Chapter 5 Husband Who #2
It took everything I had to convince Adrian to return to Harmony Heights.
Now that Lucy is under the impression that I’m her husband, they’d have to sedate me and drag me out of the hospital to get me to leave her side.
I have no fucking clue what the visiting hours are like here, but from the moment I walked into her room, I wasn’t leaving it except to grab a bite to eat.
I freshened up in the attached bathroom. I bought a fresh shirt at the hospital gift shop on the first floor when I snuck out to grab an energy drink and a bag of chips last night. I slept in the chair next to her bed, and when she was awake, I answered any and all questions that my sweet Lucy had.
For the most part, I tried to be honest. Not easy when the basis of our current relationship is built on a pretty big fucking lie, but I tried—and, yeah, I pretty much failed.
She didn’t know better, though. I kept thinking that someone would call me out on it.
Nope. As though they just wanted someone to pawn her off onto, I was allowed to play the part of Lucy’s husband all the way up until they released her from the IVs, checked her vitals, and decided it was worth letting the detective ask her a few questions about what happened to her.
She couldn’t help, and it bothered her that she didn’t remember more. For Lucy’s sake, I insisted on sitting in on the interview, and while Detective Hargrove wasn’t happy about it, when he saw her getting agitated, he allowed it so long as I kept my trap shut.
Now he’s here to see Lucy off—and to make sure I know that he isn’t about to let this matter go just because I’m eager to whisk Lucy away.
I don’t give a shit. If he wants to investigate Lucy’s ‘accident', he can go right ahead. Me? I’m pretty sure I know what happened, and I already plan on handling it on my own…
“We’ll keep in touch,” Detective Hargrove tells me, more of a warning than a promise, and completely unaware that I’m mentally picking out a dumpsite for Julian Fairchild’s body. “If there are updates. Or if there’s a witness who comes forward.”
That earns him a little effort on my part. Sticking my hand out, I wait for him to take it. The older cop doesn’t resist, pumping my arm as I say, “I appreciate it. I want to make sure that, if someone did this to Lucy, they pay.”
“We’re agreed on that,” he says before he turns to face my new wife.
She’s standing beside me in borrowed hospital sweats, discharge papers folded in her hands like they’re her new lifeline.
Her hair—washed in the bathroom sink and freshly combed—falls loose around her shoulders.
She looks smaller than she should, and I can’t wait until I can get her in the Fortress where I can call down to the kitchen and order up whatever she wants to eat.
Hargrove’s gruff manner softens slightly when he speaks to her. “You take it easy, Ms. Wright.”
Ms. Wright. Not Mrs. Fairchild. Not Mrs. Collins, either.
Not yet, at least.
“Okay,” she murmurs.
The detective nods once and walks away, and I only hope that’s the last we see of him.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m bringing Lucy back to Harmony Heights.
That’s where she will live. That’s where she’ll stay.
I’ll keep her safe and protected, and if I have to leave the city to take care of her worthless former husband, she’ll stay where I put her so that she never has to look at him again.
I’ll make sure of it.
Before I can lead her outside to where Adrian should be waiting for us, the patient advocate lingers nearby.
Carol eyes move between Lucy and me with professional caution as she lifts the clipboard that has been her constant companion over the last two days. Every time she came by Lucy’s room, she’s had it with her, and now is no different.
“Before I release Lucy, I need verbal confirmation from you, Dallas,” she says to me, using the nickname that she picked up from Lucy—and that she never realizes should belong to Adrian since he was pretending to be me. “You’re assuming full responsibility for her care once she leaves St. Luke’s?”
“Yes.”
“You understand that she’s in a vulnerable cognitive state currently?”
Lucy winces, but I just tuck my arm around her waist, letting her know that I’m here with a simple touch before I answer Carol: “Yes.”
“She needs structured recovery,” Carol continues. “No sudden stressors. No overwhelming environments. I also highly suggest you find Lucy a specialist who understands trauma-based amnesia. Time and attention might just do better to help her heal than a continued stay here.”
That’s what I think, too.
“I’ll find one,” I promise, and I mean it. Maybe not right away. I have something more important to do first, and it might actually work better for me if Lucy doesn’t regain her memory at first.
I will help her, though. I’ll do anything for my Dandelion, and as Carol peers at me through her glasses, I let her see my undying love for the woman beside me.
Let Carol think that we had an estrangement that kept me from knowing that Lucy was hurt in the first place.
Let her believe that, faced with the idea that life can end as easily as that, I rediscovered my love for my wife.
Whatever it takes, I’ll do it, and the patient advocate must see that in the determined jut of my chin because she signs the release form before adding the carbon copy to Lucy’s discharge papers.
And, just like that, Lucy Wright is mine again.
This time, though?
I’m playing for keeps, and there’s nobody who can stop me.