Chapter 22
She was trying not to let the panic show.
Hope sat in the hospital waiting room, with her mom on one side and her sister Joy on the other.
She knew what they were doing—they were trying to protect her from whatever was about to happen.
They always did that—especially when it involved Heather.
They all tended to baby Hope a little. Well, a lot. Hope and Cara and Cashlyn and Crispin.
They were the youngest of the girls Bonnie had raised. Heather was one of the older ones. Heather had been the one to take care of the younger ones when they’d been kids, while Bonnie had worked to support them all. Heather…Heather was the one who always made everything okay. For all of them.
Until Steve Wilson had hurt her the way he had.
Hope was a little bit terrified for Heather right now.
How could she not be? Her sister was back there—a bullet hole in her body.
Hope had her own bullet hole, right there on her shoulder.
It was itching. She was trying to not remember, to not think about what had happened.
Trying not to remember how much it had hurt when it had happened and trying not to imagine what her sister would have felt.
How terrified she had been out there on the dark road that night. With Madison.
Madison.
Madison was right there, in front of her, saying something. Hope looked up at her friend. It took her a minute—then she nodded. Hope stood. “I could really use something to drink right now. Mom? Joy?”
They shook their heads. There was a worried look in her mom’s big brown eyes. Her mom was doing that thing again, where she pretended everything was going to be all right. So the girls she had raised wouldn’t be afraid. She had been out there tonight, had seen how bad Heather was.
Hope…Hope didn’t think she had ever stopped being afraid.
Not since the night she’d been four years old, and her sister Bonnie had told her that her mom and dad were gone.
Dead. And that they were never coming back.
But Bonnie would be there for her forever.
No matter what. Hope hadn’t even known what dead was back then, let alone that it was permanent.
And that the rest of her sisters were crying and hurting. And afraid.
Bonnie had become her Bonnie-mommy after that. And then just…mommy. The only mom Hope would ever remember.
Hope bent down and hugged her mom carefully. She hadn’t told her family that she still hurt sometimes, they had enough to worry about right now. She’d scared them—she didn’t want them hovering over her.
Heather was going to be okay. It would just take time. Hope just…really hated this hospital. She’d been there too many times lately. She just wanted Heather to be okay, and to get her big sister out of here and back to their house. Where they were all safe. At least for a little while.
She just wanted Heather to be okay. Tears threatened again. But she couldn’t cry—there were people watching them all now. Hope wouldn’t let them see. She just wouldn’t.
Neither she nor Madison said anything as they walked out into the hall.
Past everyone from the TSP. Hope just nodded at the officers and detectives who spoke to her, but she and Madison didn’t stop.
It seemed like everyone wanted to talk to her now.
Now that she had almost died out there. Because of Kimball.
They acted like they cared.
Now they acted all protective and everything. Like she was one of them. Hope and Heather both.
They were all just…pretending, really.
None of them really cared. They just wanted to look like they did.
Hope knew who her real friends with the TSP were. Madison topped that list. And Miriam. Miriam was in Finley Creek now. Her best friend.
That kind of scared Hope a little. She didn’t want Miriam getting caught up in all the bad stuff at the Finley Creek post. Her bestie from Wichita Falls was filling in for her at the Finley Creek lab now.
Miriam had volunteered. Even if she had to work double shifts to cover—Miriam had promised to be there to help.
Of course, she had—Hope was surprised Miriam wasn’t still camping in their guest room like she had for a few days after Hope had first been shot.
Miriam was four days older than Hope. She said that made her the one in charge.
It didn’t work that way, but…Hope valued her bestie so much.
Miriam had been there whenever Hope had needed her.
“Are you okay?” Madison asked, quietly.
“I guess. Just worried.” Heather hadn’t been conscious when they’d gotten there.
They’d been told that. Samia had friends in the ER who had told her.
Her sister had lost a lot of blood and she was in surgery now to repair the damage to her leg.
And Samia had said it was serious. Hope was trying not to freak here.
“Just…why is it always Heather? Hasn’t she had enough bad stuff happen to her lately? ”
Her entire life.
Madison hugged her. She just hugged her. “I’m sorry, Hope. This really sucks.”
Hope resisted the urge to just hold on and cry. Like she would Heather when she was little. “I…can’t stay too long. I need to be there. With the babies.”
Heather’s little girls. Hope adored those little girls.
Heather would want her to make sure they were okay right now.
No matter what. Hope had made a promise when her niece Frankie had been born and she’d moved in with Heather to help her sister take care of her baby—Hope would do whatever it took for Heather’s little girl.
And then came Ember. She’d promised Heather that no matter what, Hope would make sure Frankie—and now Ember too—would be taken care of.
Just like Bonnie had taken care of Hope and the rest of her sisters-of-the-heart twenty years ago.
What would happen to those girls if Heather wasn’t okay?
Hope would fight whoever she had to fight for them, to keep them with their family. She’d promised Heather to always take care of them. She’d find a way to make the money work, if she had to. And her sisters, her family, they wouldn’t let anything happen to Heather’s babies.
But they needed their mom.
“Hope?”
She looked up at the man who was just standing there right now. Like he’d appeared out of nowhere. Of course it would be him. “Miggy.”
“Don’t call me Miggy, brat,” he said in that big rumbly voice of his. Then he was reaching out toward them. Toward…her. “She’s going to be okay. Heather’s too mean not to be.”
His hand was scorching on her shoulder. She looked at him more closely as Madison stepped slightly away.
Dom was there—he’d been behind Miguel. Miguel kind of overshadowed other men.
Even big, strong, hot ones like Dominic Acardi.
Kind of hard to miss that sometimes. Miguel looked like he was…
perfect. At least physically. Hot, tall, muscled, strong—Miguel looked like he could hold back the entire world if needed sometimes.
She hadn’t missed that. “No cheap suit tonight.”
He wore an old T-shirt. It clung to the muscles of his chest, his arms. And there was… “Blood. You are always covered with blood, it seems.”
He’d been on his way to her house. To pick up his three kids. Summer had met him in the driveway and sent him to help Heather. Hope had listened to the whole thing through her earpiece. Trying not to freak out the entire time.
All she had been able to think about was her sister out there with men who had hurt her before. Hope had called the only ones she could think of to help fast. And they had come.
Thankfully, there had been TSP that she half-trusted nearby. They’d helped rush to the rescue, after Miguel had followed Heather. He’d just…gone to help her sister, right into danger. Without hesitating. Because Heather had needed him.
They had Heather and Gunnar and Daniel McKellen back. Now…they just had to wait.
“Yeah, sometimes that happens. Bonnie told me you were out here.”
“Did you need me for something?” It had to be TSP related.
If it had something to do with his three children, he would be in the waiting room with her mom.
The older two kids were back at Hope’s house in Hughes Heights, with Marcia and Norm and some TSP detectives to watch over them all, but his baby was in the waiting room.
They hadn’t wanted to let her out of their sight.
Considering…Timothy had escaped. Hope wanted to get back to Emilia soon.
To just make sure she was safe. “Emmie is with Summer. We thought…with…Timothy…we just decided to keep her surrounded by us so she stays safe.”
Miguel’s baby wasn’t really his baby. Not biologically.
Miguel’s wife had had an affair—with Hope’s former brother-in-law, Timothy.
And created that beautiful little girl Miguel was raising as his own.
Emilia Rose was far luckier to have Miguel than Timothy as a father, that was for sure.
Hope was never going to let Timothy get anywhere near that baby girl. No matter what.
“I know. She’s sleeping, last I checked on her. I came out here to check on you. To be with you now.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what to think about this man. He was the one man on earth that Heather wasn’t afraid of. That mattered. Sometimes, she thought the two of them would be perfect together. Heather deserved to be happy. And he was big and strong enough to make her sister feel safe, right?
Sometimes the thought of Heather with him made her stomach clench though.
There was something about this man she just did not understand.
He was looking at her in a strange way. Like he was holding himself back or something. Sometimes, she just couldn’t figure him out. “Come on, I’ll walk you back.”
Hope looked at Madison. They hadn’t had a chance to say much, other than Madison asking her to copy everything that had happened tonight, that Hope had recorded, to Madison’s special server. As fast as she possibly could.
So that it didn’t disappear.
Hope…knew…she probably wasn’t supposed to do that. But Madison…
They both knew what was happening.
There wasn’t anyone they could really trust at the TSP. Not really.
Except…maybe the two men staring at them.
Hope just didn’t know what to do now.