Chapter 20 #3
My lips sank into my teeth to suppress the cry of pain trying to escape from the grip.
It was much looser than Jasper’s had been, but the skin and bone there was tender, extremely so.
I hadn’t realized just how violently Jasper had handled me, a sign of him being unraveled, dangerous.
The adrenaline rushing through me during the drive to the hospital must’ve numbed me to it.
I hadn’t thought I’d reacted overtly, but Elliot tilted his head, concern in his eyes as he turned my hand over in an attempt to examine it.
My eyes darted down, quickly yanking my hand away and tugging my sleeve down. I turned my back on Elliot’s crinkled brow, focusing on the man in the uniform.
“I’m Calliope,” I told him. He was older than Elliot yet younger than his father.
I’d peg him as being in his late forties.
His inky hair was liberally grey, as was his stubbled face.
He had plenty of creases in his tanned face, mixed with a few smudges of soot.
His eyes were a startling shade of green, attractive.
He had a scar on his bottom lip, pulling it downward but not so much that he couldn’t grin and show off a white smile.
“I know.” He nodded. “Elliot doesn’t shut up about you.” His eyes danced down my body quickly before returning to my eyes. “I understand why now.” His tone was teasing—good-natured, not sleazy. “I’m Eric.” He held out his hand. “Fire chief by night, graphic designer by day.”
I shook his hand with my injured one. Jasper had hurt my dominant hand. I didn’t doubt it was on purpose.
That time, I made sure not to wince, even though his strong handshake and my returning grip sent spears of agony radiating through my wrist bone.
Likely wasn’t broken. But definitely sprained.
“Fire chief mean that you’re the one I’m going to give a tongue-lashing to for not managing your fire better and landing him in a hospital bed?” I let go of his hand and motioned to where Elliot was lying.
My tone was sharp and not welcoming, but Eric’s smile remained as his eyes darted from me to Elliot.
“Yeah, I get it.” He cleared his throat.
“As much as I would like to inflate my ego, I have to admit that I’m not able to completely manage a fire, nor a man who goes against my orders to save some mangy cat. ”
I gaped first at Eric then swiveled to face Elliot who was propped up in bed.
“You risked your life, put yourself in the hospital, for a cat ?” I phrased the question slowly, quietly, using a tone that made most people scared shitless.
Not Elliot, savior of cats. His eyes twinkled.
“A kitten,” he clarified. “A baby cat. Most humans find them adorable.”
“I’m sure it would’ve been adorable when it was eating your body after it was burned to a crisp,” I snapped.
“Fluffy would never!” Clara piped in from beside me.
I looked down at her. “Fluffy?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “That’s her name.”
“Not much of a name with half of her hair burned off,” her father murmured.
Clara gave her father a glare a sixteen-year-old would’ve been proud of.
“Tell Daddy and Uncle Elliot that I can keep her.” Tugging at my sleeve, her demand had the authority of a thirty-eight-year-old woman.
“As much as I would love to go up against both of those men for whatever your little heart desires, I’m gonna have to clock out when it comes to a murderous cat,” I told her.
“Kitten,” Elliot offered from his spot on the bed.
Clara pouted. “Please, Aunt Loppie?” Her eyes widened as she used her usual name for me, except for the first time, she added the A word. The word I’d heard a bunch of times from my sister’s brood and Ava.
It hit me like a kick to the gut, coming from Clara. She was a smart cookie.
I immediately relented. “Where is this fucking cat?”
Beau’s mouth thinned. “At the vet. Getting patched up and tested for the various diseases it could have that Clara could catch,” he said gruffly and pointedly.
I looked from him to the little girl at my hip, wearing a mask because of her delicate immune system. Fuck. “What happens if it doesn’t have any of those diseases?”
Beau’s glower deepened. “It’s highly unlikely since it’s a stray.”
I did a quick calculation, measuring the odds. “How about this?” I bent down to Clara’s height. “If the tests come back clear, I will adopt the cat, and you can visit it as much as you want?”
The risk of potentially becoming what I swore I never would—a cat owner—was worth seeing the joy in Clara’s face, even underneath the mask. I readily accepted the small body when she threw her arms around me.
“Thank you, Aunt Loppie.” She squeezed me as much as her small arms could handle.
“You’re welcome, pip-squeak.” I adjusted her mask before I straightened to Beau’s glare, Mark’s smile and wink, and Elliot’s pinched lips that I knew were suppressing a smile.
I made it back to his bedside, if only to do another once-over. I catalogued every bruise, graze, making sure to place the blame where it deserved to be.
On me.
Jasper did that.
And Jasper wouldn’t have even known Elliot existed if it wasn’t for me.
“You’re adopting a kitten?” he asked in disbelief.
“I wouldn’t let your sacrifice be in vain,” I snapped. “And there’s no way it doesn’t have some disease. It’s likely on death row as we speak.” I added the last part low so Clara didn’t hear.
Elliot choked out another thin chuckle that I felt in my throbbing chest.
“I love you, Calliope Derrick.”
I lurched back at the unexpected words, ones he’d never said. I blinked at him. Once. Twice. Then I turned back to his family and the fire chief. “What kind of painkiller is he on?”
“Nothing stronger than Advil.” His father wore a knowing smile.
I stepped back. “Not acceptable. Aren’t we in an opioid crisis?
I’m going to find a doctor with a heavy trigger finger for Oxy.
Shouldn’t be that hard.” Then I stomped off, without a second glance.
Cruel, but I couldn’t stay in that room without saying those three words back. Which would’ve been worse.
Much worse.
I spent the day arguing with doctors. On my phone with my own personal doctor in New York, spitting off what I’d read on Elliot’s commandeered chart, demanding to know if his current treatment was sufficient.
If it wasn’t, I was going to charter a fucking medevac to ensure that Elliot got the best care money could buy.
Elliot had argued against all of this, as men were apt to do. But I’d ignored him, only taking note that he was well enough to argue with me, grinning through most of it.
His doctor hated me. I didn’t give a fuck.
My only goal was to ensure that Elliot got the best care possible, that he didn’t die, that he didn’t suffer any more than he needed to.
He had a couple of broken ribs, smoke inhalation, and a concussion. Lucky, considering half a building had collapsed on him. Half a burning building.
His suffering already lay heavy on my shoulders. His family’s worry. Clara being subjected to more hospital walls when most of her short life had been spent between them. The stress behind his father’s smile and soft-spoken words, the shadows behind Beau’s already shrouded grimace.
Clara left first. Hannah, the new nanny, arrived to pick her up, all smiles and sunshine despite the heavy glower Beau gave her without reason.
I caught a few sideways glances from her to him, her posture shrinking slightly as she looked at the man.
My focus shifted to Clara with promises about Fluffy, who I was sure was living on borrowed time.
It was while seeing her excitement about her new friend that I realized I’d given myself the future problem of explaining Fluffy’s death.
On second thought, after seeing Beau’s sharp dismissal of Hannah, I decided that would be her father’s job.
“It wouldn’t kill you to smile, you know,” I told Beau who was still scowling at the door Hannah had walked out of hand in hand with his daughter.
He redirected his ire my way, but unlike the college-aged nanny, I could stand it.
“Men have been telling women to smile since the dawn of time.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Turnabout is fair play. And fair play is also about being nice to the person looking after your daughter. Who is doing a great job, by the way, and whom your daughter adores.”
Beau’s gaze turned nuclear.
I tilted my head and smiled at him. “You don’t scare me with the glares and grunts, buddy. Be nicer to your nanny.”
I could practically see his gears grinding, probably calculating whether it was worth it to swear at me or curse my name or whatever it was he did when he exploded.
But then his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, likely swallowing all those words.
He’d probably get an ulcer. Maybe that’d teach him to be nicer.
“I need to get to the restaurant.” His venomous gaze landed on Elliot. “Good luck. I’ll call to check on you, but you’ve got a dragon to breathe fire in case your water isn’t refilled quick enough, so I doubt you’ll have any trouble.”
I put my hand on my heart. “A dragon? That’s the nicest thing any man has ever called me.” I flashed my teeth at him.
He ignored me, stomping out.
Elliot’s father clapped me on the shoulder, squeezing. The casual, affectionate contact was nice, as was the warm look he directed at me with eyes that looked like Elliot’s. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For making me want to laugh my ass off while my son is lying in a hospital bed.” His words were heavy, yet his lips were turned up.
“Watching you ‘breathe fire,’ as my other son said, has been sunshine on a cloudy day.” He looked at Elliot, giving him a wink.
“I agree with Beau’s sentiment. Gruff as it may have been delivered, I know my son is in good hands. ”
I didn’t know what to say to that, even though I wasn’t exactly a stranger to father figures praising me. My own father hadn’t ever shied away from saying he was proud of me. Unfortunately, we also butted heads too often to be really close.