Chapter 18 Surgery
CASSIDY
It hurt to breathe.
There was no denying that I was in the hospital when I woke up.
The steady beep of a heart monitor was the soundtrack when I came to.
My hand felt warm and slightly squishy while the other one felt too cold.
When I managed to move my head enough so I could look down at my body, I noted that there was a cannula in one hand leading to an IV drip and the other was encompassed in the much larger hand of a man who was slumped over on the side of the bed.
He was in a chair and his body leaned forward and seemed to crash into my leg at some point.
It was clear he was asleep and I worried that it would hurt him to move when he finally woke up. That was an awful position to sleep in.
I twitched the hand that he held onto and tried to flex those fingers. They moved just fine, but it startled Knuckles awake. “Oh, thank fuck! Cass,” He whispered my name in sheer reverence. “I was so fucking worried about you.”
“What happened?” It was the only question that needed to be answered.
“You were shot?”
“How? Why?” I asked in rapid succession and regretted it when I immediately started into a coughing fit that felt like it was going to rip me apart from the inside out.
Knuckles reached over and pressed a button.
“What can we do for you?” A woman’s voice asked through a crackly speaker near the head of my bed. Before either of us could answer, she heard me coughing and got down to business. “Be right there, use the extra pillow against your chest. It will help.”
When she got to my room, the lovely nurse coached me on how to get my breathing under control before she informed me of the way in which I was supposed to breathe.
“The lower right lobe of your lung was perforated by a bullet. You’re lucky that they were able to patch you back up with minimal loss of lung tissue.
” Whatever else she said was lost as my mind tried to comprehend that I was missing a piece of my lung.
“Who… shot… me?” I finally asked again once I caught my breath and sat back against the pillow again.
Knuckles glanced at the nurse and gave the tiniest shakes of his head to let me know we couldn’t talk about it just then. It had to be someone we know, or were associated with somehow. Why else would it be a secret?
“My stepmother?”
“No,” he said and then a memory flashed in my mind.
I was hit and fell into him only for him to call out another woman’s name.
I didn’t bother to repeat it with the nurse there, but I wanted to wish her away faster, so I could get the answers I needed.
Eventually, she left with a promise to bring my doctor back with her.
“Simone shot you.”
“Don’t understand,” I told him drowsily. Damn, the nurse must have hit my pain meds. Either that or getting shot made you very, very tired.
“Me either. Don’t know what the hell she was doing in Phoenix or why she shot you. I honestly don’t think she aimed for you. I think I was her target, but you turned at the last minute.”
“Took a bullet for you,” I muttered before my eyes drifted shut. There was no way of knowing if he could see the way I tried to smile.
The next time I woke was even more painful than the last. It must have been the pain meds wearing off that triggered my back to consciousness. I glanced around to find Knuckles on the edge of his seat and he looked as though he was in deep discussion with a man who was probably my doctor.
I must have moved enough for them to realize I was awake because they both turned to face me at the same time. “Ah, good, you’re awake. I missed you last time. I just checked in on your wounds and everything still looks good.”
“How long?” I managed to ask.
“I’d say about an inch long scar at most on your chest and slightly smaller on your back, maybe half inch.”
I wanted to laugh at the miscommunication, but knew it would hurt.
“How long until I go home?”
“In a rush?” He asked teasingly before he saw the look in my eyes and shook his head.
“I don’t know if anyone was able to explain yet, but you were shot in the back and the bullet came out through the chest wall.
That’s the easy part. Normally, through and through shots are what we like to see because there’s less mess to clean up.
That wasn’t the case for you. Not only did you lose a small portion of the lower lobe of your right lung due to the damage, but several pieces of your lower rib were splintered off.
We retrieved all the bone fragments, but I am afraid due to the nature of your lung injury, you will be with us for a few weeks and then you will probably have months of respiratory therapy to go through to get your lung in fighting shape again. ”
“Weeks? Months?” Both words came out as questions. I sent a panicked look to James who slid closer and gave my hand a squeeze.
“Don’t worry, your crew has your back. They already worked out a schedule. That’s why none of them are here with you right now. Finch has been working the ranch with Mitch because the last hand he hired got spooked by something. The girls are taking care of the catering and whatnot.”
“They don’t bake,” I said.
“Don’t worry about that either. She might not be up to par on the latest version of your recipes, but Grandma stepped up and told them she would bake whatever they needed until you’re able to get back in to do it yourself.”
“She did?” I asked as a tear fell from where it was hung up on my eyelash for a minute. My heart ached in a good way while my lung felt like it was going to come apart every time I breathed.
“Hurts,” I grunted. The doctor leaned over and adjusted something. Moments later, my eyes blinked shut and didn’t open again.
After about a week, I managed to stay awake for longer periods of time. It helped that they started to wean me down off the super strong pain meds. Not that I was free of those anytime soon, they just dropped the dose enough that I could function a little bit.
“What happened to Simone?” I asked one day as Knuckles sat next to me and wrote something in a notebook.
“She’s on ice for now.”
“Dead in a freezer?” I whispered.
Knuckles grinned and shook his head. “Alive and in a cell beneath the clubhouse.”
“You guys have cells down there?” I asked. “Kinky,” I added and then regretted the minute I started to laugh as it sent pain ripping through my chest. “Fuck, that was dumb.”
“Come on Cass. I know you’re bored and easily amused by yourself, but you need to hold off on the laughter until you’re healed more. It kills me every time I see you in that much pain.”
“Imagine how it feels to be me.”
“I wish that I could trade places with you.”
“No, you really don’t, and before you say something heroic, I wouldn’t wish this shit on my worst enemy. Next time you get shot at, you’re going to have to take the bullet for yourself like a big boy.” It was a joke, but it fell flat.
“Not funny. I would never want you to take a bullet for me. I thought I was going to lose my fucking mind during that ambulance ride and after when they took you away to surgery.”
“I’m sorry I worried you,” I managed to get out.
“Cassidy, I know this isn’t the time, and one day we’ll have a lengthy conversation about everything, but I need you to know that you’re my fucking person. Despite everything contrary to that, you are the one person on this earth that I don’t want to lose.”
“Why, James?”
“I’ve felt that way for a really long time, only when I was younger I was too dumb to take what I wanted. Didn’t think I deserved something good back then. Don’t think I do now, either, but I know that losing you is a far worse fate than trying to convince you that I’ll be worth it.”
We sat quietly for a long while after that. I didn’t know how to respond. It felt incongruous with how I’d been treated by James for him to then say that he wanted me all along. My conversation with Jasper came back to me then. He had said something similar me and I didn’t believe him either.
My mind and body were simply too exhausted to deal with all the implications that came with that bit of a confession, so I turned my thoughts elsewhere.
“Why hasn’t anyone else come to see me?”
“Collette was here the first night. She went back home to get a bag packed with stuff for you and wasn’t able to leave again.”
“What do you mean she wasn’t able to leave again?”
James reached up and pulled his hair loose from whatever crazy bun-like way he had it tied up.
Then he took hold of my hand again. “We kept it from the police that Simone was the person who shot you. It was done so that we could get some answers we needed along with revenge for you, if that’s what you wanted. ”
“I understand that. Figured as much when you said she was in a cell under the clubhouse and not in a real jail.”
“Okay, miss smartypants,” he teased. “The thing is, two separate police reports were filed about Tiffany Baker Billups and Juan Miguel Ruiz showing up on your property and making threats.”
“Who filed the reports? I never called the cops when they showed up the first time.”
“Some security company guys that were installing cameras and shit on your property called when the Ruiz guy tried to play tough guy with them.”
I moved to sit up a little taller. “I’m pretty sure he had gang or cartel ties,” I said.
“They showed up to try to strong-arm me into giving Tiffany water rights so she could get more money when she sold the land. Something about there already being a bidding war for her useless five-acre lot and she couldn’t rake in a mint if there wasn’t water in the deal. ”
“No, she couldn’t. It’s still a relatively small plot for the area.
Plus, there’s no bidding war. There were two bids.
One from a buyer the club tried to trace and one from my club because that land happens to back up to the land we developed for family housing.
It was too close for comfort. Now tell me why you thought he was cartel. ”