BROCK CHECKED his watch and growled. The private ambulance transporting Eric back to his place was late. By ten minutes. He didn’t mind so much for himself, or the nurse waiting to look after Eric, but Josie had made three cards and a present concocted of paper and lots and lots of glue, and she was wearing a brand-new dress. She was so excited.
She’d been up since dawn, just waiting, wanting her daddy home.
“Bee! Bee, now? Daddy come now?”
He looked at his watch again. Still late.
“Soon, honey. Any minute now.”
The young woman who was the nanny came in. “Josie, do you want to go color?”
Josie looked at the woman and scowled. “No! Wait for Daddy with my daddy Bee!” Man, she had a stubborn streak when it came to her daddy. He had a feeling she got that from Eric.
“I would call you the minute he got here.”
“I want my daddy.” She pushed into his arms. “No go with Miss Lacy. Stay with Daddy Bee.”
“Okay, honey. You stay with me.” He hoisted her up, thinking that he wasn’t going to need to go to the gym this week, that was for sure.
Looking down at the street from the big hall window, he saw the ambulance pull up. Mark, the huge, beefy, bald nurse from the agency, stepped forward to get the elevator.
“Won’t be long now, honey.” He smiled at her, surprised by his own surge of excitement.
Josie wriggled down out of his arms and ran to the big plate glass windows, pressing her hands and face against them as she tried to look down. “Daddy!”
“Can you seem him? Does he look like an ant from up here?”
“Daddy! Daddy! I’m here!”
He looked down, smiling as he saw the EMTs were already gone, heading up to them.
“Come to the elevator, honey.” He picked her back up and brought her over. The nanny had put her hair up in pigtails, tied with little purple ribbons.
“Push the button?” Three days, and Miss Josie was becoming a master at pushing the buttons.
“Yeah, sure.” He moved forward and leaned a little so she could reach the elevator call button.
It was the longest minute in history until the door opened, Eric in a gurney, pale and thin but awake.
“Daddy!” Josie’s squeal echoed.
“Jo.” Eric sounded like he might cry.
Brock tried to hold her back, but she launched herself at Eric and the best he could do was make sure she landed on the gurney and not Eric’s stomach.
“Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.” Josie clambered over, clinging and crying and laughing, talking gibberish to Eric, who just held on.
The nanny stepped forward and went to grab Josie. “You can’t—”
“No.” Brock grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “That’s his daughter. She stays where she is.”
Eric smiled at him, whispered, “My hero.”
“It’s getting to be a habit.” He winked and smiled back at Eric. “You look like shit. Let’s get you in and transferred to your bed.” There was a hospital bed in his living room now, among all the toys that seemed to migrate all over the house, no matter how many times the nanny picked them up and put them away.
“Daddy Bee made a bed for you.”
“Did he? He’s too good to us.”
“I am.” He nodded toward the door and the EMTs pushed the gurney into the apartment. “You’ll help us transfer him to the bed?”
The guys nodded, and Mark helped, and then Eric and Josie were settled, Eric going paler.
“Christ. Is he okay?” Maybe this had been a bad idea; maybe Eric should still be in the hospital.
“He’s fine, man.” Mark smiled at Eric. “Traveling’s a bitch, eh?”
Eric nodded. “Vaguely.”
“We need you to sign.” One of the EMTs shoved a clipboard into his hands. Brock scanned it briefly and then signed at the bottom. He saw the EMTs and their gurney out. He nodded at Jeff, the daytime security guard who Gordon had sent over, and then closed and locked the door.
“Daddy! Daddy! Bee got me a room! Come see!” She was tugging and talking, pointing everything out.
“He needs to stay in bed, honey. He’s still really tired. We talked about this, remember?” Brock picked her up. “Why don’t you show him the cards you made?”
“Daddy! I drawed!”
The cards were oohed and aahed over, and then, thankfully, Lacy offered to take Josie for her daily walk down to the park.
“Take Jeff with you.” There was no way he was letting Josie out with only Lacy. Not with that last kid still out there.
“Yes, sir. Come on, Josie. Let’s go to the swings!”
Josie waved to them, skipping out the door.
Mark came over to Eric. “Let’s check your incisions, hmm? Make sure you’re good. Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
“I don’t know. I…. This is all…. I’m a little dizzy.”
Brock frowned, moving close. “Are you sure he’s okay?”
Mark nodded. “He’s only been off the IV for a few hours. His body’s recovering. I’ll get him some juice.”
“’Kay, thanks.” Brock pulled up a chair next to Eric’s bed and took his hand. “No getting worse, baby. That little girl needs you.”
“I’m so sorry about all of this, Brock. I didn’t… they were trying to get out of a paper.”
“Yeah. Christ.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I….” Eric closed his eyes. “I’m seriously out of my league, when students shoot at people and die because they don’t want to write a five-paragraph essay.”
“Yeah, it’s a little overwhelming, huh? Like suddenly having a three-year old calling you Daddy Bee, finding out your ex isn’t speaking to his mother anymore, and that you’re named guardian in the will.” He’d discovered some interesting shit in the past few days.
Eric winced, chin ducking. “I’m sorry, Brock. You don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t. Maybe you should explain it to me.”
“Mother was unhappy about me adopting Josie, and I needed stability for her, so I named you as her guardian. I knew that, if something awful happened, you’d not let her starve. I just… I missed you. I told her stories about her guardian angel, her daddy Bee. I never thought you’d have to….” Eric sighed, pushed himself up. “Let me get dressed and I’ll take her home. As soon as I can, I’ll start making you payments for anything I owe you. I promise.”
“Shut up and lie back down before you hurt something.”
Mark came back in, a glass of juice in hand. “Man, you two move fast. I left you alone for five minutes.”
“He was just being stubborn.” Brock aimed a glare at Eric, helped him settle back into the bed.
“Patients often are.” Mark popped a straw into Eric’s mouth.
Brock sat back down on the chair and shook his head. He waited until Mark had checked Eric’s vitals and settled on a chair out of the way. “You should have told me, baby.”
“I didn’t think it would ever come up. I knew you didn’t want me, her, this whole family thing. I knew that.”
“I never once said I didn’t want you—you broke it off with me.”
“Just because I did it first, doesn’t mean that you weren’t thinking of it.”
“I knew you weren’t happy with our life anymore.” Eric had become more and more miserable.
“I wanted….” Eric sighed. “You deserve someone sophisticated and fine and fancy. I wanted a family.”
“I deserve someone I love, hmm? I don’t care about sophisticated and fancy.”
“I….” Eric sighed again, shaking hands rubbing his face. “God, I can’t… I can’t do this right now. I can’t think.”
“No, we don’t need to do this right now. I didn’t mean to jump into it with you right away.” Brock reached out and took Eric’s hand, squeezed it. “You and Josie will stay until you’re well, until the threat out there is contained.”
“We can’t take advantage of you.” Eric held on to his hand, though.
“Baby, you put me down as Josie’s guardian, and you called me when you needed a hundred thousand dollars. Of course you can stay.”
“I still love you. I always have.” Eric’s eyelids were drooping; he was starting to fade.
“Love you, too, baby.” He said the words softly, but he meant them.
He wasn’t sure where that was going to take them, but he meant them.