“Yes. I’m here.” She placed her hand on his neck, and her skin was freezing. “You’re okay. We’re in an ambulance.”
More slowly this time, he opened his eyes to see the metal roof.
“Hi there.” A man leaned over him and looked into his eyes. “How’s the head?”
“Bert?” Huck tried to clear the cobwebs from his brain. So many webs. “What happened?”
Bert settled a blanket more securely around him. The burly paramedic was around sixty and built solid, but his touch was gentle. “Just take a deep breath and hold on. You took a bullet to the head.”
Huck jerked when the ambulance jolted over a pothole. How fast were they driving? “I was shot in the head?”
Laurel leaned over him, blood on her forehead. She rocked with the movement of the vehicle. “No. Bert, please be serious. Huck, it looks like a bullet hit metal, and a piece of metal ricocheted to your temple. You bled pretty badly, but there’s no hole. Only a scrape and some metal imbedded in your skin. The doctor will have to remove it.” Her face was tight with pain.
“What’s wrong?” He tried to sit up, but Bert shoved him back down.
“I may have fractured my wrist.” She held her right arm bent at an angle against her chest.
He tried to sit again. “Then you should lie down. Come here. I’ll take the seat.” Why was everything so damn fuzzy? “Where’s Aeneas?”
Her forehead wrinkled. “You left him with Monty when we went to dinner. I just called, and Monty is going to stay with the dog if you need to remain overnight in the hospital.”
“I am not staying the night in the hospital.” Not from a freakin’ piece of metal. His brain felt like it was wrapped in cotton. “Wait a minute. Did you say a bullet?”
“Yes. We were ambushed about five miles from the restaurant.” She leaned her head back against the side of the ambulance and closed her eyes. “One shooter who traversed quickly in the darkness. I couldn’t discern size or facial features, but I swear it was a man. He wore all black, and I think he wore a mask. I returned fire and pursued him until I heard a truck take off, but then I needed to see if you required medical assistance from me before the ambulance arrived.”
Hold it. She’d been in a firefight while he’d been out cold? “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
They lurched to a stop. Front doors slammed and then the back doors opened. Two paramedics pulled his stretcher out, even though he kept trying to sit up. “Stay down, Huck,” Bert muttered. “Just until we get you and Agent Snow inside.”
“Laurel?” He tried to turn his head to see her.
“My vitals are good.” She walked next to him, her face pale.
Then everything went fuzzy again. He must have passed out, because when he came to, he was in a hospital bed with Laurel sleeping on a chair next to him. Her wrist was in a blue cast and tucked into a sling attached around her neck, and her mouth was parted slightly as she slept. He blinked several times, noting the sound of his heart beating loudly via a monitor above his head.
Frowning, he yanked the leads off his chest.
“Stop that,” a woman said.
He jerked and turned to the other side of the bed, where Deidre Snow sat, knitting something yellow. Some sort of hat. “Sorry.” He paused. “Wait a minute. What is going on?”
A nurse bustled into the room, her gray hair streaked with green and piled atop her head. She appeared to be about sixty and had wide shoulders. “You did not pull that off your chest.”
“I did.” He struggled to sit.
“Here.” Deidre pushed a button on a large controller hanging from the metal bed rail, and the head of the bed lifted. “I came back from my spa vacation early, so the least you can do is listen to the nurse.” Her tone was more gentle than authoritative.
He settled, noting his chest was bare. “Thank you.”
Laurel didn’t move. She was really out.
Huck stretched his arms and legs and then spread out his hands. “She should go sleep at home.”
“She wouldn’t leave you until you awoke,” Deidre whispered, her eyes veiled.
His head felt like he’d taken a bowling ball to the skull, and his mouth was drier than his old man’s sense of humor had been. Gingerly, he reached up and touched a bandage on his temple.
