Chapter 15 #2
“I’ve heard of your relationship with the electrician,” Barton murmured, taking me in.
“Audrey hasn’t stopped sharing all that she knows about him.
I guess it makes sense that you called him over to our house to fix everything.
Though, I fail to see why I would have to pay a man that you’re seeing. ”
“Business is business,” I said. “I don’t work for free.”
“You don’t help your girlfriend’s parents out?” Barton asked.
Not when they’re pedophiles…
“We weren’t sharing we were dating. It would’ve looked suspicious that I allowed you not to pay, wouldn’t it?” I asked.
A nurse came in carrying a small pink tub with soap and washcloths. “Are you ready for that bath, Eddy?”
“Dying for it,” Eddy said, widening her eyes at me.
I moved the bag closer and got the cat put away, doing it while barely waking him up.
It was a damn miracle.
“We’ll go,” Barton said. “Will you make it to church this Sunday?”
Would she make it…
I looked at the man with surprise. “She just got attacked by a bear. I think if she’s out of the hospital, she can skip this once.”
The man looked like I’d just told him the sky wasn’t blue.
“Don’t you think she should be thanking God, though, for sparing her life?”
I shrugged. “She can do that from her living room.”
Barton didn’t like hearing those words, I could tell.
“Let’s get out of here.” Minnie placed a soothing hand on her husband’s arm. “We can discuss this when she’s alone.”
I’d call the club as soon as I was out of this fuckin’ place and make sure that she really was never alone. No way would I let those two crazy fucks anywhere with her alone if I had a say in the matter.
My mind whirled with all kinds of worry. Both for Boston and Eddy.
Two people I had yet to get off my mind since I’d met them.
“All right, let’s get you in the shower,” the nurse said the moment the door closed behind her parents. “Mr. Strong, Dark and Beautiful, could you help me get her up and into the shower?”
“Oh, he’s about to leave.” Eddy looked embarrassed.
“I have a few minutes,” I lied.
I didn’t have any minutes.
I, in fact, probably should’ve left about fifteen minutes ago to make it back home and to work on time.
Luckily, my boss didn’t really give a fuck when we got there as long as we got all of our work done for the day.
“Excellent, because this is going to hurt.” The nurse looked apologetic. “Oh, I guess I should introduce myself, too. We were in rounds when you got here. I’m your nurse, Sage. I’m a travel nurse, so I know no one. I’ve decided we should become great friends.”
That explained the accent.
She definitely wasn’t from around here.
“Where are you from?” Eddy asked, looking nervously at the floor where she was about to be standing.
I helped her swing her legs over the edge of the bed while keeping my hand firmly planted in the middle of her back to keep her upright.
I could feel the raised wounds on her back through the gauze, and my stomach plummeted. “I’m sorry, does it hurt?”
“Not where your hand is touching, no,” she admitted, sounding hoarse. “You never said where you’re from, Sage.”
Sage was back, all bubbly and happy and cheerleader-like.
“I’m from Arkansas.” She smiled. “Born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas.”
“What made you start travel nursing?” Eddy asked when Sage caught her by the hips and lightly drug her toward the edge of the bed.
“My husband died,” she murmured, her broken heart leaching into her voice. “I couldn’t stay anymore. Everything reminded me of him.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Eddy hissed in a breath when her feet touched the floor. “That’s awful, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Sage said. “I just couldn’t take the small-town life anymore.
Everyone knew me. Everyone knew what happened to my husband.
And let’s be honest, it was suffocating to see all the pity in their eyes day after day.
I felt like I was just hanging on by a thread there.
So I left. Haven’t been back since.” She got down onto one knee.
“Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do.
I’m going to bend down here like so…” She held out her hands.
“And you’re going to stand up. Your hubby to be is going to catch you by the hips and help you stand.
Your ribs are going to hurt like the dickens, but it won’t kill you, okay? ”
My stomach ached at the thought of Eddy in pain.
“I can do it,” she said, taking a shallow breath.
“That’s also going to be a problem,” she said. “You keep taking shallow breaths like that. You need to take deep breaths. Nice and deep. Slow. It hurts, but you have to keep those lungs inflated. We don’t want pneumonia, okay?”
Eddy’s next breath was deeper, and it was only then that I realized just how shallow Eddy had been breathing all this time.
“Ouch,” she groaned.
“Keep taking them,” Sage urged. “All right, we’re going to stand in one, two, three.”
I helped Eddy to stand, and my heart literally lurched inside my chest when she went completely white.
“You’re probably not going to be able to stand straight for a while thanks to all the stitches. But what we don’t want you to do is list to one side. We want you as straight as possible so we don’t start relying a little too much on that one side.”
Sage talked as we shuffled Eddy ever so slowly across the floor to the shower area.
“Since a few of your stitches around your face need to come out anyway, we’re going to shower and get nice and clean. Then we’re going to get them taken out after we’re done, okay?”
“Okay.” Eddy’s voice was rough and shallow.
Only when she was in the bathroom and sitting on the chair in the shower did Sage leave to go grab some warm towels.
“Okay?” I asked her.
She had a sheen of sweat on her face that reminded me of the last time I’d noticed that moisture there.
“You have sex in your eyes,” she panted.
“The last time I saw this.” I wiped my thumb across her brow. “You were falling into the washer.”
She scoffed ever so softly. “I wasn’t falling into anything.”
I winked at her.
“You need to go deal with everything involving your daughter,” she urged.
I did.
“I’ll be fine,” she promised. “Go.”
Just as she said that, Sage came back in with an armful of towels. “We’ll get her all nice and clean. You can see her later tonight.”
I reluctantly went, dropping the cat back at my place before making a multitude of calls on my way into work.
Apollo immediately got onto getting Boston and Nettie on a private flight from St. Louis.
I called my parents back using my work line to let them know that I would handle Boston, and that they didn’t need to worry anymore.
And then I called Nettie to update her on Eddy’s situation like I did every day.
The last person I called was Boston.
Luckily, she didn’t answer.
But I knew she had her phone.
Leaving a voicemail, I told her exactly what she needed to do, ending with, “And ditch the phone.”
Then I spent the rest of the day worrying about two very different ladies that took up two whole complete pieces of my heart.
A woman that I’d just met that I couldn’t stop thinking about. And a girl that I’d known from the moment of her birth who would break my heart when she grew up.