Chapter One #3
“Smart.”
I pointed at him. “Don’t push it.”
Anchor nodded toward the hallway. “Pearl and Shay can show you where you can sleep.”
A curvy, pretty woman rose from the couch, and the woman with bright red hair at the bar jumped off her stool. “Come on,” she called.
“Shay’s my ol’ lady,” Prime pointed to the redhead.
I looked from Shay, the redhead, to Prime. “Yeah, that I can see.” They looked like they went together.
Prime tipped his head to the side. “I don’t know if that is insulting or not.”
“It’s not,” Shay called with a laugh. She pointed at the curvy woman, who had to be Pearl. “Which one do you think Pearl belongs to?” she asked me.
I looked around the room at all of the guys. I looked at Pearl, and then my eyes went back to Anchor. “Yours.”
“More like he’s mine,” Pearl chuckled.
Anchor glanced at Pearl and smiled. “Not wrong about that.”
“Now me!” the other woman on the couch called. “I bet you can’t tell which guy I am with.”
I didn’t even need to look around, because I had clocked the guy by the pool table making eyes toward her earlier when I had walked in. “That one.”
Her mouth dropped open. “How?”
“McKayla is the PI, but you might need to take some pointers from Ramona,” Prime laughed.
I hitched my bag on my shoulder. “Nah, I’ve just been around a lot, and notice small things.” The fatigue from driving the past three days, while looking over my shoulder the whole time thinking I would be seeing Ash tonight, hit me. I glanced toward the door.
My RV was out there. My home. Everything I owned. And somewhere off the island, Ashland Moore was lying in a hospital bed because somebody had nearly killed him. I swallowed. “Is he really going to be okay?”
The question came out quieter than I wanted.
Anchor looked at me. “Yeah.”
I searched his face.
He believed it or needed to. Either way, I nodded.
Pearl started toward the hallway, and I followed.
Prime called after me. “Night, Ramona.”
I turned. “Night.”
His smile widened. “Can’t wait to tell Ashland you’re here.”
Shay walked past him and punched his arm. “Would you stop being so annoying?”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. “Babe, his name is Ashland,” he told her like it was the funniest thing in the world.
She rolled her eyes and pressed a kiss to his lips. “You guys are so weird about names, Marshal.”
Prime looked at her like she had lost her mind. “You can’t be saying that out loud.”
Shay laughed and pulled out of his arms. “Remember that the next time you say Ashland,” she laughed as she followed behind me.
I pointed at him. “You need to get amnesia about that name.” I looked at Anchor. “Can you control him?” Anchor shook his head. “No.”
“Good to know.”
Pearl laughed as she led me down the hallway with Shay behind me.
The farther we got from the common room, the quieter it became. I could still hear the guys talking behind us, along with a burst of laughter that told me Prime was probably still enjoying himself way too much.
I glanced over my shoulder. Shay caught me looking and smiled. “He’s never going to let that go.”
“I gathered that.”
“Prime likes information he can use against people.”
Pearl looked back at us. “Ignore him. He gets worse when he knows he’s getting a reaction.”
“Good to know.” I made a mental note to never react to anything Prime said again. That would probably last five minutes.
Pearl stopped in front of one of the doors and pushed it open. “You can stay in here.”
I stepped inside and looked around.
The room wasn’t anything fancy, but after spending most of the last few months sleeping in an RV, it looked pretty damn good. There was a bed against one wall, a TV opposite the bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a small lamp throwing warm light across the room.
“Bathroom is through that door,” Pearl said. “There are towels in the cabinet outside it. If you need anything, just ask.”
“Thanks.”
I set my bag on the bed.
Shay leaned against the doorframe. “You hungry?”
“I’m okay.”
Both women looked at me.
I sighed. “I had Pop-Tarts.”
Pearl’s eyebrows lifted. “When?”
“This morning.”
“That’s not food.”
“It came in a wrapper and I chewed it. Pretty sure that counts.”
Shay laughed softly.
Pearl shook her head. “I’ll bring you something.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” There was something about the way she said it that made me stop arguing.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed my hands over my jeans. For the first time since I’d pulled onto the island, I wasn’t moving.
No driving. No trying to figure out where Ashland was. Just sitting, and suddenly the whole day caught up with me.
Shay must have noticed because she stepped farther into the room. “Hospitals make everything sound worse.”
I looked up at her.
She shrugged slightly. “Not saying what happened to Bob wasn’t bad. It was. But he’s stubborn.”
Pearl snorted. “That might actually be the thing keeping him alive.”
A small laugh slipped out of me. I looked between them. “You’ve both seen him?”
They nodded.
“How does he look?”
Pearl and Shay exchanged a quick glance I noticed. “Don’t do that.”
Pearl frowned. “Do what?”
“That look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you decide how much to tell me,” I sighed. “I’m a big girl.”
Shay smiled. “You’re going to fit in way too well here.”
“That keeps getting said to me, and I don’t like it.”
Pearl sat beside me on the edge of the bed. “He looks like someone who got hurt really badly and is still healing.”
I nodded slowly.
That wasn’t exactly comforting, but it was honest.
“Is he conscious and talking?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Shay said. “His voice is rough, but he can talk.”
“Clearly enough to threaten to leave the hospital?”
Pearl laughed. “Very clearly.”
“Okay.” That helped more than I wanted to admit. If Ashland was still pissing people off, then he was still Ashland. I looked down at my hands. “I should’ve known.”
Pearl tilted her head. “Known what?”
“That something happened.”
Neither woman said anything.
I shook my head. “Never mind. That was stupid.”
“It wasn’t,” Shay said.
I looked at her. She pushed away from the doorframe and sat on the other side of me.
“You haven’t seen him in twenty years. You couldn’t have known.”
“I know.” Logically, I did. That didn't stop me from feeling guilty.
Pearl bumped her shoulder lightly against mine. “You’ll see him tomorrow.”
I nodded.
“Then you can decide whether you want to hug him or yell at him.”
“Probably yell.”
Shay smiled. “That’s usually safer.”
“Good.”
Pearl stood. “I’m getting you food.”
“Pearl—”
“Nope.”
I looked at Shay. She lifted both hands. “Don’t drag me into this.”
“You’re useless.”
“Probably.”
Pearl headed toward the door, then stopped and looked back at me. “You’re okay in here?”
I glanced around the room. “Yeah.”
She nodded once. “Good.”
Shay followed her toward the hallway but paused beside the door. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “Bob’s had half this club camped out at the hospital since it happened. He’s got people watching him even when he doesn’t want them to.”
I smiled a little. “That sounds like him.”
Shay’s expression softened. “Yeah.”
Then she stepped into the hallway. Pearl reached for the door but didn’t close it right away. “You need anything, yell.”
“I thought this was a clubhouse full of bikers.”
“It is.”
“And your solution is yell?”
“Works surprisingly well.”
I laughed.
Pearl smiled. “I’ll set a tray outside with some food. Try to get some rest, Ramona.”
The door closed behind them.
I sat there for another minute, staring at nothing.
Tomorrow. I’d see Ashland tomorrow after twenty years. I lay back against the mattress and stared up at the ceiling.
I had spent the entire drive worrying about what I was going to say when I saw him.
Now I had a completely different problem. I had to figure out what the hell I was going to say when I saw him sitting in a hospital bed.