“If she were in any position to do it, but she won’t be. She’ll have a hard time now going to the bathroom without someone watching her. She might not be in prison, but she won’t be free.”
He had to be content with that too. It was a tough pill to swallow, but he’d let Axel do what Axel did.
He thought about taking Tricks home first, but the need to see Bo, see her for himself, was riding him hard. The night temps were cool enough that he could leave Tricks in the Tahoe with the windows down a bit and let her snooze while he paid a fast visit. He walked her around first, then she happily bounded into the Tahoe and settled down. He didn’t have her seat harness with him so he drove carefully, even though traffic was almost nonexistent.
He hadn’t been to the hospital before, but he programmed the GPS and followed the directions. Half an hour later, he pulled into the hospital parking lot and found an empty slot under a light. There was a surprising number of cars there, given that the hospital wasn’t particularly large even by small-town standards, so Jesse was likely right on target about people staying with their relatives.
He lowered the windows down an inch or so, letting the cool night air seep in. He said, “I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. You don’t let anyone in, okay?’
Tricks woofed softly. It wasn’t until he was inside the hospital, taking the interior stairs two at a time, that he realized he’d been talking to her as if she were human and understood every word he’d said. He gave a mental shrug. He’d bet on Tricks understanding more than some humans he’d met.
He exited on the third floor, checked which way the room numbers were running, and strode to room 308. The nurses’ desk was down the hall, a small center of activity, but he didn’t have to go that far down. There was no point in knocking, not if Bo’d been given happy juice, so he simply pushed the lever-style handle and went in.
The room wasn’t completely dark, for the convenience of the nurse who would be coming in during the night to check on her. The head of the bed was raised a little, and Bo was turned slightly on her left side, her legs curled and her left hand tucked under her cheek. A big, thick bandage covered her neck and part of her right shoulder, but from what he could see in the dim light, her color looked good. An IV needle was in the back of her right hand. He checked the bags hanging from the rolling stand: an antibiotic and standard saline solution for hydration. Anything she was getting for pain was in the form of an injection or a pill.
“Hey.”
The word startled him. Her voice was low and sleepy, a little slurred. Swiftly he turned to see her half-smiling at him, her eyelids barely cracked enough for her to see him.
“Hey,” he said softly, rubbing the back of one finger against her cheek. “I hear you’re getting sprung from this place in a few hours.”
“So they say, as long as I don’t have a fever. I’m hoping all these antibiotics they’re pouring into me do the job.”
“How do you feel?”
“Sore. Let me amend that: very sore. I don’t know what they did to patch me up but I think I remember the nurse saying something about staples.”
“Those are a bitch,” he said feelingly. He remembered staples too damn well.
The more she talked, the more he could detect a slight difficulty in her speech. He suspected her throat was swollen, probably up into her jaw. Yeah, she was going to be unhappy for several days.
He’d come so damn close to losing her. The realization, held at bay while he did what had to be done, slammed him hard, hit him where he lived. His eyes suddenly burned and blurred. “Shit,” he muttered, going down on his knees beside the bed.
“Morgan?” She was struggling to sit upright, reaching out toward him.
He caught her left hand and cradled it against his cheek. “You better fu-you better be okay,” he growled, amending what he’d been about to say and leaving out the obscenity, because it seemed out of place with what he was feeling. “You hear me?”
“Back at you.” She turned her hand so she was stroking his cheek. “I was terrified you hadn’t paid any attention to Tricks barking, that he was going to kill you in front of me. Kill both of us, actually,” she sighed. “I figured I was dead regardless of what happened. All I could hope was that he wasn’t a very good shot, and that you’d heard Tricks… Where is she?”
“In the Tahoe, waiting for me. Jesse kept her with him at the station. I stopped by to find out where you were and picked her up.”
“Don’t keep her waiting long,” she instructed. “Anyway, I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye… the way he had my head jerked back I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t think of anything to do except drop to the ground and keep his attention on me.”
She’d expected to die. She hadn’t been trying to save herself, she’d been trying to save him. His eyes burned again and his throat clogged. “I love you so damn much,” he said tightly, closing his eyes as he gripped her fingers. “I thought my heart was going to stop when I saw he had you.”
“I love you too.” The words were simple, offered as a gift from a woman who had spent most of her life barricading herself from emotion, refusing to let anyone matter too much to her. When he thought how difficult it had been for her to tear down her walls, he felt doubly blessed, doubly honored. He had to wonder, if Tricks hadn’t come first, if the dog hadn’t made a huge chink in Bo’s walls, if she’d ever have let him in. He figured he owed the dog, and the town, more than he could ever repay.
“One good thing came from it.” The words were soft and sleepy, and her eyes drifted shut.
“What?”
She barely managed to lift her eyelids again. “We don’t have to wait to get married.” She sighed and went to sleep, with him still holding her hand.
No, they didn’t, he realized. They damn well didn’t.
Their wedding day was ten days later. They waited that long only because of Bo’s injury. She didn’t want to have a huge bandage on her neck in her wedding photos, however informal those photos were. They decided not to go to the expense of hiring a professional photographer, but as it turned out Brandwyn Wyman not only swung a mean chair, she dabbled in photography and volunteered to take pictures at her cost, just for the practice. So there would be photos, and Bo didn’t want her bandage to be the focus of every one of them. By the time ten days rolled around, a bandage was still in place but it could be covered by a ribbon of lace tied around her throat and dangled down her back. The effect was Victorian, especially combined with the simple ivory gown she wore, and the way Daina had arranged her hair in a kind of modified Gibson Girl, with tendrils framing her face and neck. Sparkly earrings completed her wedding outfit. Her flowers were three ivory-white roses tied with some of the same lace ribbon that was around her throat.
She was still cautious about the way she turned her head, but overall she’d healed well. The staples had come out the day before, at her insistence, a few days sooner than the surgeon had wanted, but he wasn’t the one getting married. She was, and she wanted the staples out. When he’d removed them, he’d admitted that the area looked good. He’d simply wanted to be cautious.
As expected, all their friends in town had really gotten into the whole wedding deal. Miss Doris had insisted on baking a cake, gratis, and Bo had had to argue with her, refusing to say what kind she wanted until Miss Doris grudgingly agreed to accept payment-a discounted payment, but still payment.
Morgan seemed cool as ever about the never-ending stream of details on which people wanted decisions, yesterday if possible. Between the two of them, they swatted away their friends’ inclination to turn this into a huge production. There was no wedding party, no groomsmen or bridesmaids-just him, her, and likely Tricks, because they were prepared for her to refuse to stay quietly seated beside Daina.