Page 34 of Wingwoman
I wokeup blinking in the dark room, my pounding head and dry mouth the only clues I had as to where I was or what happened.
Typically, those two things meant I’d had one too many martinis. Except, I didn’t remember drinking.
I didn’t remember going out at all.
I bolted upright, tossing the coarse blanket from my torso and immediately realized my mistake. Pain sliced through my shoulder and as I clutched my throbbing head, my fingers were met with a bandage at my temple. What the hell?
My heart beat faster, slamming against my ribcage. What happened? Was this a dream? Was I reliving my worst nightmare?
I’d been so careful since my senior year of college. Never took a drink from anyone; never drank out of communal punch bowls. Hell, I didn’t even drink bottled water given to me if the seal had already been broken.
My breath grew short and my chest tightened as the rapidly increasing rhythm of my beating heart synced up with the pounding in my head.
I clutched at my chest… a shirt. I had on a shirt. Or rather… a nightgown? I dragged my hands down my body and found the shirt went down past my knees. A nightgown. A dowdy one, at that.
I literally didn’t think I owned a nightgown in my entire wardrobe.
But the important thing was, I was clothed.
A relieved breath whooshed from my dry, parted lips and tears sprang to my eyes as a sob crawled up from my chest and I dropped my face into my hands.
I felt the bed sag beside me and a hand touched the middle of my back.
I jumped to my feet, screaming, eyes wide, blinking in fear as a light clicked on beside the bed.
Beside thehospitalbed.
And Josh Gabriel sat on the edge of the bed, staring back at me with wide eyes of his own.
It all came flooding back to me as I stood there, hackles up, defenses raised.
His ranch.
Horseback riding.
Our arrangement.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his hair messy, hands up in surrender. “It’s okay, Hope. It’s just me. It’s Josh.”
My breathing slowed and I could feel my chest rise and fall as I intentionally dragged in a long inhalation through my nose and let it out through my lips.
“Josh,” I whispered. “Where am I?”
“We’re at Austin General Hospital.”
“The hospital,” I repeated.
He nodded. “There was an accident while riding the horses. You hit your head pretty hard.”
“How long was I out?”
“You were in and out of consciousness for about fifteen minutes. And you’ve been asleep for two hours.”
Two hours. That wasn’t so long. At least I wasn’t waking up to flying cars… although it would have been nice to miss my dad’s wedding. Either way, two hours lost? That wasn’t so bad. I heaved a relieved sigh. “That’s it?”
Josh’s face contorted into a scowl. “That’s it?The longest two hours and fifteen minutes of my fucking life,” he growled and raked his hands through his tousled brown hair. “I shouldn’t have made you ride with us. You warned me you were inexperienced and I didn’t fucking listen.”
The afternoon was coming back to me in bits and pieces. The ranch. Riding Gypsy. My horse taking off after Daisy showed me how to—
