“Give me your gun and go,” Jameson says, snatching the weapon from my waistband before shoving me forward. “Text me when you know something. I’ll try to keep it from Kenny as long as I can.”
“Is she going to be okay?” I ask as I climb into the back of the ambulance, ignoring my brother unintentionally.
“Hard to know for sure yet, but I believe in her. She’s a strong one, I can tell.”
The sirens sound again and the ambulance pulls forward thesecond my ass hits the seat. My eyes flick over what I can see of Austin with a lump in my throat. There’s an IV in her hand and she’s asleep again, I think. I reach out to push the hair from her face, scared to touch anything else.
Beside me, the paramedic starts to pray under her breath.
I can’t decide if that’s a good sign or not.
FORTY-FOUR
MADDOX
It’s been almostthree hours since we got to this fucking hospital and no one will tell me shit.
Well, that’s not fair. They’ve told me plenty.
They told me I wasn’t allowed back in the room where they’re taking care of her.
They told me they couldn’t tell me anything other than that she was stable and they were working to make sure she remained that way.
And then they told me, after some woman in a suit came and asked me a million questions about what happened, why I was at the Taylor house, and if I’d ever gotten angry or violent with Austin, that a nurse would be out to get me as soon as Austin was coherent enough to consent to it.
I could respect waiting for consent, but if I didn’t get more information soon, I think I might just pace a hole straight through the floor of this fucking waiting room.
Jameson called for an update an hour ago and I didn’t have anything for him other than to ask him to take over the ranch for today, at least, and to get some rest. After telling me to shut the hell up about the ranch, he caught me up on what happened after Austin and I left in the ambulance.
Her father was facing several charges, but investigations were still being completed to know exactly which ones would stick. So far, he was looking at possession with intent to distribute, aggravated assault in the second degree, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. Until they were able to talk to Austin and search the house, they wouldn’t know anything beyond that for sure.
“Do you want me to tell Kenny anything? Mama already knows something’s up. She saw us rush out of here last night and put two and two together when I came back without you,” Jameson says.
I sigh, sitting back in the uncomfortable plastic chair and staring up at the ceiling. “Don’t say anything to Kenny yet. They keep saying Austin’s stable, so I assume she’ll be able to tell her herself later.”
Jamie’s quiet for a minute. “And Mama?”
I’m still thinking, considering. I don’t want to spread Austin’s business, but it’s not like Mama’s going to run her mouth. “Just tell her Austin was hurt, but that she’ll be okay and that I’ll be here for… I don’t know, for the day, maybe longer. I’ll call her and update her when I have something to update her with.”
His response is drowned out by the doors I’ve been staring at for the past three hours finally opening again. “Gotta go,” I mumble, cutting my brother off and hanging up on him, standing.
The nurse that walks into the waiting room smiles at me, which does the job I’m sure she intended it to do by calming me just enough to avoid throwing a million questions at her. She wouldn’t be smiling if Austin wasn’t okay, right?
“Maddox Whittaker?” she verifies.
“Yes. She’s okay?”
“She’s stable,” she confirms, saying the words I’ve grown to hate, though I never want them to change. “My name is Megan and I’m one of the nurses in charge of Austin’s care tonight.She’s agreed that you can come back to see her. I’ll tell you more on the way.”
She badges through the same door she came out of, but the route she’s taking me is different from the one I’d taken to get to the waiting room. The nurse explains that Austin’s been moved to an observation room in the trauma unit.
“She’s still going to be a little out of it,” she warns. “The ketamine is out of her system now, but she’s refusing any additional pain medications, so she’s not feeling her best.”
My brows furrow. “Refusing them? Why?”
“She’s only coherent in short bursts and hasn’t told us anything other than that she doesn’t want to be on pain medications. In my experience, that usually means the patient is worried about becoming addicted to them. We’ve tried to explain that it would be in her best interest to let us medicate her, especially because she’s going to need to breathe deeply if she wants to prevent the risk of pneumonia, but she’s…”
“Stubborn as a mule.”
