“I fell asleep.” My voice was hard but broken at the same time.
Higgins set his hands down. “You usually do when you’re in pain.”
Yeah, that was somethin’. Most people screamed out, or cried, or squeezed someone else’s hand. Or, like Keenan said, bit down on a stick. I fell asleep when the pain hit. My brain had rewired after I’d hid underneath the earth. Pain drained me after, and I’d nod off.
Higgins nodded to my shoulder. “Let me fix that. You’re bleeding again.”
I stood, swayin’ a bit on my feet, and he didn’t bother tryin’ to help me. He knew better.
Maeve. Her name floated through my head, and, fuckin’ truth, her name alone intoxicated me.
She’d just been weak from seeing my blood and had passed out against my chest. Once I knew she was safe, drinkin’ orange juice and eatin’ crackers, Fiona next to her in this buildin’, I allowed the pain to take me under. My shoulder was still throbbin’, which was why I was havin’ a hard time keepin’ my eyes open, but I had to see her.
“Your wife is in the next room,” Higgins called after me. “Salma and Maya made her a bed on one of the tables. She’s all right.”
Salma, Higgins’ wife, was doing somethin’ behind the counter when I walked out into the hall. She looked up just as her sister, Maya, was comin’ out of a room. They were lookin’ at me differently, like maybe it was time I moved up to a real hospital, since my wife got her hands on me and was turnin’ me into a real man.
All Salma and Maya dealt with were beasts.
There was another reason for me comin’ here, besides me bein’ the equivalent of a wild animal, though. It was under the radar, and Higgins could see me without gettin’ questioned by anyone. He was a surgeon and could find a bullet better than an x-ray machine, Keenan always said. Keenan had watched him for months before he approached him about our deal.
I hadn’t understood Higgins’ motivation for agreein’ to treat me then, but I understood it better than how to pronounce my name after Maeve came into my life. Higgins was bogged down with bills from his schoolin’, and he wanted to buy a house in this small town for Salma. He also wanted to open this practice for her.
We paid him enough to do it all—at a cost. If we needed medical attention, he or his wife would tend to us.
The other doctor, the one closer to Boston, hadn’t answered. Keenan never said it, but I had a feelin’ they were foolin’ around before we left for Ireland. Fiona knew everythin’, and I wondered if she’d even called her at all, since things seemed to be changin’ between them.
“O'Callaghan,” Salma said, stopping me before I went inside the room. “Maeve told me she’s pregnant. I’d like to do an ultrasound on her, since she hasn’t had one.”
“My wife is a woman,” I said.
She grinned at me. “We use the same equipment for animals, but we have better ones, so to speak, thanks to you.”
I nodded.
“All right. We’ll be in in a sec and see what we can see.”
My heart started to beat faster, and my feet moved in rhythm to it. Both came to a complete halt when I crossed the threshold of the room. Maeve was lyin’ in the center of a table with wheels, her eyes shut tight. It looked hard and uncomfortable, somethin’ made for someone like me, but the doctors had tried to make it comfortable by addin’ blankets and pillows.
I realized the table seemed meant for death, and my heart took off like my feet had the night Craig ordered my life to be destroyed. It was one of those silver ones.
One of her feet stuck out. My eyes automatically went to her toes.
I took an easier breath.
Nothin’ there.
Except…blood stained her face, and she was almost hidin’ under the covers because she was cold in that slinky dress she’d worn to her friend’s weddin’.
Why hadn’t they cleaned her face?
Why hadn’t Fiona got her some fuckin’ warm clothes?
“Stop lookin’ at me like that, lad.” Fiona sat up in the chair and stretched her arms over her head, yawnin’ like a mammy bear just wakin’ from hibernation. “We did the best with what we were given last night, seein’ as you would have gone off the rails if we would have left to grab new things. Your woman is all right. You see how wide her mouth is open? She’s catchin’ fireflies right now in her sleep.”
“Am not,” Maeve said, soundin’ drugged, her eyes still closed.
My shoulder hit the wall, and the pain almost made me hit the floor. I shook my head, tryin’ to shake out of the fuckin’ stupor.
