Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“I should’ve told you.”
I turned my head toward the voice.
“Why didn’t I tell you?”
A woman’s voice.
“I should’ve just told you.”
“Told me what?” I asked.
“Jase? Oh, God. You’re awake.”
With effort, I pried my eyes open but only made it a sliver before the bright lights had me slamming them shut. But that sliver was all I needed to see Rainy sitting in a chair next to my hospital bed.
“What are you doing here, Rae?”
“Um…”
It took me a moment to realize she wasn’t explaining.
I shifted in the bed, felt the uncomfortable pull on my shoulder, and the ache in my head made itself known when I once again opened my eyes.
This time I ignored the throbbing and fully opened them to find Rainy staring at me.
Pale face, bloodshot eyes, her hair was piled on top of her head, but not in one of those artfully arranged buns women pull off.
Hers was just plain messy, like she’d just secured it to get it out of the way. And lastly, she looked freaked.
“I’m not mad, sweetheart. Just curious,” I told her. “How’d you know I was here?”
Her eyes dropped to my bare chest, and I hoped someone had cleaned the blood away.
“Sophie,” she whispered.
That tracked. What didn’t is why Rainy would be at the hospital.
The painkillers were wearing off if the twinge in my shoulder was anything to go by, not to mention the pain bouncing around in my skull intensified when I turned my head to look at the clock on the wall.
My vision was blurry, but I could still make out it was after two in the afternoon.
She should be in the pickup line at school.
“You should be picking up your boy,” I told her.
“Mom’s picking him up and taking him back to her house.”
When my gaze slowly made its way back to Rainy, she had her eyes pinned to my right shoulder, or more to the point the bandage covering the stitches underneath. I had matching stitches on the back of my shoulder, ditto on the bandage. And two staples on the back of my head.
“It went straight through,” I explained.
“Huh?”
“The bullet. It went straight through. Just a few stitches.”
She didn’t take her eyes off the bandage when she said, “And staples.”
“Rainy,” I called and waited for her gaze to lift. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. Totally fine.”
Other than a bruised ego from tripping on a downed tree branch and knocking myself out when my head hit the stump, I was fine.
“Okay,” she murmured.
She didn’t look convinced and since I didn’t know what to say to her to make her believe me, I went back to my earlier question.
“What should you have told me?”
That startled her out of her haze. She no longer looked freaked out about my injuries. She looked panicked. Her eyes darted to the IV bag, then to the machines next to my bed, then to the corner of the bed.
“Rainy?”
“We should wait until you’re not in a hospital bed after getting shot.”
Shit, I was getting annoyed again.
I didn’t get why she was in my hospital room. I didn’t understand why she’d arrange for her mom to pick up her kid. What I did get was she was good at evading anything that was important.
“I can see the muscle in your cheek jumping,” she murmured.
No sooner had the words left her mouth than her eyes rounded.
Yeah, she didn’t mean to say that out loud. Just like she hadn’t meant for me to hear her mumbling about her telling me something when she thought I was asleep.
I went back to another question she’d yet to answer. “Why are you here?”
Her gaze shifted back to my shoulder, which was too bad she wasn’t looking at my face to see the muscle in my cheek was no longer jumping, seeing as I was grinding my molars to stop myself from saying something I’d regret.
“Shay was here,” she whispered.
I didn’t miss the hurt in her tone. Which on some level I understood. I’d loved her once. There was a time when I thought my future would include her and our children. I’d planned for that. I’d wanted that. I was destroyed when she took that away.
Yet, I didn’t since she was the one who ended our relationship. Then went on to end our friendship. And if her attitude the last two times I saw her was anything to go by, she had no intention of resurrecting our friendship.
So, no, I didn’t fucking get it—any of it.
And I was done playing this game with her.
“She’s the mother of my children.” I didn’t miss Rainy’s flinch. “As their mother, it’s not surprising she’d come by to check on me. Though, being my ex-wife, it’s not a shock she didn’t stick around after she found out all I needed was a few stitches.”
Rainy nodded but didn’t comment.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me, that my ex-wife was here?” I pushed.
“No,” she whispered. “I… um… it was a bad idea coming here. I just…”
She trailed off, once again dodging why she was there.
“You just what?” I spat, losing my temper.
“Needed to see if you were okay.” With a shake of her head, she pushed out of the chair and took her feet. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve come.”
As pissed as I was, it didn’t stop me from taking her in.
Top-to-toe, Rainy Cross was the total package.
At fourteen, she’d been pretty. At fifteen, she’d grown into her beauty.
At sixteen, the promise of her had shined bright.
At seventeen, she turned heads. She’d bounced through the halls of our high school, holding my hand, totally unaware she could’ve dumped my ass and there would’ve been a line of assholes happy to take my place.
Back then I knew I was lucky. I knew she loved me with a certainty I never doubted. I knew we’d go the distance. I knew I’d have a lifetime of waking up next to a gorgeous, sweet, funny woman. I knew I’d spend the rest of my life doing whatever I needed to do to make her happy.
Then she took it away.
And now there she was, all these years later, back in Hollow Point, standing next to my hospital bed, looking gorgeous, once again taking herself away from me.
The pain of that burned through me.
Fifteen years passed and that shit still stung like it happened yesterday.
“You’re good at that.”
She looked down at me and asked, “Good at what?”
“Leaving.”
I knew I scored a point when she was unable to hide her wince.
“That was low,” she whispered.
She was right, it was.
“Yet it’s the truth.”
Rainy’s back snapped straight and the hurt cruised out of her face.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she bit out.
“Why did you come?” I pressed. “And don’t feed me bullshit you wanted to know if I was okay, because if that was the case, you could’ve asked Sophie.”
Way back when, I knew Rainy. I could read her body language. With one look I knew her mood.
Now, not so much.
I saw the hurt and anger filter through her expression, but there was something else there. Something I couldn’t get a lock on.
I didn’t need to tax myself trying to figure out what was going through her mind. Rainy was done with me acting like a dick and had no problem communicating she was done.
“Because I’m stupid, that’s why. So freaking stupid.”
She snatched her purse off the chair, rounded my bed, and was practically jogging to the door. Before I thought better of it, I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My shoulder screamed in protest, and I felt the tug of the IV keeping me tethered to the goddamn bed.
Fuck.
“Rainy, wait.”
She turned slightly and I didn’t miss the concern etched in her beautiful face.
“I’m being an asshole,” I admitted. “Stay and—”
“You’re right, you are but I deserve it.
I did this to us and what I should’ve told you Saturday night was that I’m sorry.
I should’ve explained.” Rainy paused and a fresh wave of pain engulfed her entire body.
The kind that hurts to witness. The kind that fills a room and makes it hard to breathe.
“But there’s too much… my head’s not right.
No, my heart’s not right. Nothing’s right.
But none of that is your problem. I should’ve apologized right away.
I should’ve explained. But I didn’t and now this.
” She swept her arm in a wide arc indicating the room.
“But this isn’t about me or what I deserve.
You were shot. You don’t need me here making it worse for you.
I should’ve stayed away but I didn’t, because I’m stupid. ”
With horrible fucking timing, the door opened, and Ethan appeared.
He took one step in and rocked to a halt.
“I’ll come back—”
Rainy whirled around to face Ethan and shook her head. I could no longer see her face but whatever he saw it made him frown.
“No. Stay. I was just leaving.”
And she moved around Ethan to do just that.
“Rainy,” I called out but she didn’t stop.
Ethan gave it a beat before he made his way across the room.
“You probably shouldn’t be sitting up. You’ve got enough pain meds in you to put down a horse.”
Don’t I know it.
I ignored his concern.
“What’s happening?”
“If I tell you, will you lie back down? You’ve already got staples in your head. You don’t need to fall out and get a matching set on your forehead.”
With a sigh I eased back into the bed, found the controller, and adjusted the bed. Once it was in its most upright position, I went back to Ethan.
“What’cha got?”
Ethan scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration.
“Nothing. Wendy, Frank, Everette, and Cody scoured the woods. Grant and Marie hit their patrol car and searched Fraiser Acres. Every available uniform in the area drove the neighborhoods around the park.”
Fraiser Acres was the development that was directly behind the park and abutted the woods.
There was another neighborhood to the west—it would mean the guy who shot me would have to run through thick, dense forest to get to it but it was doable, especially if someone was desperate not to get caught.
“Doe Run Estates?” I asked.
“Wendy and Frank are there now, knocking on doors to see if anyone saw anything and asking for doorbell camera footage. Same with Wendy and Frank at Fraiser Acres.” He took a breath and finished. “I called my dad.”