Chapter 22
FOX
I’m there for less than an hour before people start showing up. Danni, Bear, Lacy, Emma, Tank.
“She’s getting a scan,” I tell them. “They’re checking for a brain bleed. If they need to do surgery, they’ll do it right away.”
“The baby?” Danni asks, her expression stricken.
“The baby’s okay.”
Danni and Emma wipe away tears then hug me.
“You okay, Buddy?” Tank asks. I look down. My hands are still clenched, one of them swollen with a cut from Bishop’s tooth, which I hope I broke. There’s blood splattered all over my shirt.
“No,” I tell him. “I shouldn’t have left her at my house. I should have taken her when I went to get Mom, so she wouldn’t have gone back to her cabin.”
Tank puts a hand on my shoulder and leaves it there while I stand staring at the wall, trying to move time backwards.
Bear scowls at everything in the room then points to the chairs. “Tell us everything, Fox. We need to know so we can make sure Wren’s safe.” They gather their chairs around me, and I tell them the little I saw.
A doctor walks into the waiting room just as I’m finishing. He eyes our group, and I stand.
“Are you Wren’s family?” he asks.
“Yes, we all are,” I tell him.
He perches on one of the seats. “No brain bleed, but she does have a concussion, so we’re monitoring her.
She’s sedated right now. The baby’s great.
Good, steady heartbeat.” He eyes my shirt and my hand that’s swelling up from the blows to Bishop’s hard head.
He doesn’t say anything, but I realize what it could look like to him.
“I’m just updating you. You can’t see her yet.
They’re getting her settled into a bed in the ICU.
You all can move to the ICU waiting room, though, so you’re closer.
They’ll tell you when Wren can have visitors. ”
We all thank him, and he turns to me. “You need your hands cleaned and wrapped.”
“No,” I say brusquely. “I just want to be close to her. I need to see her.” I hold my hands up. “This isn’t me. I didn’t—"
“She said it was Trey Bishop. And her name is Honey Hale. Is that true?”
I nod, even though I didn’t know her name until he said it. Honey Hale. I think of the book jacket. Cain Hale. Author of thrillers and mysteries. And then, what she told me about her husband.
“We had to call the police and make a report. They won’t disturb her right now, but they’ll be by to talk to her.”
As we’re sitting in the ICU waiting room, hunched over paper cups of bad coffee, I get a call. I ignore it. One second later, my phone dings with an email, then a text.
Manchester and Hale, Esquire.
I open the email, scan it, then immediately regret it.
“What is it?” Tank says.
“Bishop is suing me.”
Danni looks up from her book and Bear puts his palm out, so he can read the email.
“How is that possible?” Emma exclaims. “This just happened. How could—”
“Battery,” Bear murmurs. “Pain and suffering… emotional distress.” Bear shakes his head in disbelief. “Lost wages because he’s supposedly still filming something, and his face is busted up.” He hands the phone to Danni. “What a prick.”
“I’m not a lawyer,” Emma says, “and I don’t play one on TV, but weren’t you protecting Wren?”
“It could have gone a little bit beyond that.” I rub my eyes and scowl at the wall. “Don’t get me wrong. I might have taken it even further, given the opportunity.”
“Let me look.” Tank takes my phone and studies the email, then hands it back to me.
“Send it to Lilah at Ford and Stratham in Crystal Cove. She owes me.” He pulls his phone out and types in something, and my phone dings.
“That’s her personal cell. She’ll get Tate Stratham on it right away.
Meanwhile, ignore it. Don’t do a thing until we find out how to handle this. ”
“Everybody in the world does owe you,” Emma says to Tank, and Danni and Bear chuckle.
Ned walks in and nods when he sees me. “Before you ask, Rena’s with your mom. They’re having a great time. And your mom’s in love with Monster.”
Bear gives him a rundown on what’s been happening, while I pace and watch the door for the doc to come in with news.
Ned motions me over to a corner of the room. “Sit for a minute.” I sit next to him on the edge of my seat, my whole body wired.
“Son, I just need to know if Wren and Bishop were on the front porch when all this occurred?”
“I only know that they were out there when I arrived.”
He nods and closes his eyes in relief. “Good thing is, I moved the camera when Danni and I were there early this morning. I figured it wasn’t doing much good where I had it.
I haven’t had a chance to look yet, since things were a little hectic.
It could have captured everything. It’s a wide angle, facing the front of the house and some of the path leading to and from it.
You want me to watch first? Not sure if you should see the whole thing. ”
“I need to see what happened, Ned.”
Ned pulls his phone out just as a man in scrubs strides into the room. “Who wants to see Honey first?”
“I do,” Danni says. “Oops. Sorry.” She smiles sheepishly when Emma nudges her. Danni nods at me. “You should probably go.”
I turn to Ned. “Send me the video feed.”
“Will do.”
Bear steps toward me. “Tell her we’re all here, so she knows she’s got lots of people rooting for her.” He clasps my shoulder, and I nod.
When I walk in the room, Wren smiles sleepily. I sit in the chair next to her, scooting it up close and sliding my hand over hers.
“You’re supposed to be with your mother,” she says.
“She’s fine. Rena’s doting on her.”
“I had this crazy dream that you put your mom in the bed of the pickup.”
“That is crazy.” I rub a hand over her cheek. “You scared me.”
“I thought real men don’t get scared,” she whispers, blinking away the tears gathering in her eyes.
“I never said that. I get scared all the time. I just fight through it. Real men get scared and do the thing.”
Her lips quirk up, and she slides a hand to my thigh. “Thanks for doing the thing.”
“Anytime.” I lean in close. “What can I get you?”
“Just you. Staying here with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere. By the way.”
“What should I call you? Honey or Wren?”
“My Aunt Birdie calls me her little wren. You can call me Wren or Honey.”
“I should have guessed your name was Honey.”
“Because I’m so sweet, right?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Do you know how many times someone’s said something similar? In fact, you mentioned it to me when we first met. You said I was sweet, like my name. And then you patted my head, like I was five years old.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. You weren’t so sweet when we met.”
She closes her eyes briefly, her lips turned up in a smile. “The first time we met.”
I quirk an eyebrow.
“I have another secret.” She studies my face for a reaction.
“Good,” I tell her. “I was getting bored just sitting here.”
“The riding camp I went to when I was fifteen was the Lucky Clover Ranch in the sweet little town of Bleville, Texas.”
I sit up straight. “Heard of it.”
“I remember the first time I saw a lanky, redhead counselor with cornflower blue eyes. I swear to you my legs went all weak. I had such a crush on him.” She smiles at me. “On you.”
I tuck her hair behind her ear and run a finger over her cheek. “Are you making all this up?”
“I rode Rose Red.” She smiles softly.
“I loved Rose Red. No woman could ever compete.”
“I can understand that. She was beautiful. And so gentle. The second time I got on Rose Red, you rode beside me. You told me I was getting the hang of things. I swear, you might have said you had fallen in love with me, and we were going to get married. I swooned so hard. That’s when you said something about my name and how sweet I was.
It was just a kind, passing comment with a pat on the head afterwards.
” She smiles at the wall, then laughs. “Like I was two years old. That night we were sleeping outside, in our sleeping bags, under the stars, and there were two campfires. One for the counselors, farther away but close enough that you could keep an eye on us. You were kind of sitting away from everyone—even the counselors—in the dark. My friend said you looked sad and dared me to walk over and kiss you.” She smiles, her eyes distant.
“And even though I wanted to throw up just thinking about doing it because I was so nervous, I wanted to show you that I wasn’t a baby.
I walked over, plopped down on your lap, and I kissed you. ”
“I’m pretty sure I’d remember you kissing me.”
“The kiss was a peck that, to me, felt monumental.” She smiles.
“You called me Annie—one of the counselors, because it was so dark and I looked a little like her. I bolted out of there, mortified. The next day, I was riding next to you, and I was trying to work up the nerve to tell you it was me that kissed you, not Annie. But I wasn’t watching where we were going, and Rose Red walked under a big branch.
I was knocked off Rose Red, and I fell and broke my jaw…
And that was the last time I rode a horse. ”
I cock my head. “Out of all the stories you’ve told me, that’s the most tragic—that you haven’t been on a horse since.”
“That’s sadder than you missing the opportunity to get to know me better?”
“Everything led to this.” I lean over and kiss her on the forehead.
She stares at me, her eyes tearing up. “It did,” she says softly.
I take her hand. “I was turning eighteen,” I tell her. “I wasn’t supposed to be looking at fifteen-year-olds. But I do remember a girl named Honey. Sweet smile, great legs, even back then, eyes that cut through me even though I wasn’t supposed to be noticing.”
“You treated me exactly like all the other girls,” she says. “I appreciate that now—that you didn’t take advantage of us even though we were all drooling over you.”
“I was oblivious.” I frown at her. “So you really haven’t been on a horse since?”
“No. You’re going to keep bringing it back to horses, aren’t you?”
“Until you’re completely healed, and I can get you up on one.” I lean in. “First crush, huh?”
“Yeah. It was bad. I was so devastated that I fell off Rose Red, and that the last time you saw me, I was screaming in pain.”
“I do remember that.”
“Of course.”
I lean in, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “It all makes sense now.”
She squints at me. “What about any of that makes sense?”
I shrug. “I figured you spilled that coffee all over me outside of Dot’s because you had a crush on me for the last two decades.”
She giggles.
“Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to pretend you came here to Paradise Springs to be closer to me—your first, unrequited love.”
“That puts a lot of pressure on you. How are you going to handle that?”
“I thrive in high-pressure situations.”
She studies my face. “They told me that because of how quickly you got me medical care, I’m doing a lot better than I could have.” Her brows furrow. “I don’t know what happened, though. The last thing I remember is trying to leap off the porch.”
“Not much happened. Besides me having a quick chat with Bishop.”
Her gaze slides to my clenched, swollen fist.
“A chat?”
Danni and Ned step into the room. I stand, fetch another chair, and let them sit next to Honey while I walk into the hall to check in with Rena before opening up the camera feed footage Ned sent me.
Ned joins me in the hall after I’ve called Rena then watched the video twice.
Not because I wanted to, but because I needed to. My whole body’s rigid with fury.
“You saw that it captured everything. Audio and video’s sharp and clear,” Ned says. “It’s difficult to watch, but it’s good we’ve got it. We’ve sent it to Tate. He’s talking with Tank now, but you’ll have to jump in. And when Wren’s up to it, he’ll talk to her.”
“Let her rest. She doesn’t have to know about this right now.”
“You shouldn’t delay. Danni mentioned we could send the video to whoever does Trey’s PR and tell ‘em we’re leaking it. It won’t look good for Trey, and maybe he’ll drop the suit.”
“Did you show Danni the video?”
“Only you and I have seen it. But she was there when I moved the camera, and she put two and two together.”
“You can’t hand over that video to anyone without talking to Wren about it. Not even Danni. Wren’s in it, and it’s deeply personal. But right now, she needs to recover without having to worry any more about Bishop or about having her personal business splashed all over the place.”
A nurse walks past, pushing a cart with a monitor on it.
She enters Wren’s room, and I start to follow her.
Ned puts a hand on my shoulder. “You can’t wait too long, son.
Wren can decide how she wants to handle her assault.
I know you’re worried about Wren but think of it as two separate issues right now.
You’ve got a lot to lose, and Bishop will take it all away from you without even a drop of perspiration. Wren won’t want that to happen.”
Danni pops her head out. “They’re doing another ultrasound. Come and look, John.”
I join Wren, holding her hand while they perform the ultrasound. Finally, the technologist shows us the screen. “Looks good. But I’ll send it to Dr. McGraw.” She hands Wren some printouts then leaves. Danni slips out after her, giving Wren a small hug before she goes.
“What are we looking at here?” I ask Wren, studying one of the ultrasound pictures. “Looks like some alien life form.”
She laughs. “That’s the feet. Kicking. And that’s the head up here.
” She points at what looks like a head if you squint at it.
“And it looks like once that head grows a little, it’ll be perfect for a cowboy hat.
” She pauses, squinting and blinking. “And that right there”—she points again—“It looks like I might be having a boy.” She grins. “A boy!”
I grab her a stack of tissues and lean over and kiss her on the forehead as the tears spill out.