| |
Ginny wasn’t going to panic. The incline hadn’t hit its steepest point yet. She needed to stop the car and get to Mason.
She hit the emergency flashers. It wasn’t as easy as she thought to knock his foot off the gas, especially with the car accelerating. The instant she did, she steered the car into the shoulder, yanked on the emergency brake.
When the car was stopped, she put it in park and shut off the engine. She sank back into her seat. Her hands were shaking so badly, she didn’t know if she could move.
Ginny needed to check on Mason. She forced herself to keep going.
“Mason.” She was gentler this time, but couldn’t keep the insistence from her voice.
His eyelids fluttered, and he groaned.
That was a good start. “I need you to wake up.”
“Imawake.”
“Good.” She didn’t buy it, but it was better than a minute ago. “We need to find the nearest hospital. Fainting in the middle of the road isn’t normal.”
“Okay.” He looked at her. “You’re pretty when you’re worried about me.”
She kissed him on the back of the hand. “I’m pretty regardless. We need to switch seats. Can you stand long enough for that?”
“I think so.”
She made it to his side of the car. He only needed to lean on her a little as she helped him move.
When he was secured, she took his spot in the driver’s seat. Please don’t let there be any more snow. Her heart couldn’t take it.
She gripped his hand. “Keep squeezing, every few seconds, okay?”
“Why?”
“So I know you’re awake. I’m going to find out if it’s faster to get us an ambulance or drive us to the closest hospital.”
He squeezed her hand. “Okay.”
They were in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t even know how to tell an ambulance to find them. Would the need an airlift? Mason would be furious at the cost of a helicopter ambulance, but she couldn’t take any chances...
He squeezed her hand.
The pulse helped ground her. She had her phone find the closest hospital. Thirty miles away.
Thank God. “Keep talking to me while I drive, okay? Tell me a story. Tell me why you have an angel tattoo. Anything that comes to mind.” Anything that let her know he was still conscious.
“It’s not a very good story.” He still sounded tired, but the fog was lifting from his voice. “The tattoo one, I mean.”
“I still want to hear it.” Partly to keep him talking, but also because it was about him. She wanted to know more.
He squeezed her hand. As long as he kept talking, she didn’t need the squeeze to tell her he was conscious, but the contact was comforting. “When I turned twenty-one, my brother convinced me I needed to have a wild night out. Drink until I was sick. Get a tattoo. Do something I’d regret the next day...”
She didn’t have the highest opinion of his brother. Maybe she’d like him if she got to know the guy. “Sounds... cliché.”
“My brother does a lot of things that fall into that category. Insisting on stripper parties for someone who’s leaving town, for instance. Not that I’m complaining about the results.”
“I’m curious—” it was a tiny shift in topic, but she’d get them back on track “—would you have been as likely to talk to me the way you did, in the coffee shop, if we hadn’t met the night before?”
He rolled his head to the side to study her. “A gorgeous woman who carries herself with the knowledge she owns the room? I probably would have stammered, told me I wasn’t the guy you were looking for, and then gone back to my car and berated myself for it.”
She didn’t know how to reply to that, aside from the heat creeping on its own across her cheeks. “I guess it’s a good thing I was abrasive.”
“I think it’s a great thing you were you. And I love my brother like, well, a brother, but he’s an ass sometimes.”
“So... tattoo.” It was the best she could come up with, response-wise.
“He dragged me into some hole-in-the-wall place with stunning artwork on the wall. I had no idea what I was going to get, and this image caught my attention and wouldn’t let go, so I picked it.”
It wasn’t a classic tale for all times, Mason was right about that, but Ginny liked it. “It’s gorgeous work.”
“Why did you treat Giovanni differently than you do me?”
The question rocked inside Ginny. This morning it would have made her furious. It still did, but her worry about Mason’s condition outweighed her anger. That made her slow down and actually consider her answer. Why had she acted differently? “Because.”
“That’s not much of an answer.”
“I’m not going to apologize for it.”
He squeezed her hand. “I’m not asking you to. I want to understand is all.”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one who had to figure it out. It wasn’t as though she’d set out to treat the two men differently. It just happened that way. Did she actually have to unpack her own emotions, in the middle of this crisis situation? “You’re supposed to be the one talking, so that I know you’re conscious.”
“Blah blah blah blah blah,” he sang. “You’re avoiding my question.”
“Because at the end of the day, I don’t give a shit if Giovanni knows who I am, or sees me as anything more than a naked body.” The reply slipped out without letting her filter it first, and the truth of the words sank heavy in her bones. What did that say about her? “I mean, he’s a job. You’re not. You’re...” A friend? She’d hoped they were, but this morning turned that all on its head.
“You didn’t even treat me like that the night we met.”
That wasn’t completely true. “I chose the outfit I did, when I grabbed you for your VIP room, because you had a Captain America patch on your jacket.”
“Ah.” How did he convey so much disappointment in a single syllable?
“But then you wanted to talk, and something about that time together...” She had to find the right words to explain it to herself before she could make him understand. “You seemed different. I wanted you to see me as more. It’s the same reason I got upset when you wouldn’t talk to me in the coffee shop the next day. So I treat you differently than my clients, because I don’t want you to see me the same way they do.”
Admitting that should be freeing. Instead she felt like she’d exposed more of herself than when she stood in front of Mason naked. It wasn’t just a story from the past. This was her now. A hint of what made her vulnerable.
He squeezed her hand. “I’d like to think I don’t look at you that way. I prefer the Ginny I know. Direct and bold and confident and brilliant. Those make you twice as beautiful as any cover model.”
Heat crept up her neck and over her cheeks. It was tempting to deflect his compliment. To say something like I was already that stunning. The words wouldn’t come. “Thank you.”
They reached the hospital. He was wobbly, but walking on his own. Still, she made him wrap an arm around her as they headed into the emergency room.
“I can’t afford this.” His voice was low.
She had an idea, and she prayed it worked .”Play along. I have you covered.”
A nurse greeted them, and asked for symptoms.
“He passed out while he was driving. Fainted,” Ginny said. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
Fortunately, the place was empty. Nothing like she was used to from hospitals back home. The nurse showed them back to a room almost immediately, and handed them a clipboard with paperwork to fill out.
“And what’s your relationship?” the nurse asked.
“I’m his fiancée.” Ginny spit the lie out without missing a beat. It might take a little twisting, but she had good insurance through her new job, and she was hoping she could get him covered.
Odds were slim, but she was going to try anyway.
Mason smiled. “She is. And I’m the luckiest guy ever.”
Really, even if the insurance thing didn’t work, she’d find a way to cover his bill, because she needed Mason to be all right. For some reason, that was vitally important to her.
*
MASON DIDN’T REMEMBER his mouth ever being this dry. Random snippets of the day bounced in his skull. He was getting really tired of waking up with either a headache or a fuzzy past. Both at the same time? Definitely not a fan.
He was an ass to Ginny. He remembered that much. And then she was freaking out. She told someone they were engaged, and he agreed? He was also pretty sure he told her repeatedly how pretty she was.
At least that wasn’t a bad thing.
“Hey.” Her soft voice cut through the clouds. “Are you awake?”
He forced his eyes open. The pain in his arm ran from a needle hooked to an IV. He was in a hospital. That was right.
“What happened?” His question came out a croak. “First, water.”
“No water yet. Only ice chips.” She grabbed a cup from the table next to his bed, and slid a piece of ice along his lip.
Cool liquid seeped into the cracks, teasing, but not offering real relief. An out-of-place thought occurred to him and he laughed weakly. “I always thought if a sexy woman teased me with ice, it would be a lot more erotic.”
“We’ll have to try it again when you’re not dehydrated.”
He adored that smile. “What happened to me?” he asked again.
“The doctors think it was a combination of things. Dehydration from the Benadryl. Low blood pressure from the wasp sting and too much ibuprofen. And altitude sickness.”
He couldn’t afford this. Wait. They’d had this conversation. She told him she had it covered? “How am I paying for this?”
She leaned in until her lips brushed his ear and whispered, “I told a teensy fib.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“My benefits with the hospital went into effect at the start of the month.” She stayed close, and kept her voice low. It may just be so she could share the secret, but he liked the proximity. “It’s good insurance. I may have told them we were domestic partners, and that you were supposed to be on my plan, but things were still getting sorted. It’s not a guarantee, but... You needed treatment.”
“And what happens when the plan doesn’t work?”
“I’ll deal with that.”
It wasn’t an answer or reassuring, but he was tired. Physically, mentally, and of fighting. “Thank you for trying, regardless of how it goes. And for being worried.”
“You’d have done the same for me.”
He couldn’t have come close to doing something like this for her. “I would have jumped through any and all hoops that I could have.” That was a big promise. But it felt right.
“And you’re welcome.” She kissed him on the forehead.
She’d done that in the car too. He liked it.
“By the way,” she said, “they’ll release you once they’re comfortable with your blood pressure, but you’re not allowed to be alone for a few days. So, you’re staying with me for at least that long. Doctor’s orders. Theirs and mine. After those couple of days are up, you’re free to go if you hate it.”
He owed her a lot. It didn’t seem like as big a deal as he thought it would. What bothered him more was her qualifier. If you hate it.
Because of course he’d leave when he felt better. They barely knew each other. And it wouldn’t be because he didn’t like her.
But that wasn’t true. They did know each other. More with every passing hour, and he was desperate to keep learning about her.
The reminder that their time together may almost be up gnawed at him worse than his thirst.