Page 38 of Like the Season
“Crazy?”
There was no other way through the maze than through it. He told Caleb the short version, trying not to hold his breath at the silence from the other end of the line.
“Cay?”
“Can you change your ticket, Sir?”
“Myticket?”
“Yeah. Can you transfer it to her? She can fly home with me on Sunday.”
“What?”
“We’ll pack her apartment while I’m there. You said it’s small, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Fine. We pack her stuff, and you take a few extra days off and drive back. If we can get it packed sooner so you can leave ahead of us, she and I can stay behind in a hotel room and still fly home Sunday. She can live with us until she can be on her own again, and then she can either take my apartment, or eventually find another one while she stays with us. Either way.”
Now Boyd really felt like crying. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, no question. Why?”
“This is…this is alot.”
“So?”
“God, I fucking love you so much right now, Cay.”
“Love you, too. We’ll make it through this.”
“Might have to tone down our extracurricular activities for a while.”
Caleb chuckled. “Yeah, well, not like she doesn’t know we’re kinky. And it’s a small price to pay to know she and the baby are safe.”
He was off the call by the time they wheeled Ella back into the room. The nurse left, promising to return shortly, but the female resident stayed behind while she went over Ella’s chart on the computer in the room. Boyd was relieved to see Ella was still awake, although she now had an IV and was apparently being given something for her pain.
The officer had returned, but when Boyd asked for a couple of minutes with her first, he nodded. “I’ll wait right out here,” the officer said. “I only need to talk to her for a few minutes.”
“Okay.” Boyd clasped her hand in his and leaned in. “Hey, there.”
“I’m going to live, Dad.” Her forced smile didn’t fool him in the least. “Minor pelvic fracture, busted left ankle, and my left knee’s swollen from the impact but it doesn’t look like I tore any tendons or ligaments. They don’t think I have any internal injuries.”
“She’sverylucky,” the ER resident said as she went through Ella’s chart. “Ortho looked at her ankle, and she won’t need surgery because of where the fracture is, and it’s minor, but we’re going to put her in a brace to stabilize it.”
“How’s the baby?” he asked.
“Everything looks okay right now, but we’ll want to keep her overnight for observation. Possibly until Saturday. And she’s going to need to stay off her feet for at least four weeks or she could injure her ankle worse.”
“Can she fly?”
The doctor turned from the computer terminal she was working on. “Say what?”
“Fly. Can I put her on an airplane and send her to Florida?”
“Oh, yes, I suppose. Not today.”
“Sunday afternoon.” He met Ella’s gaze, daring her to argue with him.
