Dinner proved to be an anemic ham and cheese sandwich with an apple and the ubiquitous hospital off-brand gelatin. Green. Accompanying those culinary nightmares were a small macaroni salad and a carton of milk. I ate the sandwich and the apple. The macaroni was swimming in mayo, and just say no to Jell-O. Always. I was still starving, so I decided to drink the milk. Thanks to the narcotics running through my system, I fell asleep before I could ask for anything more.
Pain woke me up to darkness. Well, as dark as it gets in a hospital, which isn’t very. I knew instantly I wasn’t alone.
“Jen? Is that you?”
Movement from beside me, and a tall figure rose and a warm, masculine hand slid over mine.
“It’s Damon.” His voice was hoarse. Maybe he was catching a cold.
“What are you doing here?” I rolled my eyes at myself. “Never mind. Your employer wants me, and you’re stalking me, blah blah blah. How did you know where I was?” I struggled to sit up. “Is Ajax okay?”
He let go of my hand and pushed back on my shoulder. I yelped and fell back. The painkillers must’ve worn off because that little nudge hurt bad enough to make tears well up. I held myself still, panting as I waited for the pain to subside.
The dim evening light behind the bed popped on.
“What the—?” Damon pulled my hospital gown from my shoulder and then started swearing. Abruptly he cut off. “How bad are you hurt?” He reached out to touch my face but stopped before he made contact.
“Cuts and bruises. Lost some blood but they put some back, so I’m probably even. Curse is gone too. They say I’ll be fine. How’s Ajax? Where is he?”
“He’s fine. Climbing walls and snarling. He’s in my truck, actually, and probably chewing holes in my seats.”
Relief made it hard to breathe. I put my palms over my eyes. “Thanks.”
He slid his hands around my wrists and pulled them away from my face. He turned them over and rubbed his thumbs in my palms. “I thought you’d died.”
The words held something I couldn’t read.
“I was going to anyway,” I said. “I had to try to do something to save myself.”
“How?”
His gaze drilled into me and made me want to squirm. It felt like he was accusing me of something. “I wasn’t trying to commit suicide, if that’s what you’re getting at,” I snapped, trying to yank my hands away from him. He didn’t let go, and he didn’t say he hadn’t thought it.
“Go away,” I said. “I don’t want you here.”
“Too bad,” he growled. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I hurt too much to argue. I stopped struggling to get my hands back and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath and blowing it out.
“Why do you have to be such an asshole?”
“Why do you have to bother me so much?”
My eyes popped open. “Bother you? Bother you? Are you serious? You’re the one who tried to kidnap me. You’re the one who keeps following me around. I haven’t done anything to you.”
“And that bothers me too.”
I shook my head. A sound escaped me. My whole body throbbed. I didn’t want to admit how bad the pain was in front of Damon.
“You’re hurting.”
“Duh. Prize to the idiot standing over the battered woman in the hospital bed. It’s like you’re a detective or something. What clued you in? The seventy-three stitches? Or all the black and blue?”
He sighed and let go of my hands. I knotted them together on my stomach.
“Call the nurse.”
I had the childish urge to tell him to fuck off and the hell with me suffering. Pain won out. I’m no martyr. I hit the call button. “She’s not going to like finding you here. She already chased off the cops.”
His eyes narrowed when I mentioned the cops. “What did they want?”
“To ask if whoever killed my mother attacked me. When I told them it was an accident, they asked if I’d tried to commit suicide.”
His long moment of silence reinforced that he’d wondered the same thing. I don’t know why that pissed me off so much. I didn’t give a flying fuck what he thought of me. Except that for no good reason I could think of, I didn’t want him to think I’d tried to kill myself. I’d already told him so once, I wasn’t going to say it again. If he didn’t believe me, well, then I’d just have to deal with it, wouldn’t I?
Except my mouth had other ideas. “If I really wanted to die, I could have stayed at the pool with you and Banana Buddha and just gone to sleep forever. Nice and comfortable. Instead, I swam into the frigid river, bashed myself on rocks, climbed up a rock wall, then hiked a few miles to find the road. Does that sound like someone who wanted to commit suicide? No, it doesn’t. So fuck off and go away.”
I was pissed enough to turn onto my side so I didn’t have to look at him and he couldn’t see my tears. Fucking hell. Why was a crying again? Overload, I supposed. And exhaustion. Maybe I was getting my period. That had to be it.
The door opened and Nurse Esme walked in. She turned off the call light. “What can I do for you, Miss Wyatt? Are you in pain?”
As she talked, she started checking all my vitals again. I had to roll on my back. Damon had disappeared. He must’ve slipped out the door when she came in. Well, good riddance. Maybe the bastard would stay the hell away. He’d damned well better take good care of Ajax, or I’d kick him in the nuts.