Page 87 of Small Town Hunter

A week?

“That’s impossible.”

Ruby snuggles close, eyes drifting shut as she rests her cheek on my chest. I’m wearing a fucking hospital gown and there’s about three different drips in my arm. My feet are in these big-bird-colored hospital socks. I don’t see Trina anywhere…and I’m not in jail.

What the hell?

“I feel fine,” I growl. “Why am I in here?”

“You’renotfine,” my sister chokes. “You’re a goddamned mess, youidiot!”

“What happened?”

“You had an infection. They had to p-pump you up with all types of stuff. And you know you don’t have insurance!”

“Who is that woman? My lawyer?”

“I’ll lethertell you,” my sister replies, cold dislike coming through her tears. “But I do owe her, Crash. She got in touch with me, and I flew out here with Ruby quick as I could. I wasn’t sure you’d make it. I wanted Ruby to see her d-daddy one last time.” Sarah Jane wipes her eyes on the collar of her Blue Midge Cafe T-shirt.

“Who’s watching Beth and Jack-jack?” I ask gently, taking her hand.

“Eliza Jane,” says Sarah Jane, meaning her full-blood sister. She makes a deep sniff and composes herself, a spark of the old SJ returning to tell me off. “Let me tell you, Crash, you won’t be seeing your woman again. She ran off, and good riddance!”

“What?” I growl.

Trina…

“Jess,” says Sarah Jane. “She came to take Ruby and I lost it on her, and after calling me every name in the book shedisappeared with some fella from the back hills. I wanted to give her a licking she’d never forget, but she was out of there before you could spit. I heard the man was her drug dealer. I’m sorry.”

Scratching my head leads to the discovery that half my hair is shaved off and I’m rocking a diaper-sized bandage on the back of my head.

The owl.

“Fuck,” I mutter, pain throbbing through my skull again, quickly dulled by whatever they’re pumping through that IV.

Jess ran off.

Throb.

“Ah,fuck,”I curse again, and Ruby shifts against my chest. “Sorry, Ruby. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Sarah Jane says, seeing my face. “Just focus on getting better.”

“What about–”Trina?I stop myself.Where is she?

“Did Jess call the law on you?” I ask instead, trying to order the thoughts in my head.

“She didn’t dare. I told her if she did I’d get Roman to see about her,” says Sarah Jane with an ugly laugh. “Her daddy might be a judge but the name McCall still means something in Florin.”

On her mother’s side Sarah Jane is a cousin of the McCalls, and a favorite of the Boss himself. It hurts to think.

McCall…gold…

“I take it I’m off the job,” I grunt.

“That’s between you and Roman. I’m just telling you about Jess.”

Ruby’s fallen asleep on my chest. Poor sweet chickadee. I’m all she has left in the world.

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