Page 27 of Ryder

I raised my brow. “After what happened there is no way I’m letting you out of my sight without you tied to me in every way possible.” Her pout would have worked on me if I wasn’t staring at her in a hospital bed. “I’ll make the elaborate proposal up to you, I promise, but I’m making you my wife as soon as you and my family can organize your dream wedding. You saw the ring from when I put it on you the first night you stayed over. I have it in a safe place, but I didn’t think having it here was appropriate. I’ll give it to you when we get home.”

“Mmm, home,” she moaned. “If you can convince me, I’ll think about it.” I nodded and she looked anywhere but me for a while, then groaned, picked up the bridal mag and started looking through it.

That was the last I’d heard on the wedding, but I did see her mark pages and take notes and the next time Gillian came, she didn’t fake sleep and even invited my mother to join in.

They kept Divinity for another week after she awoke from her coma and they only let her go early because she begged to come home. I promised I would get a nurse to help her and I had my uncle Carl on speed dial. Eric and I were getting on as best I thought we would. He agreed without argument that Divinity was coming home to my, our, house. I hoped being home would limit visitors. Divinity sure was popular, and at visiting hours there was always at least one person there to see her. All her salon co-workers, even some of her clients came. Then she had all her friends, some even traveled just so they could visit and make sure she was doing better. I thought being a Silverman was bad, but being her fiancée, well, I’d never been talked about like I wasn’t there and was just a piece of eye candy so much. Some women even asked me to stand and twirl, so they could get the full effect, or so they said. If it wasn’t for Divinity, I would have told some of them to stick their ‘twirls’ or their ‘flex your muscles’ comments and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine. They even talked about how well I performed in bed. I’m not afraid to say that sometimes I ran from the room. If the bodyguards went through that when they were at the hair and beauty salon, I was giving them a raise.

Divinity had a cast on her left hand to help heal the break in her wrist and her fingers on her right hand were in a special splint. She had a short cast on her left leg and a brace on her right. She was one unhappy woman when the pain meds were lowered to help prove she was ready to go home.

Waiting in her room for the nurses to bring her discharge papers and a wheelchair for her to leave the hospital, I couldn’t help feeling relieved that we’re leaving too. Chad had taken all our things to the car and was meeting us at the entrance. I was looking forward to sleeping on a comfortable bed and eating real food. The hospital café was terrible, although from seeing the food Divinity received, I was sure her food was worse than mine.

A nurse in pink scrubs strolled in with a wheelchair and paused by the bed. Her nametag said Renee. “Are you ready to ditch this place?” she asked Divinity, who had a huge grin on her face as she nodded.

“Am I ever! No offense to you or any of the amazing staff, but I’m looking forward to my soft bed, TV with Netflix on the big screen instead of my laptop, and real food, just to name a few things.”

Renee smiled at Divinity. “Well, let’s get you out of here. Do you need my help to get in the wheelchair or can you do it on your own?”

Before Renee could finish her sentence and Divinity could answer, I was up and went to Divinity and carefully lifted her, cradling her in my arms before placing her gently in the wheelchair.

Divinity rolled her eyes. “Obviously, I don’t need to do a thing when I have my He-Man around. I have a feeling I’m not going to even need to use the wheelchair that we ordered. My man will just carry me everywhere.” She was right. I’d carry her anywhere she wanted. I loved her in my arms so it was a win, win, for me.

The nurse, who was probably in her late forties, giggled and then blushed. She grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and moved Divinity out of the room and walked towards the elevator. I couldn’t hold back the grunt of annoyance as she leaned down and whispered to Divinity. “Our female staff are going to miss you the most. The visitors you get…” she sighed dreamily and Divinity laughed. Thanks to my woman I now knew what it was like to be a prized pony on display and so did my brothers, and cousins.

“Ha, you know my workmates said something similar.” The laughter in her voice had any annoyance I felt fading. As we got into the elevator I didn’t miss the massive, beaming smile on her face. “I’m pretty lucky because not only am I surrounded by man candy, but they are the nicest men, who are all great company, and they help to keep me safe.”

The irony of her last words wasn’t lost on me. We hadn’t kept her safe, and she was in the hospital because of it.

Renee wheeled her to the entrance where Chad sat in the SUV waiting for us. I reached down and carefully picked up Divinity while Renee opened the passenger door. I placed her in the seat and did her seat belt up before turning and smiling down at the nurse. “Thank you and please thank all the staff for your help.” I shut the door, walked around to the other side, and got in the back-passenger seat next to Divinity.

“Yes, what he said,” yelled Divinity as she pressed the button for the window to go down.

Renee waved as we slowly drove off. Chad stayed quiet.

The car stayed quiet until we were almost home when Divinity loudly sighed. “I’m really looking forward to getting home. I know we have tons to talk about and settle, but I can’t wait to relax on a soft bed and comfortable furniture.”

I was grinning like a loon. I knew we needed to talk and I was looking forward to it. Any time I spent with Divinity I looked forward to. What I was grinning about though was that she called my place, our place, home. I loved that she liked our home and everything in it.

I’d been home for two days and had been waiting for the onslaught of friends and family, but they didn’t come and I was grateful. I needed a rest from everyone. I knew they all meant well, but it was exhausting keeping up with them all and I didn’t want to show them how much pain I was really in so I down played it. Now at home I could whine and whine and only Ryder and Arron, when he was there, had to put up with me.

I would never tell Ryder, but the psychologist that visited every afternoon was helping. I had fought him for a week or so while in the hospital when Ryder had told me he’d hired a woman psychologist for me to talk to, almost the day after my nightmares began. He won the fight and the last week of my hospital stay she’d come and listened to me for an hour every afternoon. That week I hadn’t spoken to her about what had happened, I found I could talk about anything but being kidnapped and what had happened to me. It had only been since being home, that I had started talking about what had happened when I’d been kidnapped. I still couldn’t get to what I’d had to do to escape yet, and the nightmares still plagued me almost every night, but I knew coming to terms with everything and working through what I’d had to do and living with the consequences wouldn’t be all good overnight.

I had hoped that Ryder would talk to me about what was going on with the case and him being suspended and what his plans were, but he’d kept to safe, getting-to-know-each-other-more topics. Like favorite color. I was surprised we didn’t know these yet. His was red and mine was purple. We’re both dog people, but I like smaller dogs. Not rat size, but not huge shepherds either. Ryder loved the big dogs. I loved spring, when it was hot, but not too hot. His favorite time of year was autumn, when it wasn’t too cold but not too hot, and he could run for miles happily. I’d learned a lot of things over the last couple of days and was surprised when I learned them that I didn’t already know. I was determined to talk about his work and what we would do though.

Sitting on the long-padded sofa I watched Ryder come and sit at the end, placing my feet over his lap. He started massaging my toes and I closed my eyes as warmth flowed through me. “Mmm, you’re not distracting me. I called you in here so we can finally discuss the elephant in the room. The case and what the fuck is going on with your suspension from work.” I opened my eyes and glared at him so he knew I was serious and he couldn’t change the subject.

“Are you sure you want to talk about this?”

I threw my arms up and winced. I really did forget about my injuries. My drugs were good, until I did something to make them known. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to talk about this.” He stopped massaging my feet. “Don’t stop. I want to talk about what’s going on and could happen, but that doesn’t mean you stop what you’re doing.” I wiggled my toes as best I could with one foot in a cast.

He chuckled and continued to work his magic on my feet. “I heard back a couple of days ago about my suspension and was cleared. I can go back to work anytime now.”

“Why are you at home then? You don’t need to be here. You hired a live-in nurse to help take care of me.” I raised my brow. “Which I might add is a waste of money as you do everything and she barely does a thing. Emma has the breeziest job ever. Case in point.” I tilted my head towards his hands.

He chuckled again and I loved it. I had to admit his deep baritone as he chuckled and when he laughed was my favorite sound in the universe. “I’m home because I don’t know if I want to go back. Do you want me to? I already put you in danger being a Silverman, and I put you in even more with the work I do. You got kidnapped because of me.” I winced when he dug in real deep on my foot. “Fuck. I’m sorry vixen.” He let go of my feet as if they were on fire.

Wiggling closer to him I maneuvered so I laid my head against his chest and snuggled against him. “I’m not going to tell you to stop or leave your job. If it’s what you love to do then I support you one hundred percent. As for being unsafe, nothing is safe anymore. I mean being a Silverman isn’t safe because of your money and all the connections your family has and stuff, right?” I shrugged. “If being a cop, detective or whatever makes you happy then be it. I’m a big girl.” I narrowed my gaze on him. “I want X found and I want him to get what he deserves. I want his drugs off the streets and I want everyone to feel safer knowing he’s locked away.” I squeezed his hand that was hugging my stomach. “I know you will get the job done because you’re determined.”

I felt him relax and smile, happy because he liked my answer. “Shit’s hit the fan since I’ve been on suspension. That biker gang, you know the ones from the day we went to Wet’n’Wild, The Devil’s’ Queens, they’ve gotten involved now and are fighting any of X’s men, so every night it’s turning into a blood bath.”

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