“Hands back on the steering wheel, Sutter,” I hollered between my cupped hands and chuckled. I could see Scott yelling, his lips moving, but couldn’t make out what exactly.
Until I did.
“Behind you!”
I glanced over my shoulder and my knees almost buckled. Charging after me, approximately fifty feet away and closing the distance quickly, was a black bull the size of an SUV. Ribbons of smoke curled out of his nostrils as his small beady black eyes had me squarely in his crosshairs….and all I had on me was a freaking can of bear spray.
I’d never really understood the term fight or flight before this very moment. A shot of adrenaline propelled me forward, legs churning as fast as they humanly could, my feet slapping against the frozen macadam, and the sound of blood rushing in my ears. Then my foot hit a patch of ice and I went flying headfirst. The landing wasn’t pretty. Although my hands broke my fall, my shoulder got the worst of it. Then my head. The blast of a gunshot echoed in the distance. That’s the last thing I remembered.
Chapter Fifteen
Scott
“I hate hospitals. Can we go?”
I was pissed. First, at myself because it was my fault Sydney was in the hospital with a mild concussion, a bruised shoulder, and a banged-up knee. Second, at the invisible monster in the room. Had I not been standing right next to the gurney when the doctor cut away Sydney’s running tights, I wouldn’t have believed it. My wife’s thighs and hamstrings were covered in countless scars; long, pale, and silvery against her natural skin color. They were faded but discernible. Even the doctor was taken aback.
I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted to tear the world in two looking for whoever had done that to her, and I’d do a lot worse if I ever found the son of a bitch.
“Earth to Scott, come in, Scott.”
My attention snapped back to her. “Not until the doctor says it’s safe.” I barely managed a civil tone and she gave me a speculative look in response. Which basically summed up every exchange we’d had since she’d returned from her MRI.
“Whatever.”
I felt a smile rise up. My wife was a terrible patient. As soon as she’d awakened in my arms as we entered the emergency room, she began demanding to leave. Right in the middle of me shouting at nurses and ordering the doctor to treat her immediately. If there was any doubt that I was my father’s son, that scene dispelled it.
I fixed the twisted IV line coming out of her arm.
“Thanks, Nurse Ratched, but I’m good. I’d be even better if we went home.”
She smiled wryly at me, trying to coax me out of my bad mood. Yeah, it wasn’t happening. Every time I glanced at her––at the bandage around her head––a flood of emotions came over me and none of them good. I couldn’t stand to see her look so small and frail sitting up in the gurney. Less the invincible, high-powered attorney she was. More mortal, and therefore, prone to injury or worse.
“The doctor said you need to be supervised.”
“Supervised not suffocated. You’re making me dizzy with all the moving around.”
That brought me up short. The last thing I wanted to do was to add insult to her injury. “Really?”
“No, not really. Just chill for a minute…” The delicate features of her face shifted, her expression becoming pensive. “How’d you find me anyway?”
“Red running tights.” She was silent as she processed my answer. It made me wonder what she was thinking.
“I can’t believe how lucky I was…” she absently remarked.
Was she kidding? I had a hard time keeping a lid on my astonishment and not overreacting. “Lucky? You could’ve been killed,” I said, close to shouting. How could she see it as anything other than a stroke of bad luck? “I should’ve gotten rid of that bull months ago.”
“I mean, lucky that you found me…what are the chances?”
I’ll always find you. The words rang loud and clear in my head, a truth so absolute I felt it down to the marrow of my bones.
She sat up straighter and winced, and I felt the pain as acutely as she did. Seeing her lying unconscious on the road with a one-ton bull bearing down on her took ten years off my life.
I’d dropped Tiny with one shot and there hadn’t been time for another. Not to mention that it really had been dumb luck that she’d worn those red leggings I hated, making it easy to spot her from a distance against the white backdrop.
“You look green, Scott. For heaven’s sake, I’m––”
The curtain of the ER bay moved aside. “Ready to be discharged,” the doctor, a tall woman with brown skin, sharp eyes, and short black hair, said upon entering. “But only if your husband promises not to let you out of his sight.”
Sydney smirked. “He did save my life so I’m guessing he won’t let all that effort go to waste.”
There was no way I was letting her out of my sight for a minute. My heart couldn’t survive it.
Trailing after the doctor, a male nurse entered and removed Sydney’s IV.
“Take it easy for the next two weeks, okay?” the doctor said, leveling Sydney with a pointed look before walking away.
Gathering up her clothes from the chair (minus the tights), I handed them to her along with a pair of scrubs I’d lifted earlier. “Let me help.”
“I can handle it,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m going to put my jacket on over this anyway.” She motioned to her light blue hospital gown.
“You could get dizzy and fall over. Stop being such a pest.”
That brought a smile to her lips. Her hand came to rest on my shoulder as I held the pants for her while she slipped one leg into them, then the other.
Yours, a distant voice called out.
However it had happened didn’t matter anymore. Life had intervened and brought us together. And now she was mine to keep safe. No one and nothing would ever hurt her again. I’d make sure of it.
A foreign sense of calm stole over me. It brushed aside the residual anxiety of having almost lost her. That’s when I knew. I’d never felt this way before, not for anyone, and immediately recognized it for what it was. I was falling for my wife.
Sydney
Scott knew. He’d seen the scars. The look on his face––the horror––as the doctor had cut away my leggings, could be seen from a mile away. I’d dated some in the past, not a lot, and I’d warned them all, prepared them for the inevitable. It’s not like I could go my entire life hiding my thighs.
I’d told them I was in a car accident when I was three and didn’t correct their assumptions. It was partly true; I had been in a car accident. Except that’s not what had caused the scars. Without context, however, they looked like what they were––battle scars.
I glanced over at the man in the driver’s seat and found his face closed for business. Inscrutable. He hadn’t uttered a single word since breaking me out of the hospital. We’d been in the car for twenty minutes and it already felt like twenty thousand, the quiet growing more oppressive than my headache.
“Nice car,” I finally blurted out because…fuck it.