AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh no,” Lena whispered painfully. “Jake and Collins were very close – and this will devastate him if he dies.”
“It sounds like that might be a possibility still,” Jill said quietly, slamming her foot on the accelerator to make the truck go even faster. “My sweet Babe was really upset and said that we needed to get there – and I quote – ‘as of yesterday.’”
“Why?” Daphne uttered bluntly, completely confused.
“Because Ortega is the one who knocked out Collins so they could do the surgery to save his life, and all of them are taking it badly… Ortega is blaming himself.”
“Oh noooo,” Lena whispered, covering her mouth with her hands as she looked at Jill in horror. Daphne leaned around the other woman just in time to catch the rest of the sentence.
“… And Collins needs someone to talk him down from the ledge,” Jill said bluntly, looking at Daphne. “He needs someone he doesn’t know to reach him, and it won’t be my husband or Jake. He needs a stranger who understands what it’s like to not trust anyone – or to be scared to trust someone.”
Lena’s head whipped around to look at Daphne in shock, almost in an accusatory manner.
“You don’t trust anyone?”
“I trust myself… and you… sorta,” she finished sheepishly before getting upset. “Look, when you can’t rely on anyone and life keeps letting you down, you learn to kind of live with it – okay? Don’t take it personally, but Jill – I’m not your girl. I’m not the type of person to give some hysterical man a pep talk.”
“I never said he was hysterical.”
“You said, ‘Talk him off the ledge’…”
“That doesn’t mean he’s hysterical – but that tells me you are the person. If you were scared, didn’t trust anyone, and the one person who’s always had your back made it to where you could get medical help. How would you feel?”
“Betrayed,” Daphne whispered. “Betrayed and alone.”
“Exactly,” Jill nodded. “And now Collins is down a limb, an amputee, and cannot run away from any of this. He’ll be discharged, disabled, and his life has changed forever.”
“And my truck is still waiting to be repaired – so I can’t even leave if I wanted to,” she breathed in horror, feeling trapped herself.
“Friendship, trust, and understanding,” Jill said, her voice thick and near tears. “You girls have been wonderful to be around, and I feel like you are the younger sisters or daughters I never got to have. I treasure our friendship and hope you can find it in your hearts to befriend someone else in their time of need.”
Neither Lena nor Daphne said a thing.
“I don’t know what we are walking into,” Jill began, reaching for Lena’s hand. “I’m not sure if it will be like being tossed into a den of angry lions, but I do know that those three men are beside themselves right now, and each need a friend no matter what they say or do.”
“Houghton…?”
“Is very upset,” Jill admitted and laughed tearfully. “We have a code that we’ve developed over the years, and it’s the dumbest thing. Once, he had to do an amputation on a soldier who stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan and called me, near tears, and said, ‘When I come home, I want a Chantilly Cake’… it was the cake we had at our wedding,” she whispered. “My sweet Babe said that cake was like heaven and made him forget all his worries and fears.”
“Okay…?” Daphne began and hesitated. “Did he say something?”
“When he called, he said, ‘It’s bad. They took his leg, and he still might die,” she whispered painfully. “Then he said four words that I haven’t heard in forever. He said, ‘Have the cake waiting’…”
Jill pulled into a parking spot and threw the truck in park, leaping out like a spry teenager instead of a woman in her mid-forties. Lena was pushing Daphne to get out of the truck, trying to accompany the woman inside, but to her, this felt like a nightmare.
The hospital loomed in front of her like some gothic manor – and she wasn’t even the one sick or ill. No, she was going to be walking in, putting on some fake mask, and being told to calm someone down.
Someone she didn’t know.
As they walked in the door, she saw Lena bolt down the hallway, and Daphne stared in shock as Ortega was sitting there in a chair, sobbing. Her mouth dropped open as Jill looked back at her in awareness as if saying, ‘See? It’s bad’– only to have Houghton walk up behind Daphne, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her into one of the hospital rooms bodily.
“What the…”
“You’re going to listen to me – and listen to me good,” Houghton snapped in a gravelly voice as his eyes blazed from his face, glassy from unshed tears. “You are going to do me a solid favor. I’ve not asked for a thing from you, but I’m asking for this…”
“Babe,” Jill balked, stepping in the room causing the wild man to look at his wife – but he had yet to release Daphne’s arm. “Honey, breathe…”
“That young man is falling apart, Jill…” Houghton said hoarsely. “Minter didn’t even scream like that in Afghanistan. They had to knock Collins out and restrain him because he was fighting us even when he was unconscious.”
