Page 10 of Tate
Oh, now Knox was talking to her. She looked up and nodded. But that was sort of what she was afraid of.
Because it was time to fire her bodyguard.
“You’re not going to believe this, Glo.” Kelsey held her phone up and flashed the screen at Glo.
Glo shook her head, the screen too far away for her to read.
“We’re up for New Group of the Year with the Country Music Guild! Carter just texted with a link of Carrie Underwood announcing the list. He wants us to go to the CMG awards.”
Glo stared at her, trying to wrap her brain around— “The CMG awards?”
“They’re in Nashville. End of May. I gotta text Dixie.”
Dixie. The third member of their band, who had returned to the hotel room right around the time the EMTs were trying to force an oxygen tube down Tate’s swelling throat.
Their first official awards show, and frankly, Glo should be on her feet, fist-pumping the air.
Instead, the cold simply shut her down, the triumph bouncing off her. “Yeah. Sure.”
Kelsey frowned, glancing over at her, then back to her phone.
Tate stirred again, and his eyes moved under his lids.
Glo stood up, bent over him. “Hey, tough guy. You’re okay.” She pressed her hand to the center of his chest, glad to feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. “We’re with you.”
His good eye opened, and for a moment, he seemed far away, the texture of confusion, even horror, in his eye.
“Bro. You’re in the hospital,” Knox filled in, probably deducing the same from Tate’s widening eye.
Tate’s gaze flashed to Glo, the past knitting together in his blue eye.
Then he started to gag.
“Tate, calm down!” Knox pressed his hand on Tate’s uninjured shoulder. “Just let the machine breathe for you?—”
Kelsey had gotten up and pressed the nurse call button.
Tate writhed on the bed, reaching for the tube as if to pull it out. Knox grabbed his hand, pinned it.
The white of Tate’s eye showed, and Glo pressed her hands over her mouth to keep from crying out.
His agonized grunts tore through her, and she took a step back as Knox leaned over him, talking to him, his voice low, like he might be talking to one of his ranch animals. “Bro. Just breathe. We’ll take it out. It’s okay—you’re okay?—”
“What’s going on?” A nurse in green scrubs pushed into the room. With short dark hair, she looked lean and strong enough to handle her writhing patient. She stepped up to Tate’s bed, grabbed his wrist, and took his pulse. Tate was emitting a strange, deep moan.
She pulled out an iPad and scanned it. “Okay, Mr. Marshall, I’ll call the doctor and see if he can take out that tube. You’re due more pain meds, so I’ll order those for you, but you need to calm down or you’re going to hurt yourself more.”
He looked at the nurse, breathing hard through the tube, then his gaze fell on Glo.
Maybe he hadn’t seen her before, because he simply affixed on her. Held on. And as he did, his panic seemed to drop away. He stopped writhing, his keening died, and his breathing evened out.
Whatever he’d been dreaming, whatever nightmares followed him from his slumber broke away.
Then his eyes filled, and maybe that scared her even more.
Tate didn’t do tears.
Glo stepped up to his bed, taking the nurse’s place as she left, and ran her hand over his trapped in the sling. “I’m here, Tate.”
