Author: Tara Sue Me

I turned around. Elaina stood on the sidewalk behind me, looking in my direction and talking on the phone to someone. Her expression changed. She was screaming.

Why was she screaming?

Metal collided with metal. Horns blared. The earth spun in a crazy twirl. My head struck something hard.

And then nothing.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I was in pain.

For the longest time, that was all I could concentrate on.

Pain.

Then the lights came. And the noise. And I wanted to tell everyone to be quiet and turn the lights off because the light and the noise hurt. And if it could just be dark and quiet I’d be fine. But even though I could hear, I couldn’t talk.

Then I was aware of moving and that was worse, because moving hurt. And numerous hands were pulling at me. They didn’t stop when I told them to leave me alone.

The noise got louder.

“Abby! Abby!”

“BP steady at 120 over 69.”

“Pupils equal and reactive.”

“Call CT, she’s…too long.”

“…possible intracranial hemorrhage…”

And mercifully, the darkness came back.

I woke again to the sounds of arguing.

Felicia. She was arguing.

“…heart of a f**king animal…don’t even know…”

“…don’t know anything…”

“…why don’t you…”

“…I refuse…”

“…have to ask you both…disturbing the patients…”

And again the darkness fell.

The next time I woke, I was able to open my eyes. It was dark. And there was no sound but a steady beep, beep, beep.

“Abby?”

I turned my eyes to the noise. Linda.

I licked my lips. Why were they so dry? “Dr. Clark?”

“You’re in the hospital, Abby. How are you feeling?”

Like hell. Like utter and complete hell. “I must be badly off to have the Chief of Staff in my room.”

“Or else you’re very important.” She stepped to the side. Nathaniel stood behind her.

Nathaniel!

“Hey,” I said.

He came forward, took my hand, and lightly ran his thumb over my knuckles. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” I wrinkled my forehead, trying to remember. “What happened?”

“Your cab was hit by a dump truck,” Nathaniel said. “Damn driver ran a stop sign.”

“You have a moderate concussion, Abby.” Linda typed something on her laptop. “I’m keeping you overnight. You were more deeply unconscious than we’d usually expect in concussion cases. But there’s no internal bleeding. Nothing broken. You’ll be sore for the next few days.”

I tried to nod, but it hurt too much. “Did I hear Felicia?”

Linda smiled. “New hospital regulation. Nathaniel and Felicia aren’t allowed within twenty feet of each other.”

“We had a slight misunderstanding,” Nathaniel said. “She’s with Elaina. They’ve been talking to your dad.”

“Can I—?”

“You need to rest,” Linda said. “I’ll go let the others know you’re awake. Nathaniel?”

Nathaniel nodded.

When she left, I looked up at him and waved him close. He leaned over for me to whisper in his ear.

“I missed yoga class this afternoon.”

He brushed the hair back from my forehead. “I think I can overlook it this one time.”

“And I’ll probably miss my jog tomorrow morning.”

He smiled. “Probably.”

“But on the upside,” I said, feeling slightly dozy again, “I seem to be getting lots of sleep.”

“Shh.” Long fingers skimmed along my forehead right before my eyes closed.

They were whispering about me. I kept my eyes closed so they wouldn’t know I was awake.

“Abby?”

I opened my eyes. Felicia.

“Don’t you think I know you well enough to know when you’re faking?”

Yeah, she did. “Hey, Felicia.”

She squeezed my hand. “Scare me like that again and I rip you from limb to limb.”

“She’ll have to stand in line,” Elaina said from behind her.

“Hey, Elaina.”

“Thank God you’re okay. Honestly, when I saw that truck run the stop sign…I lost it…I kept thinking…” Her eyes misted. “And Nathaniel was yelling and I thought you were dead.” Tears ran down her face. Even Felicia wiped her eye. “You wouldn’t wake up, Abby. Why wouldn’t you wake up?”

“Sorry,” I tried to sit up, but gave up. Sitting up hurt. “I’m awake now.”

And hungry, I was hungry.

Felicia pushed me back down. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be up yet.”

Nathaniel. Nathaniel was here earlier, wasn’t he? Had it been a dream?

Linda walked up behind Elaina. “Nathaniel went to get you something to eat. He said he wouldn’t feed Apollo what passed as food around here.”

Yes, that sounded like Nathaniel. Make a meal plan and stick with it.

“I ripped your boyfriend a new one earlier,” Felicia said. “He took it like a man. You have my blessing.”

“Blessing for what?” I asked.

“To continue seeing him.” She rolled her eyes.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I wasn’t aware it was up to you.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

I rearranged my blankets. Wait a minute—

“Where are my clothes?” My hand went to my throat. “Where’s my…”

“They had to cut your clothes off,” Elaina said. “It was wild. They used these huge scissors.” She winked at me. “I have your necklace in my purse.”

“Thanks, Elaina.” It felt odd not to have my collar on, my neck felt so light.

“Did Sleeping Beauty wake up?” Nathaniel walked into the room, carrying a tray, and still wearing his suit and tie. He sat the tray on the rolling table by my bed, pushed it to me, and lifted the lid off a bowl. “You should see what they call food in this place. They serve chicken broth out of a can.”

I pointed to the broth. It smelled delicious. “Did you make this?”

“No.” He crossed his arms. “They wouldn’t let me. But I dictated.”

I just bet he did.

He glanced around the room. “Did you tell her?”

Linda shook her head. “No, she just woke up. Come on, Elaina, let’s get something to eat.” She looked back. “Felicia, would you like to come?”

Felicia waved them on. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

Once Linda and Elaina left, Nathaniel unwrapped a spoon and put it beside the bowl. He adjusted the bed to lift me into a sitting position. “Eat.”

“Damn, Nathaniel,” Felicia said. “She’s not a dog.”

He glared at her. “I know that.”

“Do you?”

“Felicia,” I warned.

Felicia scowled at Nathaniel and stomped out the door.

“I’m sorry about that, Felicia is…” I sighed. “Felicia.”

“Don’t apologize.” Nathaniel sat at the end of my bed. “She cares for you and is looking out for your best interests. There’s not a thing wrong with that.” He pointed to the bowl. “You do need to eat.”

I took a sip. “This is good.”

He grinned. “Thank you.”

I ate half the bowl before talking again. “Elaina has my collar.”

He rubbed my leg over the blanket. “I know. She told me. We’ll get it later.”

I took another sip. We’ll get it later. I liked the sound of that. Another sip. I’d pretend we were sitting at the kitchen table. After all, we’d never talked about proper hospital etiquette. “What did you mean earlier—had they told me? Told me what?”

He was still rubbing my leg. “About the weekend. Tomorrow, Felicia and everyone will head on to Philly as planned. But since you shouldn’t be alone this weekend, you’ll stay with me.”

But I stayed with him every weekend.

And then I remembered. Jackson’s game.

“I’m sorry. You’ll miss Jackson’s game because of me.”

“Do you know how many times I’ve watched Jackson play football?” he asked.

“But this is the play-offs.”

“And I’ve seen him in the play-offs too many times to count. I don’t mind missing this one, we can watch it on TV.” He grinned again. “But I am disappointed you’ll miss it.”

“Me?” But I wasn’t going.

“You and I were going to take my jet to Philly tomorrow evening. Spend the weekend in the city. Watch the game on Sunday.” He patted the blanket. “Now we’ll have to make do with the couch and takeout.”

He was going to take me to Philly on his private jet?

“Don’t worry,” he said. “If they pull this off, there’s always the Super Bowl.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I pushed the tray away. “Is there a mirror around here?” I’d never been a horribly vain person, but I wanted to see if I looked as bad as I felt.

“I don’t know…I don’t think,” Nathaniel stammered and I looked at him in shock. He’d never seemed unsure about anything before. Everything was always so black and white. Yes and no. Do this and do that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard him say I don’t know before.

I lifted a hand to my face. “Is it bad? Do I look that awful?”

Nathaniel found a hand mirror by the sink and brought it to me. I lifted it slowly.

One part at a time, Abby, I told myself. Focus on one part of your face at a time.

I started with my eyes. “Ugh. I’m going to have a black eye. I’ll look like I’ve been beaten.”

Total silence from Nathaniel. I moved the mirror. There was a bandage covering the left side of my forehead. “What was this? What happened?” I asked, touching the bandage. Ouch.

“Head wound,” Nathaniel said. “There was blood everywhere. It wouldn’t stop and they weren’t trying. They were too concerned with whether you had a broken neck or internal bleeding.” His eyes took on a distant look. “Head wounds bleed a lot. I remember.”

And in that second, Nathaniel wasn’t a thirty-six-year-old man anymore. He was a ten-year-old boy, stuck in a car.

“But it stopped,” I said softly.

“What?” he asked, snapping back to the present.

“My bleeding. It stopped.”

“Yes,” he said. “Once they decided you hadn’t broken your neck, they bandaged your head.” He stood up and took my dinner tray. “Let me put this outside.”

Nathaniel and Felicia got into another argument over who would stay overnight.

“I already brought an overnight bag with a change of clothes and a toothbrush,” Felicia said.

“Linda’s bringing me a set of scrubs,” Nathaniel countered.

“I think that’s improper use of hospital equipment.” Felicia pointed at his chest. “Maybe I’ll report it to the board.”

Nathaniel took a step closer to her. “Linda’s on the board.”

A nurse entered my room and sidestepped around them. She gave me a look: Should I kick them out?

I shook my head.

“We’ll both stay,” Nathaniel said.

The nurse took the IV from my hand and placed a bandage on the wound. “Sorry, Mr. West, only one visitor in the room overnight. It’s a rule.”

I felt my face heat at the word rule. Probably turned eighteen shades of red.