“He’s alive,” a soft voice whispered.
She sucked back her sobs, sure she’d misheard or else was having a morphine-induced hallucination. But upon opening her eyes, she saw Mia and Romeo standing at the foot of her hospital bed. Mia grabbed her toes beneath the blanket, giving them a soft squeeze. “He’s alive, Chrissy,” she repeated in that whisper-soft voice of hers.
Chrissy turned to Wolf. A desperate question in her eyes.
He took her hand and held it between both of his. She realized her fingers were freezing when his big, callused palms nearly burned her.
She might not trust him with her heart, but she definitely trusted him to tell her the truth. If there were two things Ray “Wolf” Roanhorse wasn’t, it was a liar and a bullshitter.
The man didn’t know how to do anything but shoot a person straight.
“It’s true.” He nodded, and she choked on a hard sob of relief that made the pain in her shoulder throb anew. She didn’t care. She could withstandtwobullet wounds right now because…
Winston’s alive!
“You gettin’ to me and tellin’ me where to find him, where to send the paramedics, is the only reason he’s still breathin’. Yousavedhim, Chrissy.” Wolf brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve seen trained soldiers who didn’t have the wherewithal to do what needed doin’ when push came to shove. But you nailed it.”
She didn’t know aboutthat.All she knew was she hadn’t felt the pain of her wound. She hadn’t felt the cool wetness of the water. When she pulled herself out of the marina, she’d been laser-focused on getting to Wolf. She’d known if she could get to him, he’d know what to do. He’d make everything better.
And no. That didn’t mean she’d changed her mind about him. Wolf might be the first person she ran to when bullets started flying—duh, the man was a Navy SEAL—but he was stillhim.
She wasn’t a big believer in there being deep, dark meanings behind dreams.Sometimes a pickle is simply a pickle, Sigmund Freud.But there was no mistaking the significance of the one she’d had as the anesthesia loosened its grip on her mind.
That old sayingmonkey see, monkey do?Well, in her case it was more like,monkey see, monkey learn hard life lessons, monkey do everything in her power not to make her mother’s mistakes.
“Can I see him?” she asked.
Silence met her question.
Romeo and Wolf had pretty good poker faces, but remind her never to pick Mia as a card partner.
Chrissy pinned Wolf with a look. “Tell me.” The words were cold and clipped, which was the exact opposite of the hot blood rushing through her veins until it pounded like surf in her ears.
“Winston was shot in the chest,” he said carefully.
That much she knew. The memory of Winston’s shirt blooming like a red flower had her gorge rising.
“The bullet split in two as it tore through one of his lungs. A piece of it exited near his breastbone, but the other fragment is still inside him. He’s lost a lot of blood. Too much. The doctors gave him transfusions, but they’ve had to put him in a medically induced coma until he’s stable enough for surgery.”
She didn’t want to ask this next question, but her mother had taught her never to shy away from a cold, hard truth. “What are his chances?”
Wolf dropped his chin and stared at the thin blue blanket that covered her lower half and kept her modesty intact despite the flimsy hospital gown that was printed with…are those snowflakes?
The irony of the pattern given nary a flake nor flurry had ever graced the island wasn’t lost on her.
After a deep breath, he glanced back at her and admitted, “Not good. They’re tellin’ us it’s less than fifty-fifty.”
Her heart sank so fast she was surprised it didn’t bust through the skimpy mattress and fall onto the tile floor beneath the hospital bed. Wetness once again welled in her eyes and slipped unencumbered over her lids.
“Hey now.” Wolf used his thumbs to wipe away her tears. “A wise man once said we should laugh at the odds and live so Death would tremble to take us.”
She knew he was trying to reassure her. In his Wolf way. And so she pasted on a wobbly scowl since that’s what he expected. “What have I told you about the fortune cookie thing?”
Just as she’d known it would, one corner of his mouth hitched up. That beautiful mouth she knew tasted like damnation and salvation all at once. “Your brass is comin’ back.” He dipped his chin. “That’s good.”
Was it? She couldn’t say for sure. All she knew was succumbing to the breakdown she so richly deserved wouldn’t help Winston or anyone else.
She had learned whatnotto do from her mother when it came to men. But Josephine had also been a role model on whattodo when the world went pear-shaped. Namely, take a deep breath, square your shoulders, and keep on keeping on.
