn’t fun for me. Recounting the ordeal, reciting Monique’s words, and reliving every minute was torturous, but also a bit cathartic. I guess the more you talk about it, the less of a hold you let it have on you.
Still, I have plenty of new material for the nightmares keeping me up at night.
Especially after Evans mentioned some of the things he discovered in Monique’s mobile home. For instance, she had a file with copies of every single item in my purse; my bank and credit cards, my driver’s license, any receipts, appointment cards I kept, and even a copy of my car insurance. She had copies of my family pictures on her phone, had my parents and brother listed in her contacts, and kept a disturbingly detailed calendar of a lot of my day-to-day activities going back years.
I still can’t wrap my head around the fact I had no idea she was this fixated on me.
Evans mentioned he hadn’t questioned Monique yet, because he wanted to search her house and talk to me first. He felt he needed a clearer picture of who he was dealing with before interviewing her yesterday afternoon. I’m very curious to find out what, if anything, she shared with him.
I listen to Hog talking to the dogs as he fills their bowls with kibble. When I glance over my shoulder, I see him smiling down at them as they dig in. The boys have no manners, scarfing down their food and doing it grunting, snorting, and slobbering.
“They sound like your pigs,” I tell Hog, who glances up at me.
“I know. Are you hungry?”
I had a slice of white toast, fruit salad from a can, and a watery substance that didn’t deserve to be labelled coffee at the hospital, all of which has long worn off.
“I’m starving, and I would do anything for a decent cup of coffee,” I admit.
Hog snaps his fingers. “I almost forgot. One second.”
He moves to the front hall, shoves his feet into his shoes, and walks out the door. A few moments later he’s back, lugging my espresso machine from the salon.
“You’re crazy,” I tell him, all the while melting at his thoughtfulness.
He shoves my toaster aside and parks the espresso machine on my kitchen counter.
“No use having it sit idle at the salon when no one is going to be there to enjoy it,” he points out.
He and Mom pushed for me to close the Chop Shop for at least a week. Their arguments are valid, with me out of commission for a bit, and Monique behind bars, we have a very lean crew left.
However, I’m not sure how long I can keep paying my employees without any revenue coming in. I also don’t want to risk losing any more goodwill from my customers.
For the time being, I agreed to closing half the week. We have Kim’s funeral tomorrow, I’ll have Tuesday and Wednesday to try and find yet another hairdresser—although maybe two part-time ones would give some more flexibility—and then we could open up for Thursday, Friday, and a full instead of half a day on Saturday.
This morning, after the doctor dropped in and made it clear having a hole in your muscle is not something that you recover from in a few days, I realized I might need that week after all. It looks like it’ll take a lot longer than I’d hoped for me to be able to cut hair again. That means I’ll need to rework my budget and my business format to find a way I can make that work.
“Keep your fingers crossed I don’t blow it up,” Hog announces from the kitchen, over the noise of the coffee grinder.
Zeke is wandering over to check out the new noise, while Ryder is hiding under my feet, between the chair and the ottoman.
“How does grilled cheese sound?” he asks a few minutes later, as he proudly presents me with a flawlessly executed cup of coffee.
“Perfect,” I tell him as I grab on to his arm before he can get away. “But do you know what I’d really like first?”
I grin up at him, and he immediately leans over, bracing his arms on the armrests on either side of me. One side of his mouth is hitched up.
“What is that?”
“A proper kiss. Haven’t had one in days.”
He’s limited me to light brushes of lips and friendly pecks, maybe afraid of breaking me. But I’m done with that. I want to feel him, taste him.
“Don’t question me,” I warn him when it looks like he’s about to do just that.
I reach up with my good hand and grab him by the short hairs of his beard, tugging him down. When he’s within reach, I lift my mouth to his and loop my arm around his neck.
That wonderful, warm, melty feeling settles deep in my belly when his tongue slides between my lips. A moan escapes me, and I feel his lips smile. He kisses me slowly, but thoroughly, and soon I’m no longer feeling any pain.
The sound of the doorbell breaks the spell.