Chapter Twenty-Five
God, I fucking hate hospitals.
Madden gritted his teeth and suffered through another round of prodding by the team doctors, attempting to disassociate, the
way he’d done during too many rounds of medical tests at age seventeen. Impossible. For one, there were too many executives
in the room relaying the doctors’ diagnosis to the media, the front office, and lord only knew who else needed to know real-time
information about his bruised rotator cuff.
“For the discomfort, Mr. Donahue,” one of the nurses said, handing him a little paper cup with white pills inside. Madden
handed it back straightaway.
“No, thank you,” he said, as politely as possible, sweating bullets. Too many lights, too many masked faces and voices. Too
many goddamn machines. The scene was an echo of his least favorite memory, taking him back to the days of dialysis. When the
future was unknown and strangers looked at him with sympathy, unable to tell him when the weakness and pain would come to
an end.
“Are you sure?” asked the nurse, his eyebrows winging up to his hairline. “That was a pretty hefty collision.”
“I’m sure.” Madden remembered all too well the feeling of nausea that often went hand in hand with the more intense pain relievers. When the nurse simply stood there looking at him, Madden replayed the man’s comment. “You saw the collision? Were you watching the game?”
“No, but the replay is everywhere on social media right now. You’re the pride of New York.” He chuckled. “They’re calling
you Bad Madden. It’s not the best nickname in history, but it’s one that will probably stick, so you better get used to it.”
Bad Madden?
Jesus.
“When am I getting the hell out of here?”
The nurse seemed thrown off by the question. “You’ve only been here for forty-five minutes.”
In Madden’s opinion, that was forty-five minutes too long. Dammit, why had this happened today of all days? Of course he got
injured during the one game Eve attended. Now, instead of seeing her after the game, he was stuck in a narrow bed with scratchy sheets, listening to
team trainers confer with one another about the fastest rehab plan to get him back behind the plate.
Had Eve already gotten on the road back to Cumberland?
“Is there any family you’d like us to call?”
Yes. Please call my wife.
“No.” He cleared his throat of the need to request the one person he wanted to see. There was no need to inconvenience her
over a minor scrape. “No, it’s not worth the bother. Just a bruise.”
“You’re going to have a purple map of the world on half of your upper torso, Bad Madden. It’s a little more than a bruise.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“It’s going to stick,” sang the nurse as he departed.
Madden sighed, dropping his head back on the pillow and resigning himself to being stuck. Another twenty minutes passed before
the nurse returned.
“You have another visitor.”
Most likely a member of the coaching staff. Or yet another press liaison.
“Great,” Madden muttered, not bothering to open his eyes.
“Blond girl. Kind of . . . Grace Kelly hot?”
His lids flew open at that, his pulse stumbling over itself. “What?”
Not Eve. It couldn’t be Eve. She’d come all the way to the hospital to see him?
“They’re making her wait in the hallway until someone leaves the room.” The nurse jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “With
all the Yankees personnel rubbing elbows in here, we’re at capacity.”
Madden used his good arm to sit up. “Get them out. Get her in.”
“Uh—”
The surprise had rendered his tongue useless. “That’s my . . . she’s . . .”
“I hope you’re going to say sister, because I’m pretty sure two doctors are already planning a proposal.”
“That’s my wife,” Madden growled, rushing to add, “But . . . don’t announce that she’s my wife, all right? Just bring her in.”
“You got it, Bad Madden.” The nurse turned to the room and clapped his hands. “Out into the hallway. All of you. The reigning
king of New York needs his privacy.”
“I think king of New York is a bit of an exaggeration,” Madden muttered, craning his neck to try and catch a glimpse of Eve
through the rectangular window in the hospital door. God help any doctor he caught hitting on his wife. They’d be trading
places with him in this bed.
“It’s not an exaggeration, actually.” Someone stepped forward with a laptop.
“I’m Josh. I’m the social media manager.
Not only has the clip of the collision, followed by you holding up the ball, gone viral, but there’s already a remix of the announcer’s voice saying Bad-Bad .
. . record scratch . . . Bad-Bad Madden.
” His fingers flew over the keys. “Here, let me play it for you.”
“Please don’t.”
“He has a visitor,” the nurse informed everyone with an embellished wink. “A very special one.”
Madden ground his molars.
The fact that Eve had to wait even a minute, instead of being ushered right in, was going to make his head explode. She’d
come. She’d already traveled from Cumberland. Now she’d probably gone through traffic hell to make it from the Bronx to the
hospital.
And still, no one had moved to leave the room.
“Either she comes in here or I’m going out there,” Madden said, already swinging his legs over the side of the bed, more than
prepared to walk.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” everyone said at once. “Lie down.”
“Don’t aggravate the shoulder. We need you in Pittsburgh next week.”
“Let him have his special visitor,” snapped the nurse, followed by more clapping. And finally, finally, the suits started
to file out of the room, leaving it blessedly empty.
A steady beep had become background noise in the hospital room over the course of the last hour, but when Eve appeared in the doorway, that beep got faster and seemingly louder?
“What in the hell is that?” he asked, sounding a little winded, because dear god, too many days had passed since he’d seen her last and she looked incredible in that dress.
A dark blue one he hadn’t seen before. It molded to her body from her tits down to her hips, then it kind of flowed out just past her knees.
She’d twisted her hair up, but she must have done it on the fly, because little pieces had fallen out, free to brush her neck, exactly like his fingertips and mouth needed to do.
“Um . . .” Eve didn’t blush very often, but she was now. Why? “I think that beeping is coming from your heart monitor.”
Without missing a beat, Madden ripped off the round white stickers and their connecting wires from his chest, rendering the
room mostly silent, though the number of voices in the hallway could only be muffled, not quieted completely. “It has always
done that when you’re around,” he said, ignoring the burning of his earlobes. “Now you know.”
Eve’s features softened, her chest dipping and rising, yet she remained glued in place by the door, her purse clutched to
her stomach.
Deal’s off. I want more than six months.
Those words were like a stick of dynamite crackling between them.
Maybe that demand had been a mistake, but he’d make it all over again. He simply wasn’t built to let this woman go. Eve wasn’t
merely in his blood, she’d become his blood itself. She ran in his veins. His inner thoughts often presented themselves in
her voice. Eve lived inside him. And maybe Madden had some barbarian blood, too, because the crank of possessiveness had turned
another revolution when she admitted to waiting for him. Admitted to not trusting anyone else with her body. She felt this
too.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, finally setting her purse down on a chair, folding her hands at her waist, and walking toward
the bed. “You freaked all of us out.”
“I’m fine. It’s just a bruise.” Although, damn, his shoulder was beginning to feel pretty stiff and raw. “Sorry about all the drama. The trainer asked me to stay down at the plate until they could determine if anything was broken.”
Eve nodded. “Elton knew what was coming as soon as the guy started running toward home plate. I think he might have psychic
powers.”
“Nah, he just knows me. I don’t budge.” Madden gave in to the impulse to reach out and take her hand, pulling her closer.
“Not on anything.”
“You don’t waste any time addressing the elephant in the room.” They both watched in fascination as their palms fused together,
followed by the slow threading of their fingers. “What ever happened to small talk?”
“We’ve never made small talk. That’s not us.”
“Can we try?” Eve took a measured breath. “I don’t do nerves very well.”
Madden’s thumb paused in the act of swiping right to left against the pulse of her wrist. “What’s wrong with your nerves?”
She gave him a meaningful look. “I don’t love hospitals, I guess. I didn’t like the first time you were in one and I don’t
like it now.”
“Ah, love.” They stared at each other for long moments, remembering. “I’m fine, I promise. Who has the kids?” he finally asked,
his voice quiet.
“The Pages,” she said, making an effort to surface from the past. “They’ll be Olympians by the time I pick them up.”
“Or shell-shocked from the freakishly competitive environment. One or the other.”
“That’s also a possibility.” She grinned, studying him, her gaze lingering on the thick bandaging and ice on his shoulder.
“You’re kind of good at baseball. Did you know that?”
“I was just showing off for my wife.”
The pulse he rubbed with his thumb went skittering. “I hear she was impressed.”
Damn. The amount of pride he felt over that probably amounted to a sin. And speaking of sinning, he had a lot of it on his
mind, even with a busted shoulder. “Impressed enough to spend the night with me?”
“So much for small talk, huh?” Eve glanced toward the door and back at Madden, visibly wrestling with something. “When I was
on my way here, I got a second call from the family liaison. He told me to enter at the rear of the hospital to avoid all
the cameras.”
Confusion landed, followed by the sinking sensation of dread. “Cameras?”