“Where are you?”
“Ummm, nowhere special,” Jodi muttered, worrying her bottom lip as she watched the man lying on the gurney next to hers vomit all over himself, again.
“Nurse!” his nervous wife yelled, making Jodi cringe because she knew without a doubt that Greg had also heard it.
There was a long-suffering sigh on the other end of the phone before Greg said, “You’re at the hospital, aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” she mumbled, looking down at her arm where a large icepack sat, concealing the reason why Mr. Tate had felt it was necessary to browbeat her into going to the hospital.
It wasn’t a big deal, but he’d refused to listen. Instead, he’d mumbled something about liability, lawsuits, and unnecessary paperwork that would pull him away from his bridge game as he’d dragged her to his car, shoved her inside and drove her to the hospital where he’d made sure the doctor knew the extent of her injuries before he’d wished her luck and ditched her ass to the tender mercies of the emergency room staff.
“Do you need a ride?” Greg asked, not sounding all that happy about it. Not that she could blame him.
“No,” Jodi lied, hating the idea of putting any of her friends in the position of having to handle her when she had medicine in her system.
“Are you sure?” Greg asked, sounding relieved that he wouldn’t have to take care of her, but she knew that if she told him that she needed a ride that he would be here in a heartbeat to look after her. He wouldn’t be happy about it, but he would do it.
“Yeah, I’m-” Jodi started to say, only to have her phone suddenly taken from her.
“She’ll be fine,” Danny answered for her, ending the call and tossing the phone on the bed next to her.
“What are you doing here?” Jodi asked, shifting self-consciously as she took in his freshly combed hair, handsome face and the dark navy shirt that molded to his muscles and then glanced down at her ripped, dust-covered, coal-stained shirt and pants and dirt coasting her arms.
“They told me what happened down at the library,” Danny said, gingerly raising the icepack off her arm so he could get a look at her injury.
“Why were you at the library?” Jodi asked, deciding that it was for the best to pretend that her hair wasn’t a tangled mess.
He gently gripped her arm and turned it over. “I came to bring you coffee and to see if you needed a hand,” Danny murmured thoughtfully as he studied her wound.
“It’s not broken,” she said, forcing a small smile as she picked up the icepack and placed it back on her arm.
“No, it’s not,” Danny said, sighing heavily as he rubbed the back of his neck.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him, wondering where the doctor was. “It’s just a few nasty scrapes and a bruised bone.”
He nodded but said nothing.
“It’s no big deal.”
Silence.
“Mr. Tate got nervous and made me come here. I just need to clean the scrapes and as long as I keep ice on my arm, I’ll be fine,” Jodi promised him when the silence became awkward.
Rubbing his hands roughly down his face, Danny sighed, “It’s going to be a long night.”
Chapter 20
“Your lap is so comfy,” his drugged-out passenger said dreamily as she snuggled closer.
“So, you keep saying,” Danny said absently as he parked the truck.
This was going to be a very long night, Danny mused again as he opened his door and turned around to help Tinkerbelle out of the truck only to pause when he realized that the woman, who hadn’t stopped talking since the doctor shot her beautiful ass full of medicine, was fast asleep. Deciding that someone up there must love him, he picked Jodi up, careful of her head and carried her into the house, pausing only long enough to kick his truck door shut.
“You coming upstairs to watch the game?” his cousin Devin asked, shifting cases of beer in his arms so that he could hold the front door open for Danny.
“Not tonight,” Danny said quietly as he stepped past his cousin and headed for his door.
“What happened to her?” Devin asked, placing the beer on the floor. He took the keys out of Danny’s hand and opened the door for him.
