Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Truck had been in the hospital for two days, which was two days longer than he wanted to be there.
He was the worst patient, and Mary was about ready to strangle him.
She’d spent almost every minute of those two days with him, refusing to leave his side.
The doctors had taken MRIs and bloodwork and put him through a battery of tests to make sure his brain wasn’t irreparably damaged.
But it seemed like Beatle was right. Truck had a hard head, thank God.
The night he’d been admitted, Mary had told him about Macie.
How she’d shown up out of the blue at the bank before everything had gone down, and how she lived in nearby Lampasas and wanted to meet with Truck.
He’d wanted to call her right then, but Mary realized she didn’t have Macie’s number.
She’d given her number to Truck’s sister, but hadn’t gotten Macie’s in return.
But it turned out that not having Macie’s number wasn’t an issue.
She’d shown up at eight in the morning, before official visiting hours, having heard about the incident at the bank, probably from her hacker friend, and had burst into tears when she’d seen Truck lying in bed.
She’d been extremely nervous at first, but eventually, with Truck’s obvious enjoyment at seeing her, she’d relaxed.
Mary had left them alone to talk and when she’d returned forty-five minutes later, they’d still been catching up.
Macie left when Truck’s commander, Colt, had shown up.
The other man had been glad to meet Macie as well, especially since he’d put out the initial feelers to try to locate her.
Mary noticed the instant attraction the two seemed to have toward each other, but because Macie looked so nervous and unsure of herself, she didn’t say anything about it.
Truck’s sister had left after they’d exchanged numbers, with Truck promising to call and catch up when he got home from the hospital.
The long, heartfelt hug the siblings had given each other made tears form in Mary’s eyes.
Then there had been a nonstop parade of people in to see Truck ever since his sister had left.
Truck tried to bribe Beatle to sneak him out of the hospital, but luckily Mary had returned from getting something to eat in the cafeteria just in time to put the kibosh on the “great escape.”
Then Emily and Fletch had come by to see him. Rayne was at their house watching over the new baby so they could visit.
Annie had marched over to the side of Truck’s bed and asked, “Do you know me now?”
Truck smiled. “Yeah, squirt. I know you.”
“You ’member?”
“Yes.”
And with that, Annie crawled onto Truck’s bed and lay down next to him. She once again put her little hand over his cheek and snuggled in.
Mary would never forget the look on Truck’s face. She’d seen the exact same look when she was sick and hurting, and he’d snuggled next to her at night. Love.
The adults didn’t try to make Annie move, they simply had a conversation as if she wasn’t breaking hospital policy by lying in Truck’s bed. Mary couldn’t exactly protest, as she’d done the same thing the night before, crawled right up beside Truck and held him as tightly as he’d held her.
“We’re postponing the baby-naming party one week,” Emily informed them.
“You don’t have to do that,” Truck protested.
“Yeah, we do. We’re not having it without you, so deal,” Fletch said. “But no longer. I don’t care if you go out and get yourself run over, we’re not putting it off again. I can’t keep calling my son ‘Baby Fletch’ forever.”
Everyone chuckled and Annie lifted her head and looked at Truck. “His name is awesome.”
“You know what it is, squirt?”
She nodded.
“I’ll give ya a hundred bucks if you tell me right now,” Truck teased.
But Annie shook her head. “Nope. My lips are sealed,” she said, and pretended to zip them closed. Then she lowered herself back down next to Truck once more.
After another forty-five minutes of chitchat, the Fletchers left.
Mary was thankful for the steady stream of visitors who had come to see Truck.
It kept him occupied and less grouchy. Kassie and Hollywood had also been there, and had brought Kate.
Mary thought she was going to melt into a puddle of goo when Truck had taken the tiny infant into his arms. He looked down at her reverently and whispered, “No dating until you’re twenty-five, little one. ”
Kassie and Mary had laughed, but Hollywood and Truck didn’t. “I told her thirty,” Hollywood informed his teammate.
“Sounds about right,” Truck responded. Then told his friend, “She’s perfect. Congratulations.”
Hollywood beamed and had put his arm around his wife and responded, “Thanks.”
When Harley and Coach visited, Harley let Truck try out the latest video game she was developing. That killed two full hours, allowing Mary to get a much-needed shower and break from her grumpy alpha man who was ready to go home.
Casey, Beatle, Blade, and Wendy all stopped by together. Wendy’s brother, Jackson, had tagged along. They talked a little bit about the large group wedding they were planning, but Mary changed the subject quickly, not ready to talk about wedding ceremonies yet.
Of course Ghost and Rayne stopped in, and Chase and Sadie followed quickly behind them. Mary could tell Truck was enjoying seeing his friends, especially now that his memory had fully returned. But she could also tell when he started to get tired.
It wasn’t until all seven of the Deltas from the other team showed up—and spent an hour harassing Truck for not being able to overpower all of the gang members singlehandedly and for having to be rescued—that Mary decided it was enough.
She shooed everyone out of the room, telling them it was time for Truck to take a nap.
Of course, that made all of the other Deltas laugh even harder and start up with the mommy jokes, but throughout it all, Truck didn’t seem to give one little shit.
He’d simply said, “I’d much rather spend my time with Mary than with you assholes.”
But it was the conversation with her doctor that had been the most emotional for Mary.
He’d heard she was in the hospital and had taken the time to track her down. He’d wanted to talk about her reconstruction, since she’d skipped her appointment.
The three of them, Mary, Truck, and her doctor, had a long conversation about her options.
Truck asked a million questions about safety and long-term repercussions of having the implants inserted.
He wanted to know the odds of the cancer returning, and whether having silicone implants would make those odds worse, or if they would somehow impede detection if the cancer did return.
By the time the doctor left, Mary still hadn’t made a decision but she’d realized exactly how much she’d kept from Truck—and how amazing it was to have someone to talk to about it all.
She’d kept a lot of things about her sickness from him, having felt awkward and uncomfortable sharing intimate details.
Heck, she wasn’t comfortable peeing without shutting the door; she wasn’t going to discuss how she sometimes forgot what state Las Vegas was in when she got hot flashes, or ask him for help when the drain she had in suddenly started leaking all over her shirt.
When Truck had asked the doctor about sex and children, it hit home to Mary that she’d been treating Truck unfairly for months.
She’d been holding back. Scared that he didn’t really want to be with her.
That he might think he cared about her, but if he knew all the gritty details about her disease, he’d bail.
He’d made it more than clear that he loved her and she was it for him. Mary just hadn’t been paying attention. She’d been too convinced that he’d leave her, too busy keeping her shields up just in case he decided she wasn’t worth the effort, like every other man in her life had.
She owed him an apology, but she had to get him home and settled first.
“Ready to go?” his doctor asked in a cheery voice as he came into Truck’s hospital room late in the afternoon of his second day.
“A day and a half ago,” Truck grumbled.
Mary hid her smile. Truck had been bitching about the fact that the doctor hadn’t signed him out yet for the last hour and a half.
“You were incredibly lucky,” the doctor said, not fazed in the least by his grumpy patient.
“Pulling those wires right before the explosion saved your life. Only the upper explosives went off, blowing the table from where it was bolted to the floor. When it crashed into you, it protected you from the worst of the blast, but landing on your head wasn’t exactly the ideal outcome.
Since your noggin took two pretty intense hits only a few weeks apart, you need to be extremely careful for the next three months. ”
“Shit,” Truck said.
“That’s right. You’re grounded. No missions for at least that long.
We’ll do another MRI in two months and make sure the bruising on your brain is gone and that everything looks okay in there.
Then we’ll give it another month just to be on the safe side.
If you start having any of the side effects we talked about yesterday, you need to get in here to see me ASAP.
I’m serious about this, Ford. Traumatic brain injury isn’t something to mess around with.
Blackouts, anxiety, aggression, repetition of words or actions, dilated pupils, nausea, sensitivity to light or sound, blurred vision—”
“I remember, Doc,” Truck said, interrupting the litany of symptoms of a TBI.
“Right.” He turned to Mary. “Just keep your eye on him. Soldiers frequently try to hide their symptoms because they feel like they should just tough it out or because they’re embarrassed.”
“Don’t worry, I will,” Mary told him.
“Good. Now, Ford, do you still have a headache?”
Truck nodded reluctantly.