Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hadley
The hospital room is quiet except for the tick of the IV beside my bed.
The light coming through the window is the late-afternoon gold that the Hill Country gives back in October before the wind switches.
I'm in a gown that ties at the back.
There's a butterfly stitch over my left ear where the laceration was that they couldn't fully close with a staple.
My hair smells like betadine and the kind of hospital soap that gets used on patients who came in with blood in their hair.
The nurses did what they could.
There's still a stiffness on the left side at my temple where the blood dried before they got to me.
I haven't asked for a mirror.
My phone is on the rolling tray next to the cup of water with the bendy straw.
I check it again because I've been checking it every few minutes and I can't stop.
No calls since the one that said he got him and was coming home.
Bex was with me when it came through.
She listened to my side of the conversation, didn't speak, and pressed her forehead against the side of my arm.
She's already been to see Banshee a couple of times, but keeps coming back to check on me.
She's down the hall again now because his nurse paged her when he started coming around from the anesthesia.
I'm alone in the room. I turn my left hand on the blanket and look at the ring on my finger.
A gold band, two small dark green emeralds, the two-carat diamond Rogue's mother put in her son's palm.
There's blood under the band that the nurses couldn't get to without taking the ring off.
I wouldn't let them take it off.
I told the charge nurse that the ring stays on this hand until the man who put it there sees me.
She didn't argue with me. She washed around it.
* * *
The door of the room opens suddenly, and Bex comes through with her hand on her belly.
She's still in the bloody t-shirt that's been on her since the kitchen this morning.
Marlena's blood across the front of the cotton.
Thunder's blood on the side where her belly rested against his thigh when she was holding pressure.
Some of Banshee's blood from when she went to him in the surgical waiting room and they let her sit with him for the few minutes he was conscious before they wheeled him in.
She sits down in the chair next to my bed and her hand stays on her belly.
I turn my head on the pillow toward her. "He awake?"
Her eyes find mine. "He was for a minute," she says. "He saw me. Said my name. Asked about the baby. I told him the baby was fine. Then his eyes went again."
She pulls her hand off her belly and reaches for mine across the blanket.
I take it.
Her fingers are cold. Her hand is one of the strongest hands I know.
"He's gonna sleep a while," she says, her thumb moving across my knuckles. "His nurse said he's stable. The shot went through clean. The surgeon said he was lucky."
I squeeze her hand. "You don't have to be in here with me, Bex."
She looks at me steady, her jaw setting the way it does. "I'm in here with you until your man comes through that door, Hadley. Don't say that again."
I don't say it again.
We sit and hold hands across the bed.
The IV ticks above me.
After a long stretch of quiet, Bex's voice becomes softer. "You hear from him yet?"
I shake my head against the pillow. "Not since the call."
She nods and her hand stays on mine.
* * *
An hour passes when there's a knock at the door.
Phantom comes through with his hat in one hand and two big brown paper bags in the other.
He's been in the ICU with Marlena.
His shirt has dried blood on it that isn't his.
His eyes are the eyes of a man who has been awake longer than he wants to admit. "Brought y'all somethin'," he says.
He sets the bags on the rolling tray and pushes it over to the side of the bed.
The smell that comes out of the bags is real food.
Cumin, lime, the comfort smell of a Mexican kitchen that's been working all day.
"Came from Maria's outside Llano. I got tinga tacos for you, sweetheart, the white sauce on the side the way you like 'em. Got a quesadilla for Bex and a side of rice and beans and the salsa not too hot, because Marlena would skin me alive if I gave a pregnant girl the hot one."
Bex makes a sound that's half a laugh and half a sob.
She lets go of my hand and wipes her eyes with the heel of her palm.
"Thank you, Phantom," Bex says, her voice cracking on his name.
Phantom's hand settles on her shoulder for a moment, then drops away. "Eat, both of you. Marlena's been after me to bring food to people instead of askin' if they're hungry. You're hungry. Eat."
He pulls a chair from the wall to the foot of my bed and sits down hard.
The hat goes on his knee.
He sees the ring on my finger. His eyes go to it for a moment and then come back up to mine.
His voice gentles. "How's your head, sweetheart?"
I touch the butterfly stitch above my ear without thinking and bring my hand back down to the blanket. "They said the CT was clear. Mild concussion. They want me to stay overnight, just to be safe."
"Then you're stayin' overnight." His tone leaves no room for argument.
I almost smile against the pillow. "I wasn't even going to try and dip out."
"Good girl."
He nods at the food on the rolling tray. "Open the bag and eat. I'm gonna tell you what I know while you do it because you've been askin' me with your face since I walked in."
I open the bag.
The smell of the tacos comes up off the foil and my stomach makes a noise I didn't expect.
I haven't eaten since the breakfast Silas made me at the cabin counter at sunrise.
That feels like a year ago.
Bex pulls the quesadilla out of her bag, unwraps it slowly, and takes a bite.
Phantom watches her eat for a moment and then he starts. "Marlena's out of surgery."
He says it first because he knows it's the one thing I've been wondering since we got here. Out of everyone, she looked the worst.
"The shot went through her right lung and lodged near the spinal column.
They got it out clean. No nerve damage they could see.
She's intubated. She's in the ICU. They've got her sedated and she's gonna be there through tomorrow at least. The surgeon said she's lookin' at six to eight weeks of recovery and breathin' therapy. "
I make myself swallow the bite.
My voice comes out quieter than I want it to. "But she's gonna be okay?"
Phantom's eyes hold mine. "She's gonna be okay, sweetheart. She's gonna be home after some time."
I put the taco down because my hand is shaking.
Bex reaches across, takes the taco out of my hand, and sets it back on the foil for me.
Phantom waits. He goes on when I look up.
"Thunder." He says the name with the weight of a man saying a brother's name.
"The shot took him low in the abdomen, angled up through his hip.
Bex held him together long enough to get him into the back of an ambulance with a pulse.
They opened him up and found three fragments of the bullet against his pelvis.
They got two out. The third one's against bone where they can't go after it without doing more damage than the fragment's doin'. They're leavin' it."
He looks at Bex when he says it. "You saved his life, honey. The surgeon said it twice."
Bex's eyes spill over.
She doesn't make a sound. She just nods.
"He's gonna walk with a limp," Phantom says.
"Could be a while. Physical therapy might bring most of it back over the next year.
He's the Sergeant at Arms. He doesn't need to run a marathon.
He needs to be alive and on the property with the brothers behind him.
He'll be all of that. I'd bet he'll be askin' the nurse for a steak when he wakes up enough to be a pain in her ass. "
A small laugh comes out of Bex.
It surprises her.
Phantom catches her eye and gives her the smallest nod.
He goes on. "Banshee."
Bex's hand goes to her belly again.
"You been with him, sweetheart, you know most of it.
The shot went through clean. Missed the artery by about half an inch.
They washed the wound, repaired the tissue, closed him up.
He's gonna be sore as hell for a few weeks, and he's gonna whine about it because that's who he is, but he's gonna be fine.
He's gonna be on a porch with you in two weeks, holdin' your hand on your belly. "
Bex puts her face in her hands.
She cries quietly.
Phantom waits.
He doesn't reach for her.
When she comes back up he keeps going. "Now, about Diesel…"
I make myself pay attention.
"Grace stayed with him at her clinic. The bullet took a piece out of his shoulder.
Missed anything that would've killed him.
She got the bullet out, got him stitched up, and he's on IV fluids and antibiotics.
He's gonna be off the shoulder for a few weeks.
Grace is sleepin' at the clinic with him tonight. She'll bring him home in two days."
I let out the breath I've been holding for the whole report.
The dog is okay.
The whole family.
"And Hadley," Phantom says. "I called Mama Cross from the parkin' lot before I came in here."
I look at him.
"I let her know everything. Hope you don't mind, but she felt like the closest thing to family that you and your boy have besides Nash. She told me to call her with any updates as soon as I had 'em."
I nod because I can't speak yet.
"Eat, sweetheart," he says quietly.
I pick the taco back up and eat.
* * *
Bex puts her quesadilla down halfway through.
She looks at me. "I'm gonna go change my shirt."
She stands up. "Phantom, did you bring me anything to put on?"
Phantom reaches into the second paper bag and pulls out some fresh clothes.
It's one of Marlena's, I think.
It's a soft heather gray, with yoga pants and fresh socks.
"Got it from her go-bag in the truck," he says. "She always keeps a couple in there for the women in case somebody needs somethin'. I figured you needed somethin'."
Bex takes the clothes, goes into the bathroom, and closes the door.