Page 46 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
She looked at his but didn’t take it. “I don’t know. I’ve been in la-la land for two days. You gotta give me a minute.”
He smiled at her. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. We have to address it. Do we pretend nothin’s goin’ on between us or do we pretend we’re in a relationship?”
“Pretend we’re in a relationship?” He repeated her words like an idiot.
“Well, the third option is to admit we’re having casual, meaningless sex and I’m not feelin’ great about sharin’ that with the fam, you know?”
She sat up in the bed, swung her legs out. “I want to get out of here. Right now, I want to go. Will you drive me home?”
“Do you think you should?”
“Yeah.”
“How will we explain?—”
“Oh, Mom and Dad are already onto us, believe me. Apparently, I said ‘Gringo’ a few times when I briefly surfaced.”
He winced as she held a wadded paper towel to her arm and pulled out the IV. Blood welled, but she pressed it hard and held.
Then he blinked at her as her words made their way to his brain. “You called for me?”
She nodded and her eyes dared him to use that fact to contradict her “casual and meaningless” statement.
He didn’t, but he thought it meant something. It meant something that he’d been sick at the thought of her being hurt, bereft at the thought of her dying. And he thought it meant something that she’d said his nickname from the borderline of coma.
But she was right. This was no time to talk about those things. He wasn’t sure what they meant himself, and he hadn’t spent the last forty-eight hours unconscious.
She’d said his name, though.
He stared at her, sitting there on the edge of her bed with her bronze legs sticking out from her hospital gown in ugly tan socks with rubber treads on her feet. She wasn’t looking back. She pulled the paper towel away from her arm, and it didn’t bleed again. “Look around for a band-aid, will you? And get me my clothes?”
He started to turn away just as she slid off the bed and onto the floor. Her knees gave out as soon as her butt rose from the bed. He lunged and caught her under her arms.
She gripped his shoulders, got her footing, then looked up at him a bit sheepishly. They were so close he could feel her body heat.
“I guess my muscles weren’t ready for use.”
“Not after two days napping.” He started to ease her onto the bed.
“No, no. Help me get upright.”
So he did that instead, though he didn’t think it was a very good idea. He held her as she straightened her legs, then gradually let her bear more of her own weight until she nodded, and said, “Okay, all good. Let go.”
He let go, but kept his hands close.
Willow stepped from one foot to the other, bent her knees and straightened them. “Okay, I’m weak as hell but I’m good to go. I’m not even wasting the time to get dressed. Come on, Gringo, take me to your chariot.”
There was a lot of objecting and scolding by staff as the two of them walked toward the elevator. He had her clothes in a plastic bag in one hand, and his arm around her, holding her to his side as they crossed in front of the nurses’ desk. Someone shoved a clipboard into her face.
“At least sign this so we’re not liable.”
Willow took the pen and scrawled something illegible. The clipboard moved away, and the elevator doors opened.
A few minutes later, she was in the passenger side of his Jeep.
The top was down, and as soon as they hit the highway back toward Quinn, she peeled the band from her hair and shook it loose so it could blow freely. He could hardly keep his eyes off her to drive.
