Page 17 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

He reached under the sheet and clasped the inside of my thigh, his hand hard and slightly rough, and oh so warm. “She missed you by inches,” he said roughly. “I damn near had a heart attack, seeing how close it was. She wasn’t trying to just scare you, she literally tried to kill you.”

Chapter

Seven

Mom came in shortly afterward with my clothes, hanging them in the minuscule closet and dropping my keys back in my purse. “I can’t stay,” she said, looking frustrated and harried and incredibly beautiful, because that’s just Mom, she can’t look any other way. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

“Better,” I said, because it was true. I’d managed to eat those God-awful eggs, hadn’t I? The “better” was qualified by a “marginally,” but I’d take what I could get. “Thanks for bringing my stuff. Now go do your thing, and don’t worry about me.”

She gave me a wry, “yeah, sure” look. “Has a doctor been in yet?”

“Nope.”

Her look of frustration increased. “Where’s Siana?”

“She went to the cafeteria when I got here,” Wyatt said, checking his watch. “She’s been gone about twenty minutes.”

“I can’t stay until she gets back, I have to leave five minutes ago.” She leaned down and kissed my forehead, gave Wyatt’s cheek a buzz as she breezed past, and was out the door, tossing “Call my cell if you need me” over her shoulder as she disappeared from view.

“You didn’t mention the parking-lot tapes,” Wyatt observed. He was still working on deciphering our family dynamics. While he went with the belief that cold, hard reality is the most stable operating platform, Mom and I shared a tendency to go off on tangents so we wouldn’t have to think about the bad stuff until we’d processed it and were ready to deal. I’d had all night to process, plus I’dbeenthere and knew exactly how much danger I’d been in, so I’d already explored a few tangents and was now solidly squared with the cold hard stuff.

“She knows someone tried to run me over. There’s no point in telling her how close the bitch came to actually doing it. She’s already stressed, and that would just worry her more.” The incident wasover…except for the getting-well part. There was no way to track her down, so everyone might as well forget and move on. I was; I had to. I had shopping to do! This had already cost me a day, would likely cost me at least a couple more, and I didn’t have the time to spare.

Wyatt checked his watch again. His days were incredibly busy, so I knew he’d been pushing to find time to come to the hospital. I reached for his hand. “You need to go, too.” Hey, I can be understanding.

“Yeah, I do. You have your key to my house with you, right?”

“It’s in my purse. Why?”

“So you can get in, if I can’t shake free to come pick you up when you’re released. Siana can drive you, can’t she?”

“That isn’t a problem, but I’m not going to your house, I’m going home.” I saw his brows start to draw together and squeezed his hand. “I know you’re feeling protective and I’m not trying to be difficult, honest”—hard as that was to believe—“but all of my paperwork and things are at home. I may not feel like shopping, but I can do some things by phone and computer. I’m not an invalid, this time around, so I don’t need someone to stay with me. I also promise not to drive myself anywhere.” There. I couldn’t be any more reasonable than that, could I?

He didn’t like it, mainly because he wanted me at his house permanently, right now—or rather, two months ago, and he didn’t deal well with not getting what he wanted. Here’s a word to the wise: if you want someone who’s laid-back, unaggressive, and nonarrogant, don’t evenlookat a cop. When the cop in question also happens to be a former pro football player, you just have to know going in that you’re dealing with a personality that can kick ass and take names.

Sometimes, I admit, I deliberately try to get him going, just because it’s so much fun, but this time I was on the level. He knew it, too, so he reined in his natural tendency to issue orders. “Okay. After work I’ll go home and get my stuff. I don’t know what time I’ll get to your place, though, so make sure you have something to eat before Siana leaves.”

“You don’t have to stay with me, I’ll be fine by myself,” I said, because it was the polite thing to say.

“Yeah, right,” he said with something that sounded suspiciously like a snort. He was smart enough that he didn’t eventhinkof listening to me. I would have been so pissed if he’d left me to fend for myself when I had a concussion. Oh, Siana could have stayed with me, but I sort of looked at it as Wyatt’s duty, part of the package deal that we’d agreed to by getting engaged. I took care of him, he took care of me. Simple. Though of course so far he hadn’t needed taking care of, unless you want to count erections in that category, but that was okay with me because I shudder at the thought of him being hurt in any way. I loved him so much I couldn’t stand the thought of that, plus he’d probably be a horrible patient.

Anyway, I let the sarcastic comment pass, so he kissed me and left. Siana, with her exquisite timing, came sauntering into the room a few minutes after he’d gone. “How’d he take it?” she asked.

“I think he thought we reallywerediscussing his dick, as he put it.” I made a little face. “As far as being caught eavesdropping, that didn’t bother him at all. But I managed to work it into an agreement that I could remodel and redecorate his house, so that’s good.”

A look of admiration crossed her face. “I’m not certain how you segued from eavesdropping to decorating, but the end result is what counts.”

Once again, I didn’t want to explain about orgasms in the pantry, so I just smiled. Sometimes a younger sister just needs to look up to her older sister.

We passed the afternoon watching soaps, which was interesting. Siana told me she had heard that nothing happened in soaps except on Fridays, and I think that must be true. We watched one attempted murder, one kidnapping, and probably fourteen couples have sex, an impressive tally for just two hours.

We were in the middle ofOprahwhen a doctor came in and introduced herself. She was in her mid-fifties, tired, and you could tell only her intense focus was getting her through her rounds, so I didn’t give her any grief about not being there sooner. The I.D. badge clipped to the pocket of her white lab coat read “Tewanda Hardy, M.D.” She checked my eyes, read my chart, asked a few questions, then told me the nurse would give me a list of instructions and I could go home. She was out of the room before I could say more than a hurried “thank you.”

Finally!

Siana got my clothes out of the closet, and while she called both Mom and Wyatt to let them know I was going home, I carefully eased into the bathroom to change. The outfit Mom had brought, pants and a blouse, was a very soft, flowing linen and rayon blend that wouldn’t rasp on any of my scrapes, and the blouse buttoned down the front so I didn’t have to pull anything on over my head. Having on real clothes again made me feel much better, even though exerting myself that much made my headache worse. I don’t know how I could describe myself as feeling better, but I did. Clothes will do that for me.

A nurse came by with some paperwork for me to sign, a list of don’ts until the headache was completely gone, and that was pretty much it. I already knew how to take care of scrapes. No meds were prescribed; I could take over-the-counter stuff for the headache, if needed.Ifneeded? Had no one ever told the members of the medical profession how a concussionfelt?

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