“Of course. He’s the most handsome man in the room, after all.”
She climbed off Ethan’s lap and he instantly missed her. She placed her hand in Uncle Mitch’s and then Mitch led her to the floor. Ethan watched her for a while, and then picked up her phone when it started to ring and headed outside. Once he was out there he answered it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Annabelle was tired. It had been a long day, in fact a long weekend, and after telling Ethan about Cooper and howling like a baby, she was exhausted. These last few days had been packed with more emotion than she would normally experience in years.
“Thanks, darling.”
“Thank you, Uncle Mitch.” Annabelle kissed his cheek then started back to Ethan. He wasn’t there, so she picked up her bag and went to find him, just to make sure he wasn’t going another round with Brad or his father. She walked through the room smiling and nodding, but not stopping until she had searched every corner. Brad and his father were in here, but not Ethan. Frowning, she headed for the doors that led outside, passed through and went out into the cool Texas evening air.
She found him talking into her phone.
“What are you doing?” She reached for it, but his fingers wrapped around her wrist and held her there until he’d finished, which he did with the words, “I’ll call when we get there.”
“How dare you!” Annabelle tried to snatch the phone out of his hands, but he held it above her head.
“Shut up and listen to me.”
The seriousness of his tone stopped her. “What’s wrong?” Annabelle whispered as her body filled with dread. “Was that Cooper on the phone?”
“It wasn’t Cooper calling you. It’s some friend of his named Johnnie Bills.”
“I know him. He worked with Cooper when he first went to Vegas. But why is he calling me?”
“Because he thinks Cooper’s in deep trouble and using too much and that it’s all going to end badly very soon if we don’t get him out of Vegas.”
Annabelle could feel the color slowly draining from her face as Ethan spoke.
“He’s piled up huge debts, and Johnnie thinks that the people he owes will come after him soon if he doesn’t start paying them off.”
“H-how much?” He wanted to lie to her, she could see that. “The truth,” she said. “I want to know the truth, not a version that you believe I need to hear.”
“One hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
The words were delivered in a calm, composed tone, but it didn’t matter to Annabelle; had they been yelled from the rooftop they would have still impacted her the same way.
“Steady, Annabelle.” She felt Ethan’s hands on her arms. “Breathe for me, honey, in and out. That’s good, keep it up.”
The buzzing in her ears began to ease as the breath whooshed back into her lungs, and with it the anger.
“That selfish, stupid idiot!” she thundered, pushing Ethan aside. “How the hell am I supposed to come up with that kind of money when just paying my mortgage is a huge goddamn effort?” She walked away from him, anger clawing at her throat as it waged a war with the fear inside her.
Dear God, what would happen to Cooper if she didn’t pay?
“Annabelle—”
“How long do I have to pay?” she said, cutting Ethan off.
He stood where she’d left him, watching as she paced. “I don’t know. Johnnie couldn’t get that information out of Cooper. Your brother just told him the amount and has been going in and out of consciousness ever since.”
“Why hasn’t he taken him to the hospital?” Annabelle demanded.
“Because Cooper just bails as soon as he’s coherent. He runs away from the hospital.”
Annabelle had dealt with all kinds of things in her life, a drunken uncle, brothers with attitude, men trying to get their hands on her, but this whole business with Cooper was something else entirely. It had thrown her badly, because she couldn’t seem to fix it, couldn’t make things right. As a nurse, she understood what Cooper was choosing to do to his body, and how hard it would be for him to stop, and as a sister, the thought of him suffering and in pain was killing her.
Before, when she’d known what he was doing, Annabelle had made contact with him often, and he’d always replied, which told her he was at least coherent. But since she’d cut him off, fear and worry had been eating away at her from the inside. She had battled to push it aside, told herself it was his choice to do what he wanted to himself, but Cooper had still been in her head every minute of every day.
