Chapter Four
Bob
I stared at the ceiling over my hospital bed and listened to Cross and Anchor talk about something happening with the haunted house while I tried not to lose my fucking mind.
Again.
The doctor had been in earlier. Physical therapy had been in before that. A nurse had taken my blood pressure, checked my throat, asked about my pain, and then reminded me to call before I tried getting out of bed.
As if I hadn’t heard that same shit twenty times already.
I understood why everyone was hovering. I did. Didn’t mean I had to like it.
My body had taken one hell of a beating.
I wasn’t stupid enough to pretend otherwise.
Standing for more than five minutes still made my legs feel like they’d forgotten what their fucking job was.
Getting from the bed to the bathroom left me breathing harder than it should.
My throat hurt constantly, and talking too much made it worse.
But every day was better.
I was eating. I was talking. I could move everything I was supposed to move. I wasn’t hooked up to half the machines I’d been hooked up to when I woke up.
I didn’t need to be here anymore.
The doctors had differing opinions, depending on which one walked into my room.
One wanted another couple days.
Another had started talking about sending me home soon as long as I had someone there around the clock.
Physical therapy wanted me stronger first.
I wanted all of them to fuck off.
Anchor leaned against the windowsill with his arms crossed while Cross sat in the chair Skull usually occupied. Skull had gone back to the clubhouse this morning, which was where he belonged. All of them belonged there.
Not sitting around this damn hospital waiting for me to need help reaching a cup of water.
I shifted against the pillows.
Cross glanced over. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
I looked at him.
His mouth twitched.
“Everybody in this club suddenly psychic?” I grunted.
“No. You’re just obvious when you’re pissed,” Cross chuckled.
“I’ve been pissed for weeks.” I couldn’t even remember how many days I had been in this fucking hospital. I just knew I needed to get out.
“Exactly.”
Anchor laughed.
I flipped him off.
“Good to see you’re feeling better,” he said.
“I’ll feel better when I’m out of here.”
“There it is,” Cross muttered.
“What?”
“The same fucking sentence you’ve said every hour since I got here.”
“Maybe everybody should start listening.”
Anchor shook his head and his phone started ringing.
He pulled it from his pocket, looked at the screen, and answered. “Yeah?”
Skull’s voice came through faintly.
Anchor frowned. “Hold on.”
He tapped the screen and set the phone on the rolling table beside my bed. “Speaker.”
That got my attention.
Cross leaned forward in the chair.
“What happened?” Anchor asked.
Skull sighed through the phone. “Your new houseguest is gonna be a fucking handful.”
I sat straighter.
Ramona.
“What happened?” I asked.
There was a beat of silence.
“Bob?” Skull called.
“Who else?” I grunted.
“Thought you were supposed to be resting.”
“Thought you were supposed to answer the fucking question.”
Cross covered his mouth with one hand.
Anchor’s eyes narrowed at me, but he didn’t say anything.
Skull laughed. “Good. You’re definitely feeling better.”
“What happened with Ramona?” I demanded.
“She wanted to go to her RV,” Skull started.
“So?”
“So Prime told her no.”
I closed my eyes. Of course he did. “What’d she do?”
“What do you think she did?”
“Skull,” Anchor called. None of us were up for a guessing game.
“She lost her shit.”
Cross laughed.
“Not funny,” I growled.
“Little funny,” Skull said.
“What happened?”
“She wanted some time alone. Prime wasn’t letting her go out there by herself. Shay tried to talk him into all of them going, but Prime had shit to do.”
“And?” Cross asked.
“And Ramona decided she was being held captive.”
Cross barked out a laugh. Even Anchor smiled.
I stared at the phone. “That’s not fucking funny.”
“That is absolutely fucking funny,” Cross said.
“Fuck you.”
Skull chuckled. “She announced it loud enough, I’m pretty sure half the clubhouse heard.”
I rubbed a hand over my beard. Yep. That sounded like Ramona. “She okay?”
“She’s fine.”
“Where is she now?” I asked.
“At the RV.”
My hand stopped. “Alone?”
“No.”
Good.
I didn’t even have to ask the next question. Skull knew me too well. “Pull and Wannabe are outside,” he continued. “They’re staying there as long as she wants to be in it.”
I relaxed slightly. “Why the fuck did Prime tell her no in the first place? He really had other shit he needed to do?” I asked.
“Nobody’s wandering around alone right now,” Skull droned out.
“Yeah, I know that,” I drawled.
“Ramona doesn’t.”
That shut me up.
Skull sighed. “That’s the other reason I’m calling.”
Anchor straightened.
Cross’s expression changed.
I stared at the phone.
“What?” Anchor asked.
“She’s noticing shit.”
Of course she was. Ramona had always noticed too much.
Even when we were kids, she paid attention to things other people missed. Part of that came from being smart. Part of it probably came from growing up in a house where knowing what mood somebody was in before they walked into the room mattered.
“What has she noticed?” I asked.
“Everybody watching the lot. Nobody letting her go anywhere alone. She saw McKayla at the hospital and figured out Erin’s there too.”
Fuck.
Skull continued. “Prime said she was already looking around like she was trying to put shit together. Then she started asking why she couldn’t go to her RV by herself.”
Anchor rubbed a hand over his jaw. “She mention anything else?”
“Prime said she said something about her former boss.”
My body went still. “What?”
“Nothing big,” Skull said quickly. “Prime pushed. She didn’t give him anything. Just that the guy’s pissed and she left.”
I looked toward the door.
Like I could somehow see Ramona through the hospital walls, across the water, all the way back to Skull Island.
Her former boss. The campground. The problem she didn’t want to tell me about. I already hated the motherfucker and didn’t even know his name. “She didn’t tell Prime anything?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Cross looked at me. “Good?”
“Yeah. Good.”
Anchor’s eyebrows pulled together.
I shifted against the pillows. “She’ll tell me.”
Cross leaned back. “Bob—”
“No.”
He stopped.
I looked from him to Anchor. “She’ll tell me what’s going on. And I’ll be the one who tells her what’s happening on the island.”
Anchor didn’t answer right away.
That irritated me. “What?” I asked.
“You sure that’s smart?” Anchor asked.
My jaw tightened. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because you’re sitting in a hospital bed.”
I stared at him. “So?”
“So you’re still recovering.”
“I know where the fuck I am.”
“Then act like it.” Cross went quiet.
Skull was silent on the phone.
I looked at Anchor. “I am acting like it.”
“No, you’re acting like you’re already home.”
“Because I should be.”
Anchor let out a breath through his nose.
I didn’t care. This wasn’t just me bitching because I hated hospitals anymore.
Ramona was on my island. In my clubhouse. Surrounded by my brothers.
They were watching her. Protecting her. Answering her questions. Making decisions about where she could and couldn’t go. That should’ve been a good thing, but it wasn’t.
Not because I didn’t trust them.
I trusted them with my life, but Ramona wasn’t theirs to deal with.
She was mine.
That thought landed hard enough that I stopped for half a second.
Mine.
She’d come here looking for me. She hadn’t driven three days because she needed the Kings of Anarchy. She came because she needed Ashland Moore.
Me.
That made her my responsibility.
“I don’t want the club handling her,” I said.
Skull let out a low whistle through the phone.
Cross’s eyebrows lifted.
Anchor stared at me.
“You want to say that again?” Cross asked.
“You heard me.”
“The club is keeping her safe.”
“I know.” But it wouldn’t be that way for long.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is she came here for me.” Nobody spoke. I continued. “She doesn’t know you fuckers. She doesn’t know what’s happening on the island. She doesn’t know why everybody watches the trees, why nobody walks alone, why Erin is in the hospital, or why I almost died.”
“She knows somebody attacked you,” Anchor pointed out.
“She doesn’t know the rest,” I pointed out.
“No.”
“And she shouldn’t hear it from one of you fuckers.”
“Hey,” Skull said.
I looked at the phone.
“What?”
“We’re not that bad,” he said defensively.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Anchor laughed.
“Okay, fair,” Cross laughed.
I ignored him. “She needs to hear it from me.”
Anchor crossed his arms. “Why?”
I stared at him. “Because she’s connected to me.” Simple. “She showed up because she thought I could help her. Now instead of me doing that, she’s got the whole fucking club taking care of her while I’m sitting here.”
“Bob—” Anchor started.
“No.” My voice came out harsher than it had in days. Pain ripped across my throat. I stopped and swallowed carefully.
Nobody said anything until it eased.
Then Anchor pointed at me. “That right there is why you’re still in the hospital.”
“I talked too loud.”
“You’re recovering from having your throat cut,” Anchor pointed out like I didn’t know.
“I’m aware,” I drawled quietly.
“Apparently, not.”
I glared at him.
Cross leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. “You’re not gonna be worth shit to Ramona if you push too hard and end up back in ICU.”
“I’m not going back to ICU.” That was the last place I was going to land.
“You don’t know that,” Skull called.
“Neither do you.”
Anchor rubbed his forehead. “Christ.”
I leaned back against the pillows. Not because he was right, but because sitting up had started making my head feel light. Nobody needed to know that.
Cross definitely fucking noticed. His eyes dropped toward my hands.
I curled them into fists. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to,” I grunted.
“No. I was thinking it.”
“Think quieter.”
Skull laughed through the speaker. “Glad I’m not there.”
“You’ll be dealing with me tomorrow,” I told him.
Silence.
Anchor’s head snapped toward me. Cross stared.
Skull finally said, “What?”