Page 109 of Dead Serious with Benefits
I turned around and called out. “Amelia! Please go with Ward, he can’t go alone!”
“We’ll need a statement from her as well,” he said, though his voice faltered when he realized I was bringing someone else into the mix.
Not just anyone, but a pissed off control freak and terrified Mother. The same one who whirled around and pointed. “Let him go,now. You have almost a dozen other people here who you can interview, including me.”
“You should go with him,” I said, although it brought me a great deal of pain to admit that aloud. “You’re his mother.”
“And as everyone has pointed out several times today, I’m terrible at it. If you’re as devoted to being with him as you said, then you will go with him, and I won’t hear anything against it,” she said as she marched over and pulled the cop’s hand off me. “And that includes you, officer.”
“Ma’am, I understand?—”
“Nothing, you understand nothing. But you come into my home, following an absolute disaster and horror show, and presume to tell us what will and won’t happen? I think not. What you are going to do is give me your badge number and tell me who your captain is, and that is going to happen within the next few minutes,” she said. I stepped away from them as Amelia, who didn’t come up to the officer’s nose, pushed into his personal space, making him step back. I had no illusions that she was terrifying, although she was unnerving with her hair still sticking out and fire burning fiercely in her eyes. But I suspected it was the fact that he had the governor in his face, barking orders, that made him pause.
But I saw the chance I was being given, and the gift it was. Amelia had the situation in hand...or well, an iron fist. I could muse about the way she instantly leapt to help me and had made the decision that it was, in her assessment, better for me to be the one to accompany Ward.
Instead, I hurried after the EMTs, calling out as they loaded Ward into the back of the ambulance and sprinted toward them. “Wait, I’m going with him!”
“Are you family?” one of them asked, but it sounded perfunctory, as if she didn’t care in the slightest who I was, so long as I had some barely justified reason to be with them.
“His partner,” I said, swinging into the back before they could process what I said, let alone decide whether I was justified in coming with them. Perhaps I was taking a page out of Amelia’s book and not giving them any choice.
There was a mask over Ward’s face as one of the EMTs sighed and gestured for me to sit, and I took his hand in mine. His eyes looked more distant and hazy, but sharpened when my hand closed over his and squeezed. I looked through the double doors still open at the back of the ambulance and saw the chaos unfolding on the property. A wry and newly awakened part of me couldn’t help but bitterly note that if there had been this kind of a debacle at other people’s residences, there wouldn’t have been such a significant reaction from the police. But considering this was not only a rich family, but the governor’s home, they had been on top of things in a heartbeat.
It still begged the question of how they even knew something was wrong in the first place, but it was something to figure out later, if I could.
“I’m right here,” I told Ward as I held his hand, fear gripping my chest as I watched him struggle to stay awake. I had to remind myself that tired and weary did not mean the end, and allI could do was hold onto him until the end. “I’ve got you, okay? So long as I’m here, you don’t go anywhere, you hear?”
I jerkedawake when I heard the ominous sound of heels clicking down the hallway and blinked as Amelia strode into Ward’s private room. It had been hours since he and I had arrived at the hospital, and he had already gone through the surgery to get the bullet removed and shore up the damage. I had been told that it was a waiting game for his body to recover enough from the damage so he would wake up. They swore up and down he would pull through since he’d gotten so far already, but I refused to leave his side until he woke up and was checked out by a doctor, or several.
Amelia, however, had recovered from being roughed up by armed men. Her makeup and hair had been fixed, and her dress replaced with a blouse, jacket, and long skirt. Her eyes swept the room as she entered, and I wondered if she was trying to judge how good Ward’s care was. It was absurd and pointless unless she had the medical knowledge to make that determination, and I didn’t think she did.
“Welcome,” I said as I rubbed my eyes sheepishly. I hadn’t planned on falling asleep; I had wanted to stay awake as long as it took Ward to wake up. I’d failed, and I felt guilty, as if I had missed something important. A glance around the room and at Ward told me I hadn’t missed anything. He was still attached to the same machines, in the same position I had last seen him in before my exhaustion had taken over. “They said he’s stable and we’re?—”
“Waiting for him to wake up, yes,” she said curtly, and I fell silent. Apparently, whatever camaraderie we had established atthe house had disappeared. Not that I had expected it to stick around, she was who she was after all. “I made sure I was updated every step of the way. Have a good rest?”
“Less a rest and more passing out,” I said to her calmly. “Have you rested?”
“What time would I find for such a thing?” she asked curtly. “I spent hours dealing with the police, not to mention making sure the medical personnel looked after everyone. And then the inevitable media attention had to be dealt with, and the...no, I’ve had no time for rest, forced or otherwise.”
I was still too exhausted to determine if she was trying to be judgmental. “You’ve been busy?”
“Do you think I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t trying to juggle everything at once?” she asked as she came to stand at Ward’s bedside. Silently, I watched her as she stopped and stared down at him. I watched as her fingers flexed as if to reach out and touch him before curling into loose fists.
I didn’t blame her; it was...bizarre to see him lying there, so helpless and wounded, bizarre and heartbreaking. I kept hoping and waiting for Ward to wake up, to make one of his jokes or say something inappropriate. I wouldn’t know peace or real rest until he was given the all clear. I didn’t know how much Amelia agreed with me, but with just the two of us in the room, it was apparent she didn’t know what to do with herself. Her eyes kept moving over Ward’s face, and though her hands remained on the bed, I could feel the energy that practically begged to take hold of Ward.
“If you’ve been so busy, you should take the chance to sit down. Even Ward would tell you there’s no point in standing on your feet while you wait for him to wake up,” I said softly, bringing a chair to her.
She eyed the chair as I retreated to my own seat, and I wondered if she would refuse my help. After a moment, she gavea slight sniff and sat ramrod straight in the chair, but at least she wasn’t on her feet anymore.
“I’m not surprised that he won’t wake up at a reasonable hour,” she said with a curl of her lip. “Even as a child, he never wanted to. He would try to stay up all night, reading or playing those games of his, and then wouldn’t want to get up. I thought it would get better when he was older, but instead, he chose to live a life that meant he didn’t have to do a thing during the day. His dedication to spiting me was as irritating as it was impressive.”
“He still doesn’t like to get up, even when he goes to bed at a normal time...well, a normal time for him anyway,” I said with a little shrug. “If we have to do something at a particular time, I have to peel him out of bed. And even then, I’m required to all but pour coffee down his throat.”
“He gets that from me,” Amelia admitted softly.
“Really? I would have expected you to be...well, not a morning person, but someone who can get up and go.”
“Oh, I can certainly wake up and start immediately,” she said, putting her hands in her lap and looking at the heart rate monitor. “But I’ve never been good at it; I’m at my worst in the morning. And morning is whenever I wake up, same as Warden. Eric can wake up at a moment’s notice and be prepared to start the day. I am good at creating the illusion of how prepared I am for the day. Very few people are allowed around me then, which helps create and maintain the illusion.”
