Chapter 84
Chapter 84
O ur presence did much for Bones’s rehab. Lonnie said that medically, while he needed several months to heal fully, he would be ready to fly in a week or two. Bones heard that, put his feet on the floor, and began walking. We took turns. Laps up and down the hallway. Around the yard. Finally, after a week, he braved the steps down to the water. He made it to the beach, collapsed into the water, and soaked for an hour. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to walk down those steps.”
I carried him on my back most of the way back up. And I loved every minute of it.
The Senate was scheduled to vote on Ashley’s replacement in forty-eight hours. Bones kept staring at his watch. Finally, he stood, wobbled a little, then steadied himself. “Might be a minute before I get back up to the Eagle’s Nest.”
“Ride the lift. Much easier.”
He began pulling on a shirt.
“We going somewhere?”
He nodded. “Georgia.”
“Why?”
“Time to see an old friend.”
“I don’t think it’ll do any good.”
After a pause, he said, “You and I need to run back across the line one last time, to a man who thinks he’s too broken to finish.”
He was right. We had to try.
“He’s got to rescind his resignation. Stop the vote. There’s too much yet to be done. And we can’t give the world to Maynard on a silver platter.”
“You could just call him.” I turned to Sister Catalonia for confirmation. “I’m not sure it’s safe for you to...”
By now he was feeding one leg through his jeans. “He needs to see my face.” Unexpectedly, he turned to Lonnie, knowing she wasn’t about to let him out of her sight without passing him over to another qualified doctor. “You ever flown private?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Well, it’ll ruin you for the ordinary, but it’s something everyone should do.”
She smiled but said nothing.
He started again, “Ever seen Colorado?”
Another shake of her head.
He fired a third shot across the bow. “Ever thought about treating trafficked children?”
She considered this. “I’ve acquired some leave time, but I would need to find a priest. Someone to hear my confession.”
By now, he was putting on his boots. When he stood, he buckled his belt, adjusted his holster, press-checked the Glock 17 he’d borrowed from Camp, then reholstered and said, “I also priest.”
I guess that was when I knew. Lonnie was married to God. Had been. He wasn’t asking her to betray that. Nothing of the sort. But something was going on here at a deeper level. Something had happened in her rescue of him and, in some odd way, his rescue of her. The wound of her fiancé’s death had never really stopped bleeding. Then she dragged some guy out of the ocean, hauled him home, patched him up, and read to him over the weeks—and somewhere in that mysterious exchange, Sister Catalonia unexpectedly fell for one of her patients. And her patient fell for her. Which neither one expected. I didn’t know much about much, and I wasn’t sure how things worked for priests and nuns, but I had a feeling Bones was about to ask God for her hand.