Page 14 of Stone Deep
“Oh god, Slade, I’m so sorry about that. Does it hurt a lot?”
“This? I’ve had worse.” He leaned back against the pillow and took a steadying breath as if just pushing to sitting had taken all his strength. “Besides, having you walk out on me without a goodbye hurt more.”
He gazed at me for a long moment. I’d forgotten how dark green his eyes were.
“Guess I wasn’t expecting to feel that way. But seeing you now, Tink, I’m really glad you came by. And not just because of the cool remote control car.”
I put the box on the ground and sat on the edge of the bed. “You jumped in to help me the other night. I shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I’m just in a really bad way right now.” There was no way to stop the tears. He was being so easy about everything, it actually made me feel worse.
With some effort, he reached up and turned my chin toward him. “Why are you crying?”
I swiped at a tear. “I don’t know. Maybe you need to get mad and call me a crazy fucking bitch or something.”
“Hey, crazy fucking bitch.” He lifted the corner of his sheet. “Why don’t you slide in next to me? I can still hold you on this side, no stab wounds or enormous bandages.”
I grabbed a tissue from the nightstand by his bed and wiped my nose as I carefully climbed in next to him. His body was warm and comforting. I leaned down against his chest and his arm went around me. “I was at work when I heard that you got stabbed. In fact, that guy Damon, the one I was looking for, he’s the one who told me.”
“Yeah? How the heck did he know?”
“The guys that attacked you are friends with his brother.” I peered up at him and wasn’t prepared for the impact his nearness would have on me. I hadn’t just been imagining how incredible he was. “They were arrested.”
“I heard. So you talked to the guy you were looking for—your sister’s boyfriend, right?”
“Yeah, he’s lower than the gum stuck on the bottom ofa shoe.”
He chuckled and then winced and pressed his hand against the gauze. He sucked in a long, slow breath until the pain subsided. “Did you find any of the answers you were looking for when you talked to him?”
“He wouldn’t talk about it, and I still don’t know where he is. I know it sounds stupid and it won’t bring Perris back, but I need to know what happened.”
“Do you think Damon killed her?”
“He’s evil but I don’t think he is capable of murder. Besides, he swore to the police he wasn’t even there. He had some friends back him up. It was a drug overdose, but I know he supplied the stuff. I have so many questions. Was it an accident? Did she do it on purpose?” I thought about everything that had happened since Perris’s death. Even though we’d buried her six months ago, I still had no closure. “Damon disappeared right after she died.”
“That’s a little suspicious.”
“I think so too.”
I smoothed my hand over Slade’s chest. There was so much strength and power under my palm, being next to him made me feel safer than I’d ever felt in my life. But he wasn’t mine. He was a moment in time in my shaky existence, but he was an extremely memorable moment. “To be honest, I’m not completely sure what I’m looking for or what answers I need to hear to make this heartbreak go away.”
“If she was your twin sister, then I doubt there is anything that will take it away. You just have to learn to live around it.”
I looked up at him. “You’re pretty damn deep, consideringthis.” I waved my hand over him.
He laughed but cut it quickly short. “Shit,” he groaned, “that hurts. Don’t think I’ve ever been referred to asthisas often as I have since I met you. I think I’m more partial to Bolt.”
A nurse walked in. Her eyes rounded behind her glasses as she noticed there were two heads instead of one in the bed. “Mr. Stone, visitors are not allowed to crawl into bed with you.”
“Really? Huh. It seems like people would heal a lot faster in here if you let visitors?—”
The nurse didn’t wait for him to finish. She walked over, yanked up the sheet and shooed me out.
“She’s really little,” he said. “Don’t you think you might make an exception for me?” He smiled up at the nurse, a stern woman who almost looked on the edge of softening her stance. She walked over and checked his I.V. bag.
“Dinner is coming down the hall.”
“I’ll try not to get too excited. Lunch was scary bad.”
“That’s how we get you to leave faster,” she quipped as she walked out.
