Chapter 8 #2
When Willow opened her eyes, her mom was sitting beside her bed, holding her hand, gazing at her face and smiling. “There you are, my girl. There you are.”
Tears pooled in her brown eyes and spilled over, down her cheeks.
She realized her dad had been standing with his back toward her, gazing out a window, but he turned fast when her mother spoke, and came to the other side of her bed, crouching low and clasping her free hand.
“Willow,” he said. “My Willow.” His hand came to her face, but she pulled her eyes from his to look at her surroundings.
Hospital room. What the hay had happened?
“It was him, wasn’t it?” her dad asked in the low tones that were always a warning someone was in trouble, generally someone who’d wronged another Brand. It went deeper when the harmed party was his only child.
“What was who?” she croaked, then put a hand to her throat, pulling it free of her dad’s to do so and noticing the IV lines piercing her forearm. “What happened?”
“What do you remember, Willow?” Taylor asked. She sent her husband a stern and quelling look, then offered Willow water from a cup with a bendy straw.
She drank, and when her mom pulled the cup away, she grabbed it from her, and drank again.
“Careful. Maybe get a nurse, hon?” she said to Wes.
“No, wait,” Willow said. Her voice was still weird, weak and scratchy. “What did you mean, it was him?”
Her dad looked at her mom, and she nodded.
“You were on Sundance, in pursuit of a suspect on a motorcycle. Marks in the pavement suggest the biker spun around and went at you, scaring the horse into—”
“Is Sundance okay?”
“He’s okay, baby,” her mother said. “A little road rash, but he’s fine.”
She blinked, frowning away the clouds over her brain. “Yeah. The guy on the bike threw a brick through the window at the WTD. I think it’s the same person who threw a brick through the Montrose’s window, and the pharmacy window.
Her dad’s face froze for a moment, then softened into abject relief as he shifted his gaze to her mom’s.
Her mom was smiling. “She’s okay,” she said. “She’s okay.”
He came around the bed and wrapped her in his arms, and they just clung for a moment.
That was when Willow realized there’d been some question as to whether she would be okay.
She looked around the room a little bit more, noticing things she hadn’t.
Cards and letters were tacked to the wall beyond the foot of her hospital bed, filling the cork board there.
Right beside it was a white board with the name of her nurse and the date.
She blinked and looked again. “I’ve been here two days? Two days?”
“You’ve been unconscious, honey,” her mother said. “Go get the doctor, Wes.”
“Who caused the accident, baby?” her father asked. “Was it Jeremiah?”
“Jeremiah? Why on earth would you think—no. It wasn’t him. Like I said, it was the motorcycle I was chasing. They spun around and charged us. I think it was deliberate.”
Her father closed his eyes and sighed.
Her mother said, “I told you.”
“Why would you think it was Jeremiah, Dad? It’s not like you to judge someone for their past.”
Shaking his head, her father muttered something about getting a doctor and left the room. So Willow turned to her mother. “Why did he think that?”
“Well…” Taylor titled her head, her eyes searching for words. “You’ve said his name. A couple of times.”
“Jeremiah’s name?”
“Not exactly. Gringo, is what you said.” Then she repeated, “A couple of times.”
“You said that twice. How many times, Mom?”
“Seven…when anyone was around to hear you.” She smiled slowly. “I think there’s a lot of good in him. He’s been here about as much as he could be without bein’ obvious.” She shrugged. “It was obvious to me, anyway.”
“What was obvious to you anyway?”
“He cares about you. In case you needed that verified, I can testify,” she said, holding up her right hand.
Then she leaned closer. “Chelsea said that Maria said that Ethan and Lily found him pulled off the road on their way to the hospital that day. He was leaned over the steering wheel, and it looked like he’d been cryin’. His eyes were all red, and puffy.”
“Sounds more like he’d been drinkin’. Did they smell his breath for tequila?”
“Willow…” The tone had been ever so slightly scolding, but her mom didn’t finish the thought. Instead she stroked her hair back off her face with her soft, cool, strong hand and said, “You don’t need to think about any of that right now. All you need to focus on is recovering.”
“Yeah.” But she was focused on the Gringo, and given how the Brand family grapevine worked, she was sure everyone knew it.
Jeremiah waited until the last Brand had gone home, which they only did when forced by staff at the end of visiting hours.
But it was a small-town hospital with a skeleton staff, and it was easy to bribe a nurse to let him slip in late. She’d seen him with the family over the two days they’d been waiting for Willow to wake up. It had been a scary time. Nobody knew if she’d wake up at all, or how she’d be when she did.
So he stayed, and he charmed a nurse and brought her a signed copy of his brother’s newest CD. And that’s why he was by Willow’s bedside at ten-fifteen p.m. when she opened her beautiful eyes and looked into his.
Her smile was immediate and radiant, but she squelched it like pinching out a candle and shifted her gaze to the wall clock. “How did you get in?”
“Bribed a nurse. That’s off the record, Deputy.” He gazed at her face, into her eyes. They were clear, if tired. “You’re okay, then?”
“Looks like. They been runnin’ tests on me all day. If there was bad to find, they’d’ve found it. That’s what I’m tellin’ myself, anyway.”
“I had to see you, Willow, and I figured you’d prefer I do it out of view of the whole dang clan.”
“Yeah, well, they’re already speculatin’ about us. That cat might be well and truly out of the bag.”
“How do you want to handle that?” he asked. He moved his chair closer to her bedside, then reached for her hand.
She looked at his but didn’t take it. “I don’t know. I’ve been in la-la land for two days. You gotta give me a minute.”
He smiled at her. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. We have to address it. Do we pretend nothin’s goin’ on between us or do we pretend we’re in a relationship?”
“Pretend we’re in a relationship?” He repeated her words like an idiot.
“Well, the third option is to admit we’re having casual, meaningless sex and I’m not feelin’ great about sharin’ that with the fam, you know?”
She sat up in the bed, swung her legs out. “I want to get out of here. Right now, I want to go. Will you drive me home?”
“Do you think you should?”
“Yeah.”
“How will we explain—”
“Oh, Mom and Dad are already onto us, believe me. Apparently, I said ‘Gringo’ a few times when I briefly surfaced.”
He winced as she held a wadded paper towel to her arm and pulled out the IV. Blood welled, but she pressed it hard and held.
Then he blinked at her as her words made their way to his brain. “You called for me?”
She nodded and her eyes dared him to use that fact to contradict her “casual and meaningless” statement.
He didn’t, but he thought it meant something. It meant something that he’d been sick at the thought of her being hurt, bereft at the thought of her dying. And he thought it meant something that she’d said his nickname from the borderline of coma.
But she was right. This was no time to talk about those things. He wasn’t sure what they meant himself, and he hadn’t spent the last forty-eight hours unconscious.
She’d said his name, though.
He stared at her, sitting there on the edge of her bed with her bronze legs sticking out from her hospital gown in ugly tan socks with rubber treads on her feet.
She wasn’t looking back. She pulled the paper towel away from her arm, and it didn’t bleed again.
“Look around for a band-aid, will you? And get me my clothes?”
He started to turn away just as she slid off the bed and onto the floor. Her knees gave out as soon as her butt rose from the bed. He lunged and caught her under her arms.
She gripped his shoulders, got her footing, then looked up at him a bit sheepishly. They were so close he could feel her body heat.
“I guess my muscles weren’t ready for use.”
“Not after two days napping.” He started to ease her onto the bed.
“No, no. Help me get upright.”
So he did that instead, though he didn’t think it was a very good idea. He held her as she straightened her legs, then gradually let her bear more of her own weight until she nodded, and said, “Okay, all good. Let go.”
He let go, but kept his hands close.
Willow stepped from one foot to the other, bent her knees and straightened them. “Okay, I’m weak as hell but I’m good to go. I’m not even wasting the time to get dressed. Come on, Gringo, take me to your chariot.”
There was a lot of objecting and scolding by staff as the two of them walked toward the elevator. He had her clothes in a plastic bag in one hand, and his arm around her, holding her to his side as they crossed in front of the nurses’ desk. Someone shoved a clipboard into her face.
“At least sign this so we’re not liable.”
Willow took the pen and scrawled something illegible. The clipboard moved away, and the elevator doors opened.
A few minutes later, she was in the passenger side of his Jeep.
The top was down, and as soon as they hit the highway back toward Quinn, she peeled the band from her hair and shook it loose so it could blow freely. He could hardly keep his eyes off her to drive.
“Where to?” he asked.
“My place, but we’re fixin’ to take the back way in and park behind my cottage, so my parents don’t lose their minds.”
He didn’t really want to get on the wrong side of her very huge family with its multitude of muscly, over-protective males, much less on the wrong side of his newfound half-brother. But he couldn’t say no to her, so there was no point trying.
“You sure you’re okay to be out of the hospital?” he asked.
“My head barely hurts.” He thought that was a lie. “I feel fine. Weak, a little dizzy, but that’ll pass.”
“You probably ought to have some PT to get your strength and balance back,” he said.
“What do you know about it?”
He shrugged. “Got the hell kicked outta me in prison. Had six weeks of PT after I healed up. On the outside, it would’ve been triple that, but that’s the system.”
She was looking at him, her head tilted, but he opted not to look back just then and kept his eyes on the road instead.
“How bad were you hurt?” she asked after a longer than normal stretch of quiet.
His gaze shifted her way without his permission.
Her brown eyes were huge, round, and full of feeling.
He focused on the road again. “Busted ribs, shin, nose, but the main thing was the pelvic bone. It was just a hairline fracture, but it was painful as hell to walk again after that. The PT forced me to do it anyway.”
“What the hell, Gringo? What did they hit you with?”
He flashed back to seven men around him, pounding and kicking him while he curled around himself on the floor to protect his vital bits. Fighting back would’ve just prolonged his beating. He liked to think he was pretty tough, but seven-on-one was hopeless, even for him.
Her hand curled around his shoulder. He said, “I don’t know. I prefer not to talk about it. You’re the one injured now. Let’s focus on that.”
“Okay,” she said. Then she yawned and settled more comfortably into her seat, leaning her head to one side, closing her eyes.
A little shiver went up his spine. “Willow?”
No reply.
“Hey, Willow.” He clasped her shoulder, shook gently.
She opened her eyes, smiled slightly. “Just nappin’. Not passin’ out.”
“You sure?” But her eyes were already closed again.
Okay, so she was napping, not unconscious. But she’d left the hospital against medical advice, and he was terrified that her nap was taking her right back into trouble.
He needed help. It was the first time in his life he’d ever believed those three words to be true. He pulled the Jeep over, and she didn’t wake. Her hair hung over her left cheek, and he got stuck on the shape of her face for a moment. God, she was beautiful.
Giving himself a mental snap-out-of-it slap, he took her phone from the console. She’d plugged it in as soon as she’d got into his Jeep, and it was still attached to power by its umbilical cord.
He tapped to unlock it, then said, “Hey, Willow? Open your eyes for me, will ya?”
She did, with a goofy smile. “Can’t you let a gal sleep?”
He held the phone in front of her face. Her goofy smile became a frown. “What’cha doin’?”
“Letting your family know I’m taking you home. And asking Ethan to take my dog-sitter home.”
“Why you need my phone for that?”
“I’m not on the family text chain,” he said. “Though I’ve heard tell of its legendary power.” He glanced at her, read her face, realized she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.
Interesting.
“Here, you can watch me if you can keep your eyes open.”
He opened her texts.
She snatched the phone from him, and tapped the screen herself, speaking her message aloud as she did.
“Signed myself out. Gringo drivin’ me to the cottage.
Have someone take his dog-sitter home. I’m goin’ to sleep so don’t pester me ‘til tomorrow.” The phone whooshed.
She locked the screen and tossed it back into the phone-shaped depression in the console between the front seats. “There.” And she closed her eyes again.
The replies were pinging, but she was ignoring them, so he notched her volume down. She didn’t notice. Seemed she was really sleepy. And he had no idea if that was normal or a sign of trouble.
When he pulled into the driveway of Skydancer Ranch and veered left past the main house toward her little cottage, he drove as slowly as possible, so she wouldn’t bang her poor abused head on the window.
Her cottage door opened and her parents came through. Her father headed for the passenger side of the Jeep, and Jeremiah unlocked the door. Wes opened it and scooped Willow into his arms.
She smacked his shoulders, though, and said, “Put me down, Dad, I’m fine. You’re bein’ a drama queen.”
He ignored her, still holding her as he strode toward the house with Taylor keeping pace close beside her, searching her daughter’s face, worried.
“My phone!” Willow called.
“I’ll bring it.” Jeremiah unplugged the phone from his dash and got out of the Jeep, closing his door, then moving around to close hers. Then he headed into the house. That door hadn’t been left open.
He went in anyway. At least they hadn’t locked it.
Wes Brand would have carried his daughter straight through to the bedroom, Jeremiah thought, but she demanded to be lowered to the sofa. “I’m good, I told you, I’m fine.”
Headlights came through the windows as the troops arrived. Man, this family was a lot.
Willow closed her eyes, and muttered a cuss word under her breath.