But I do know he’s coming. I just don’t know how he’ll do it, or how bad it will be. He promised I’d have a choice.
All I have to do is choose not to engage. I hope.
16
KEZIA
I hate hospitals worse than the woods. I hate being hooked up to tubes, and it’s strange but I’m scared to bend my arm in case something tears loose. I have nightmares, bad ones, but I can’t seem to wake up.
When I finally open my eyes again, Pop’s there, with Prester looming in the background. If we talk, it disappears into vague smears when I start to drop off again. He holds my hand; I feel the warmth of it like a promise. I have a blurry, unformed impulse to tell him about the baby, tell him the baby’s okay, but I don’t act on it before I slip away into dreamless rest.
When I wake up again, they’re gone. Instead there’s someone in the room placing a gigantic bouquet of flowers on the ledge across from my bed. It’s a vague shape in the dim light, and I blink to try to bring him—I’m pretty sure it’s a him—into more focus. He’s white, with close-cropped hair, wearing some kind of uniform jumpsuit and a baseball cap. I say, “Who sent those?”
“Don’t know, ma’am,” he says. “I just deliver them. There’s a card if that helps.”
I look over at the door, and the Knoxville police officer is there holding it open. He seems tired and impatient. “Okay, let’s go, buddy, let her get some rest. On your way.”
The deliveryman nods and half turns toward me. Says, “I hope you get well soon.”
When I blink again, he’s gone, the door’s closed, and I’m halfway convinced that I hallucinated the whole damn thing, except the flowers are still there. A riot of color in the otherwise bland room.
I sleep again, and it’s deep dark outside the window when I wake up. A nurse comes in and changes IV bags, takes my vitals. I need to pee, and she helps me drag my IV stand into the bathroom, then gets me back safe in bed. I feel pretty good, considering. Better than I expected. I tell her so.
“You’ll be sore by morning,” she tells me. “They’re taking you off most of the medications, but you tell me if you start feeling too bad, okay? Oh, and you have a visitor who arrived. It’s really late, and we don’t usually allow them, but he says he’s your boyfriend?”
“Javier?” I struggle to sit up. “Can you let him in, please?”
It occurs to me too late as the door opens that it might not really be Javier, that the man who crashed my car might have come back to finish the job, and I start to call out to the cop stationed outside . . . but then I just gasp. I cry hot tears of relief at the sight of Javier, really here, rushing toward me. Then he’s hugging me carefully, and I bury my nose in the crook of his neck and take in a deep breath. It carries the scent of him—mint soap, leather, sweat, a whiff of gunpowder. He’s still in his reserve fatigues. The hug turns to a kiss, and it fills me with warmth and the most perfect kind of peace.
I sigh into his mouth, and I think he feels that peace too. We don’t let go for a long moment, until the pain bites again and I wince. Then he eases me back to the pillow and drags a chair over to hold my hand. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” he says. “You are okay, right?”
“Yes. And the baby’s fine too.” I have a vague, watercolor impression of most of the day, including the visit from Gwen, Sam, and the kids. I barely remember Pop and Prester’s presence, but I know they’ve been here. But the knowledge that my baby’s okay is completely, wonderfully clear. As is the love in Javier’s eyes. “They did tests. Everything’s going to be all right.” But even as I say it, I know it isn’t. Not unless I make it right. Now that I’m steadier, I’m also angrier. That anonymous driver meant to hurt me, and he also risked my baby, and rage shakes me hard.
Javier’s fighting back real tears. He kisses my hand, careful of the tubes. He’s angry, too, but he’s hiding it better. “Bet you hate this,” he says. “Being laid up.”
“No bet. It’s all I can do not to rip this needle out and go out the window.”
“You’d bleed like hell, and you’re on the third floor, so those are not good options.” He smiles, and it’s so beautiful it makes me lose my breath again. “You stay with me. Right here. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say, because I can’t do anything else when he smiles like that. It’s powerful stuff. “How was training? Where were you?” I never ask in advance, because he’s not supposed to say. But he’s back now.
“Deployed on a ship,” he says. “I caught a bird coming home. They dropped me at NSA Mid-South. I rented a car from there. Sorry I’m so late getting in.”
From a ship at sea to here? “You’re not late, baby. You’re just when I needed you.” I put my hand on his cheek.
He kisses my palm. “You’re on the good stuff, or you wouldn’t say that. Especially calling me baby.”
“Probably.” I feel ironed out flat. Warm and wrinkle-free.
“So what’s the damage?”
“Crack on the head in the crash, concussion, could have been way worse,” I say. “Cuts and bruises. One broken rib, but they’ve got it strapped. Did I mention the baby’s okay?”
“You did. So basically you need a dent popped out, some paint work, and you’ll be good to go,” Javi says. “Except I don’t want you going anywhere except home, Kez. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“Who the hell were you chasing?”
“How do you know I was chasing anybody?” He just gives me a look, and I have to smile. “Bad guy. I think a real bad one. Hard to be sure right now. This case is like fighting fog.”
“You don’t fight fog. You stay the hell home until the fog goes away.”
“You’re cute when you’re all protective.”
“Kez.”
“You staying the night with me, or are you too tired?”
“This chair folds out,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere until you are, Corazón. Besides, you didn’t eat your dinner. They told me to call when you got hungry. Are you?”
I have no idea, but I feel like I ought to be. “Pudding is mine. Fruit cup? All yours.”
“Deal. I’ll have them bring it.”
I’ve drifted off again, and I wake to a tray being pushed in toward me. Javier uncovers dishes like a waiter looking for a 30 percent tip. “Madame, your very late dinner this evening includes Salisbury steak—allegedly—some random vegetables, iced tea, a fruit cup, and pudding. We both win. But you win less, because you got to eat the Salisbury whatever.”
“I don’t have to do anything, mister.” I don’t feel hungry, I realize. I just want to sleep. But he shakes his head and starts cutting up the meat and threatening to feed me like a child, so I take the fork and do it myself. It’s a little cold. It’s not good either. We both get to the dessert pretty quick, and take our time over that part.
“Congratulations,” he says. “That is way worse than a marine mess, and that’s saying something, because an army marches on its stomach but marines don’t march, so we don’t eat that good either.”