Page 154 of The Last Second Chance
“Listen, give me the keys. I’ll go park the Jeep and you go in with her,” he offered.
Forrest looked relieved. “Okay, you should be able to find us inside. Just follow the cursing.”
Jax thumped the man on the shoulder. “She’s going to be okay. Just keep her sort of calm if you can.”
Jax kept it together until he pulled the parking brake on the Jeep. He put his head on the steering wheel. He must have lost ten years off of his life when he saw her lying there, crumpled on the ground like a forgotten flower. And the blood. The memories came back at him fast and sharp. Once again he was walking into a hospital covered in a good deal of Joey Greer’s blood.
She was going to be okay, he told himself. She was going to be just fine and she’d be pissed off about all the worrying and the fussing. But she’d looked so helpless, so fragile just lying there.
He owed Apollo an unrepayable debt. Never in this century would he have thought that horse would have kept his head about him and not freaked the fuck out. But he hadn’t. He’d stayed statue still and Waffles, the little furry genius, had found the fastest way to bring help.
She was going to be fine. And damn it, she was going to love him again. And they were going to get married and have a family and breed horses and brew beer. No matter what anyone said. Even her.
He got out of the Jeep and stormed toward the doors.
He followed Forrest’s advice and followed the sound of the f-bomb being dropped like confetti. He pulled back the curtain and saw Forrest standing near Joey’s head while a doctor tried to explain to her that her shoulder was dislocated and they needed to put it back in its rightful place.
A nurse was cleaning up the gash on her hairline and another one was stripping off her sock so they could get a good look at her ankle.
“I’m sorry, sir. Are you family?” The nurse with the sock in her gloved hand was staring at him and probably the better portion of Joey’s drying blood on his jacket and shirt.
Joey’s eyes were closed. Frozen with old memories, Jax didn’t respond.
“Sir?”
“Of course he’s family,” Forrest blustered. “He’s my daughter’s fiancé.”
“This is your fiancé?” the nurse asked Joey and those big, brown eyes slowly fluttered open. She gave Jax a lopsided smile and shrugged with her good shoulder.
“Sure, why not? He’s pretty cute, isn’t he?” she asked the nurse.
The nurse finally cracked a smile. “Set a date soon, honey. Men like that you need to lock down fast.”
“’K,” Joey smiled and closed her eyes.
“Okay, Joey, we’re going to set your shoulder on three. One, two, th—”
And the f-bombs flew with abandon.
33
Between Phoebe hummingwhile she cleaned the upstairs bathroom and her own mother puttering around the kitchen making a nice “hearty stew to put some meat back on her bones,” Joey was over the whole convalescing thing.
She was forbidden from working at all for at least a week and not allowed to get on a horse for three. Lifting anything heavy like straw or saddles or a full water bucket? Forget it. She was good and screwed for at least six weeks.
She’d put up with the pampering and the mother henning as long as she could. Three whole days now. She was busting out of this joint. What would make her feel better? Seeing her damn horses, maybe swinging by Apollo’s stall with some apple slices and a heartfelt “thank you very much for not murdering me with your hooves when you had the chance.”
She waited until April wandered upstairs to the laundry room before she made her escape. Pulling on boots would take too long so she slid her moccasins on her feet and grabbed Phoebe’s down coat from the hook by the front door. She snagged Jax’s John Pierce Brews baseball hat and pulled it down over the gauze on her forehead.
Incognito, she limped out the front door and skirted the far side of the house to avoid detection. It felt like it had been weeks, not days, since she’d last walked through the door of the stables. Jax had spent every night with her, but refused to have sex with her saying that she needed to take it easy for a while. She’d offered to let him be on top, but he still wasn’t biting.
She tucked her hands into the pockets of Phoebe’s coat and hunched her shoulders against the March wind. Winter was hanging on to the bitter end in Blue Moon. The cold made the ache in her shoulder even more noticeable. But soon, spring would be here. And spring meant sunshine and flowers and impregnating horses. It was going to be a good year. She could feel it in her bones.
Joey glanced around her when she got to the stables to make sure the Joey police weren’t making their rounds before she slipped inside. She limped around the corner, thankful that she’d been lucky with just a minor sprain, and glanced down the aisle. She spotted Gia, with her fiery red hair piled on top of her head mucking out a stall with aplomb, if not a great deal of efficiency.
Beckett poked his head out of the office and Joey ducked back so he wouldn’t see her. “Babe, coffee’s ready,” he called to Gia.
“Oh, thank God. Listen, I think I can get one more stall done before I have to head in for my class.”
