Page 54 of At Last

“Right,” she says back. “Beau, Chaos and Blood are on their way home. I hope you don’t mind.” She walks over to one of the chairs to drop Gun’s diaper bag. “But I stopped by your house and grabbed a few things for Jade. Change of clothing, because she’d been stuck in that truck for a while.”

It’s not ’til she holds up the bag that I realize my girl smells of piss. Shit. She’d spent all that time soaked in her own piss.

Loosely, I come out of my head enough to hear her still talking. “…her blanket, for comfort and her tablet and headphones.”

I clear my throat. “Thanks sweetheart.” And reach my arm to cup her neck, I give it a squeeze so she knows what this means to me.

“Hey Jade, sweetie. You want me to change you?”

“No,” my girl cries. “Duke. My Duke.”

Elise starts to speak, but I stop her. “It’s okay. Do this at home.”

“Youdo?”

That gets a laugh. “Sure. She’s my girl, ain’t you Peaches?”

“Your gurl,” she whispers against my cut.

Slowly, Elise sets Gun’s carrier down on the seat next to the bag and begins to riffle through it, pulling a pair of cotton shorts, little girl panties and a T-shirt to hand me.

I nod my thanks. “Come on.” We walk out into the hallway across from the waiting room, the hospital has a men’s, women’s and family restroom. For obvious reasons, I walk straight for the family restroom where Peaches only lets me set her down long enough to help her change.

She waits as I pull several paper towels from the dispenser, wet them and douse them with soap, then hand them to her. And like I always do, because I don’t know the laws with this stuff, I turn around for her to wash her legs and other parts, and change into her clean panties.

“Done,” she whispers.

I turn back, help her with the elastic waist that always gets turned under, help her with her shorts and T-shirt, and hold my arms open for her to climb back up. No saving her other clothes, I toss them in the trash then head back to the waiting room.

We only just get back inside, when the doctor, his badge says Talmouth, walks in. “Can I speak with you? He asks me, real business-like. Too business-like.

“Just a sec,” I answer, then look down to Peaches. “Gonna set you in the chair. Elise brought your blanket and tablet. We’ll put your princess on.”

“No.”

“Sweetheart.Gotta talk to the doctor. Okay?”

She sucks on her bottom lip, but after a moment agrees. “Okay.”

With Peaches in the chair next to Gun, I tuck her blanket around her legs, then let Elise take over setting up her movie so I can find out what’s going down with Doc.

“Talk to me,” I order Talmouth.

“She’s in surgery to repair tears causing significant internal bleeding. And she’s sustained a concussion, ruptured spleen, which they’re also removing, from where the seatbelt cut across her abdomen. Two fractured wrists from where it looks like she covered her head, and hitting the dashboard caused her left lung to collapse.”

My hands rest at my hips, I drop my head. “Fuck.”

Talmouth pats my shoulder. “It could’ve been much worse.”

Don’t I know it. I think of Jesse. One seat over and she’d be gone, too. Or instead.

“We’ll let you know when she’s out, then once they move her to a room.”

Moving a hand from my hip, I rub the back of my neck. “Thanks,” I tell him, then turn to the women.

“How is she?” Trish asks.

“Hey, you should head home and rest.” I offer up first. “She’s still in surgery. We’re gonna be here a while.” The woman is pregnant. She’s gotta take care ’a herself.

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