CHAPTER NINE
Luke
I blink open my eyes in a dim room, the air heavy with antiseptic and the low hum of machines. Surgery. The shoulder. I remember waking in recovery, the world swimming in and out before going dark again.
This time I’m in a regular hospital room.
There’s a tap on the door before it opens. For half a second, hope spikes sharp and fast.
It’s Seth. Not Kit.
“Don’t look so disappointed.”
“Fuck off,” I growl. Boss or not, my shoulder feels like someone’s driving a burning poker straight through the joint, and all I want is Kit. Where the hell is she?
Seth flashes a rare smile. “Guess you were hoping for your new girlfriend.”
“You bet your ass I was.”
“We let her stay while you were out,” he says. “I had to ask her to leave about fifteen minutes ago.”
“What the hell, man.” My head feels thick, fuzzy at the edges. The drugs are still pulling me back to sleep. The thought of her being sent away cuts through the haze.
“Kit’s a witness,” Seth continues evenly. “You’re not to be in communication with her until we’ve taken formal statements from both of you.”
“I want to see her.”
He shrugs like it’s nothing. Like he didn’t just tell me the one person I need right now was close enough to touch and then gone. I’m out of it enough that punching him in the face seems reasonable.
“Once you’re released and the paperwork’s done,” he says, “you can see your girl all you want.”
She was here. She came. That boded well. But they sent her away before I could tell her anything that mattered.
***
The next day, I’m released from the hospital. My arm is immobilized in a sling and my patience is past frayed.
Another aggravation? My government-issued cell phone is being held as evidence. The SUV I’d been driving was recovered, but my personal phone, the one I’d left in the glove box, still hasn’t been returned to me.
I hope someone made it clear to Kit that we’ve been restricted from communicating. The last thing I want is for her to think I’m ghosting her.
The next couple days are a lesson in frustration.
Trying to write my report one-handed nearly has me chucking my laptop through a window, so I’d switched to voice-to-text. Better, but still a pain in the ass.
Then came the interviews: long, exhaustive meetings with Seth and his supervisor, along with enough paperwork to choke a filing cabinet. Briggs’s case gets dissected from every angle.
All of it is manageable.
What isn’t? Not being able to talk with Kit. I need to know we’re good. Right now, I don’t know where we are.
Laying in that hospital bed gave me time to think. Too much time, maybe. But the decision didn’t come in a rush. It felt right, solid and unavoidable.
The choice meant more paperwork, more conversations with my superiors, and more explaining myself than I care to remember. But today, finally, I walk out of the office in Reno without my marshal’s star.
I’m no longer under orders banning me from communicating with Kit.
I get her number from Beckett, but what I want to say can’t be put in a text or a phone call. I’ve got to talk with her, face to face.
Beckett picks me up at my hotel after I check out. My car is at my apartment in Las Vegas, but even if I flew there to retrieve it, I can’t drive with my right arm useless in a sling.
I’ve got a lot to figure out, and driving with Beckett gives me a chance to talk things through with him.
An hour later, we pull up in front of the inn.
Beckett stops and looks over at me. “Want me to wait in case she slams the door in your face?”
“Not saying she won’t, but I’ll take my chances.” I meet his gaze. “Thanks, Beck.”
He nods. “It’s what friends do. And for what it’s worth, I like the idea of you settling down here.”
He circles to return to the driveway and I head up the salted walk to the porch, my heart beating hard, not knowing what kind of welcome waits on the other side of the door, but knowing I’m done holding back.