“You scared us all, baby.” He’d gone from Poot to babe to baby pretty quick when he’d decided to retire.
He reached out, touched Sam’s cheek, smiling at the heavy stubble.
“Scared me the worst. Was Balta who broke down and cried like a baby, though. You want me to call them, have them come by a few at a time once you’ve seen the doctor?”
Sam tried to shake his head, moaned again, went a little gray.
“Shh. Okay. Okay, Poot. I’ll just call them and tell them you’re not ready. Okay? The doctor will get you something for the pain and you can sleep. Really sleep.” And Beau could not worry about whether Sam would wake up.
Sam held onto him, blinking hard, fighting to stay awake, stay there for him.
“It’s okay, baby. It is. I know, now. I know you’re in there. I don’t want you fighting ‘til it hurts.” Beau bent right down and kissed Sam’s forehead gently, avoiding bandages and the still-lurid bruises. “Rest. The doctor is here. Let the drugs do their work, huh?”
“Mr. Lafitte…” Kelly urged him out. “We’ll come get you in an hour, hour and a half, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay. I—” He didn’t know what to do. He’d been sitting there so long.
“Cajun? We brought you dinner.” Coke and Dillon headed through the door of the waiting room toward him. “How’s he doing?”
“He…he’s awake. I mean, he woke up. He knows me.” Beau wanted to throw up a little, the relief was so huge.
“No shit?” Coke grabbed his arms, stared at him. “He’s in there?”
“He is. He wasn’t too happy about that tube, either.” Beau grinned a little, nodding at Dillon, who had toddler legs.
“Oh, hell yes!” Coke grabbed him, squeezed him, patting him hard on the back. “I gotta call Nattie.”
“Sure. Sure. I got to call Balta and Doc.”
“I can do that.” Dillon smiled at him. “You need to eat.”
“Yeah. You need to eat, rest. You look so damn tired.” Like Coke had reason to talk. The man was walking around half dead—bruised and pale and drawn.
“Well, call Nattie and then y’all come sit with me in the other waiting room. The one down the hall.” They frowned on food in this one, and on talking in big groups. Beau had a feeling they’d soon have a big group.
“It’s a deal.” A bag of fried chicken was pushed into his hands. If he never had to eat Popeyes again.
“I’ll go sit.” That way he didn’t have to go outside with his cell. He could have a minute.
He needed it.
Sammy was awake.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Okay, Mr. Bell. We’re going to move you into the bed. Are you ready?”
He glared at the girl, frowned. No. No, he wasn’t ready. He was ready to go home. Three days he’d been in that other room and they’d surged on his damn head again, took that fucking tube out of his mouth, but he couldn’t quite figure the walking thing and no matter what, when he opened his mouth it wasn’t right.
He just wanted to go home, damn it.
“Ready? One, two, three.” He went up and over, onto another fucking bed on wheels.
He was tired of this shit.
He opened his mouth to holler at her, words just tumbling out of him, but he could see that nothing he said was making sense.
They wheeled him down into hell or something. It had to be somewhere in East Egypt as long as it took. Then they put him on another bed, but at least that was in a dark, quiet room. The nurse chattered, keeping him from talking back, which sure made her smile more.
