AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As if I could say no.
The following morning, Mia texted before setting out. I’d got the go-ahead from the doc so was ready when she arrived, a very excited Tobi beside her.
With help from a hospital porter, I got to Mia’s car, and then we were speeding south into the Cairngorms once more.
Freedom, I wanted to yell Braveheart-style.
Tobi kept up her chatter, twisting around in the front passenger seat to address me in my sprawl across the back. She wanted to know all about my time in the army, the training, the places I’d been, mostly the fights. Mia smiled at her daughter’s enthusiasm, sliding me the occasional look.
I couldn’t stop my fucking grin.
At the cottage, a couple of people milled about outside the empty place next door.
“What’s going on there?” I asked.
“Ben can tell you next time you call him,” Mia replied mysteriously.
One of the people peeled away and came to the car. Ally, one of Gordain’s brothers who lived on the estate in a house down by the loch, opened my door. “Let me give ye a hand.”
I accepted the offer and drew myself up with all my weight on my good leg. I wanted to question him on the next-door cottage, but my head rushed, and I had to focus on limping inside. Ally guided me directly to Mia’s bedroom, and I dropped onto her mattress, the solid bed welcome after days in a hospital one.
Mia bustled me under the covers and, as had become my habit, I slept.
The next two days passed in a pattern of sleep, meds, and tender loving care from Mia. The nightmares didn’t stop, but my waking time made up for them. Tobi brought me pictures which decorated the bedside table, and by Tuesday, when she was at school, I was feeling a hundred times stronger.
With Mia out for the day at work, I talked to my brother briefly on the phone, finding out that he’d asked for help in fixing up the cottage next door for my sake. I had no intention of moving in but thanked him for taking the work off my hands, then the jackass tried to thankmefor getting between him and the blade, so I hung up on his arse.
Chatting with my boys on text made me grin.
Jackson: What do you get if you cross Valentine and a gangster he doesn’t like the look of? A bodyscarred.
Raphael: Valentine’s got a promotion. He’s gone undercover. (Under the bedcovers, geddit?)
Jackson: Dude, you didn’t need the explanation.
Raphael: I’ve spent too long hanging out with you and your pilot jokes. By the way, Valentine, this will make you laugh. The operations manager at the venue we’re in today is named Duke Clithero.
I burst out in a chuckle.
Valentine: He’s a Clit Hero?
Raphael: EXACTLY. The duke of clit heroes.
Jackson: On funny names, Raph and I had a professor at uni named Richard Tate.
It took me a second to get what he meant.
Valentine: Was he a dick-tat-or?
Raphael: He was the worst, and I couldn’t keep a straight face whenever one of his colleagues called him Dick.
Valentine: I used to know a Holden Hiscock.
Jackson: And did he hold his cock often?
Valentine: Not as much as his wife, Anita Dick.
I rolled back, cracking up while a series of laughing emojis came from my boys. It was nice to see Raphael happy after his confession in the darkened tour bus, and Jackson, too, after he endured all manner of drama recently. Then a censoring message landed, cooling our fun.
