Page 6 of New River Gorge(ous)
“I’d like to see her.”
“She’s asleep. Visiting hours are over.”
I stare her down.
“Fine.” She sighs. “Just not long. She’s in Room 63.”
She buzzes me back into the facility, and I pass by the desk, keeping my eyes on the hall in front of me and definitely not turning back to the receptionist with the wandering eyes and suggestive—and unwelcome—invitation.
I follow the numbers down the linoleum hallway with the scuffed walls and dents common in medical facilities where people can’t walk without equipment as they recover from surgeries. At Room 63, I stop and knock once. I open the door quietly, in case she’s asleep.
She’s not.
Just my luck.
“Beckett!” she exclaims, clapping her hands. “I knew you’d come and get me.”
Her words hit me with the force of a truck. I reel back. “Get you?”
“That’s why you’re here. I called, and you came to get me.” She drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “This place is unAmerican.”
I rein in a snort. “UnAmerican?”
“They do not uphold the Constitution. Freedom, liberty, and justice forall. They’re restricting my rights to freedom.”
“Miss June.” I bite down on my teeth so hard that I’m speaking through a clenched jaw, but I have to say something. “Do you realize you just had surgery less than two days ago?”
She shakes her head. “Of course I realize that. I am completely all there.” She taps her head with her knuckles as she speaks. “Now take me home, young man.”
I turn to find the charge nurse and two other male nurses standing in the hallway, smirking at our conversation.This is what I get for leaving the door open.
“Pull out her release paperwork,” I say. “I’ll supervise her in her own home recovery and connect with the surgeon.”
“That’s my grandson,” June says with pride.
I spin on my heel. “I’m not your grandson. I’m your emergency contact and neighbor.”
She shrugs. “Taters and onions go together.”
The nurses snort behind me.
The charge nurse hands me June MacCord’s file, along with a stack ofAgainst Medical Advicerelease papers.
It’s thirty more minutes before I’m wheeling June out to my old truck.
“Dabnabit,” she says when she sees me pull the key out of my pocket.
“What?”
“I was hoping to hot-wire a car to get out of here.”
I scrub a hand down my face, letting my fingers tug slightly on my beard.
This woman is going to be the death of me.
3
Brooke
