Chapter Eight
Bob
I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed Piney’s cooking until I was sitting at the table with a plate piled with eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, and toast in front of me.
Hospital food had kept me alive. That was about the nicest thing I could say about it.
I took another bite of potatoes and leaned back in my chair.
The common room was loud around me. Not as loud as dinner last night, but enough that it felt normal.
Piney was still moving around the kitchen, making more food even though there was already enough on the table to feed twice as many people.
Anchor and Skull were talking at the other end while Pearl sat beside Anchor, drinking coffee.
Ramona was beside me. I liked that.
She’d stayed close since I’d come home yesterday, and sometime between falling asleep beside her last night and waking up this morning, I’d stopped wondering why.
I just liked having her there. Especially after what happened in the bedroom.
I picked up my coffee and took a drink.
Ramona had checked me out. There wasn’t any other way to explain what I’d seen on her face when I’d gotten out of bed in nothing but my boxer briefs.
Her eyes had gone down. Then farther down. Then slowly back up. I’d caught her and she’d known I’d caught her.
I looked over and she was eating a piece of toast while listening to something Shay was saying.
My eyes moved over her.
Jeans. T-shirt. Hair pulled back.
Twenty years ago, I’d known Ramona as Clint’s little sister. She’d been around enough that I’d known her, talked to her, given her shit occasionally, but I’d never really looked at her.
Not like this.
I was looking now.
She turned her head and our eyes met.
Ramona’s lips curved slightly. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You were looking at me.”
“Yeah.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
I took another drink of coffee.
“Okay,” she laughed softly.
I smiled.
She didn’t look away immediately. Neither did I.
“How’s the throat?” she asked.
“Better.”
“Actually better or Bob better?”
I frowned. “What’s Bob better?”
“You say you’re fine when you’re clearly not, so I’m assuming Bob better means you’re only in a moderate amount of pain but don’t want anyone to know.”
I almost laughed. “Actually better.”
“Good.”
She’d been watching me since yesterday, but she wasn’t treating me like I was helpless. She wasn’t asking every five seconds if I needed something. She wasn’t trying to push my chair around or grab shit for me before I had a chance to do it myself.
She was just paying attention. I could handle that.
Piney walked past and dropped another piece of bacon onto my plate.
I looked down at it. “What the fuck?”
“You need protein.”
“I already had bacon.”
“Now you have more.”
I looked at Ramona.
She shrugged. “Eat the bacon.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Bacon’s.”
Fair enough. I ate it.
By the time breakfast was over, I was feeling better than I had since before the attack.
I’d slept in my own bed. Eaten actual food. Had coffee that didn’t taste like it came out of a machine that hadn’t been cleaned since 1987.
And Ramona was here.
I wasn’t going to examine that one too closely yet.
Ramona pushed her chair back. “You still want to try walking?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
I looked at her.
She held up her hands. “I’m asking. Not telling.”
“I’m sure.”
“Then let’s do it.”
We went out behind the clubhouse.
I’d refused to do physical therapy in the common room.
Ramona hadn’t argued. That surprised me.
She’d simply nodded, followed me outside, and waited while I positioned the wheelchair near the back porch.
The morning was cool. Sunlight stretched across part of the yard, but the clubhouse and haunted house kept most of where we were shaded.
I locked the wheels.
Ramona stepped closer. “You ready?”
“Yeah.”
She held out her hand. I looked at it and then at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.” I took it, and she helped steady me while I pushed myself upright.
My legs held. That alone felt fucking good.
I stood still for a few seconds, waiting for the lightheaded feeling that sometimes hit when I got up.
Nothing. Even better.
“How’s that?” Ramona asked.
“Good.”
She studied my face. I knew what she was doing. “Actually good,” I added.
“Okay,” she smiled.
No argument. No telling me to sit back down.
She moved beside me. “What did they have you doing at the hospital?”
“Walking mostly. Leg exercises. Standing.”
“How far?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“How pissed off I was.”
She laughed. “So anger is part of the official rehabilitation program?”
“Worked for me.”
“I can probably keep you irritated if that’s what you need.”
I looked down at her. “I don’t think you’ll have a problem.”
She smiled.
I put my arm around her shoulders, and her arm slid around my waist. Suddenly, I wasn’t thinking about walking.
Fuck, she was warm. I could feel the curve of her body against my side, and when she adjusted her hold on me, her hand settled against my hip.
My body noticed. Immediately.
Ramona looked up. “Ready?”
I cleared my throat, the burn sharp and annoying. “Yeah.”
We started walking.
Slowly. One step. Then another.
Ramona stayed beside me without trying to carry my weight. She let me do the work, only tightening her hold whenever I shifted too far.
“You’re doing good,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I took another step. Then another.
We’d made it maybe twenty feet when I realized I was looking down at her instead of where I was going.
Her hair smelled good. Something sweet. Vanilla, maybe.
She caught me. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, but there was a smile behind it. “You keep saying that.”
“Maybe there’s nothing wrong with looking at you.”
That stopped her, which stopped me.
Her eyes lifted to mine, and for a second, neither of us said anything.
“No,” she said softly. “I guess there isn’t.”
Fuck me.
I looked ahead again. Walking. We were supposed to be fucking walking.
I took another step.
Ramona moved with me.
My arm tightened slightly around her shoulders. Hers tightened around my waist. I could get used to this.
That thought probably should’ve bothered me.
It didn’t.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“You want to keep going?”
I looked toward the wheelchair, then back at the stretch of yard in front of us.
“Yeah.”
We made it another few feet.
My legs were working fine. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was I’d spent weeks lying in a fucking hospital bed while my body put everything it had into staying alive and healing. I’d lost strength everywhere, and apparently walking across the backyard was enough to remind me of that.
My thighs started burning. I took another step, and the muscles in my legs started to tremble.
Ramona felt it because her arm tightened around my waist. “Want to head back?”
“One more.”
She looked up at me. I expected an argument. Instead, she nodded. “One more.”
I took another step. My legs held, barely, but that was enough.
I stopped and drew in a slow breath. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Back.”
She smiled. “Good call.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
We turned around.
The wheelchair looked farther away than it actually was, which pissed me off, but I started toward it.
One step at a time.
Ramona stayed beside me. Her arm was still around my waist, but she wasn’t holding me up. She was there in case I needed her.
There was a difference, and I fucking appreciated it.
Halfway back, my legs started shaking harder. My entire body was getting tired now, and sweat had broken out across my forehead even though it wasn’t warm outside.
I slowed.
Ramona slowed with me. “You’re doing good,” she said.
“I’m walking across the yard.”
“After spending weeks in a hospital bed.”
I glanced down at her.
She shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
I knew what she meant.
My legs weren’t fucked up.
There wasn’t anything wrong with them that time and work wouldn’t fix. The doctors had made that clear. I’d lost strength because I’d spent too damn long in bed, and now I had to build it back. That I could do.
I finally reached the wheelchair and lowered myself into it.
Fuck.
I leaned back and took a deep breath. My thighs were still trembling, but it wasn’t scary.
It was annoying. There was a difference there too.
Ramona stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. “That was farther than yesterday when you walked to the RV.”
“Yeah.”
“Tomorrow we’ll go a little farther than this.”
I looked up at her. Did she not see me struggling to breathe right now?
She smiled. “Not a lot. Just a little.”
“You’re really taking this whole physical therapist thing seriously.”
“I’m pretty sure there are licenses and degrees involved in that. I’m just trying to help you walk and get back to normal.”
“Probably.”
“But I can walk beside you.”
I stared at her. That shouldn’t have hit the way it did, but it fucking did.
I reached out and caught her hand. Ramona looked down at our hands. “Thanks.”
Her fingers curled around mine. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“Still am.”
She squeezed once before letting go. Then she pulled one of the chairs closer and sat down.
For a minute, neither of us talked. I needed the break. She seemed to know that. Eventually, my breathing settled.
Ramona leaned back. “So.”
I knew what was coming. “My turn?” I sighed.
She smiled. “You promised.”
I knew it.
“And I told you everything.”
“Not everything. I don’t think you covered twenty years this morning.”
“I told you everything that matters.”
I studied her. She had. At least as far as she knew.
“Okay,” I said. I looked toward the yard. “There’ve been bodies.”
Ramona went completely still. “Bodies?”
“Yeah.”
“As in more than one?”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus.”
I rubbed my beard. “Somebody’s been targeting the club. We don’t know exactly why yet.”
“What do you mean, targeting?”
“Bodies. Messages. Pictures. Shit left where we’re supposed to find it.”
Her eyes moved toward the clubhouse. I watched everything click into place as I ran through everything that had been happening the past months. I hadn’t been here for most of it, but I knew it all.
The guys watching the parking lot. Nobody letting her go anywhere alone. The hospital. Me. Bernice.
I told her all of it.