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She said something else to Matt I didn’t want to hear, so I tuned them out as I pressed the button on the wall outside the room to open the sliding door. The curtain was drawn, offering him some privacy, so I pushed it back and found Tanner sitting up in bed.
His eyes snapped open at the sound of the curtain shifting, and the frown that had been scrunching up his brow smoothed out. “Hey, don’t run off like that anymore. I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean anything by it, Jos. I flirt to make things easier, that’s all it was. You don’t have to be jealous.”
I shrugged. “I know you well enough to understand what you were doing, Tanner.” I picked up the few things I had accumulated around the room. It wasn’t much, but I didn’t want to forget anything. I pulled my hair into a ponytail with the hair tie I’d left on the nightstand just as Matt walked into the room.
“Your brother is going to sit with you while I go back to the clubhouse and grab a shower and a little bit of sleep,” I told Tanner and watched as the color drained from his face. I took no pleasure in the distress that filled his eyes, but I didn’t have the energy to soothe him either. I was drained physically and mentally, but especially emotionally. Fighting back the sting of tears, I stepped away from the bed.
“You can’t leave,” he said, his four-fingered hand reaching out to me. “There are showers here. Beds you can take a nap in. Matt, find her a room so she can do what she needs to do.”
“She wants to go back to the clubhouse,” Matt told him. “Stop freaking out. She will be fine. Jet is going to drive her.”
“No, damn it. She can’t leave.” His magnetic blue eyes were wild, and he pushed the covers off himself, throwing his legs over the side of the bed.
Matt pushed him back. “Take it easy, brother. Jos is a big girl. She’ll be okay. Don’t worry about her.”
“I said no. There’s no reason she needs to leave. How am I going to protect her if she’s not here?”
“No reason to leave?” I repeated. “How about our son, dickhead?”
He jerked like his brother had just electrocuted him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Matt’s gaze locked with mine, and we both lifted our brows. We’d talked about Reid plenty of times for this not to be news to Tanner now.
I stepped closer to the bed, my eyes going back to Tanner. “We have a son, Tanner. His name is Reid. Is none of this ringing any bells? I’ve told you about him repeatedly over the past five days.”
“We have a son?” He jerked against Matt’s hold on his shoulders. “Where the fuck is he? Bring him here! I have to protect him too. Get him here, Matt. We can’t let Fontana get to him.”
“Reid is safe, man. Butch and Colt are back at the clubhouse with the other half of the brothers. Ain’t nothing going to happen to him. Fontana doesn’t even know about him.”
“Go get my son!” Tanner roared, fighting against his brother’s hold. “Go fucking get him now.”
“Okay, okay.” Matt tried to calm him down. “I’ll go get him mysel
f. Just relax. I won’t let anything happen to him, Tanner.”
He started to relax, but when I began backing away, he started to struggle again. “No. You’re not leaving. Do you fucking hear me, Jos? You’re staying right here where I can see with my own eyes you’re safe.”
“You’re acting completely crazy right now,” I snapped at him. “This is a hospital. Hospitals mean sick people. This is no place for a toddler to be. Do you want him to catch something?”
“I want him with me. With us. He either comes here, or I go to him. I don’t give a fuck right now. I just want you and the boy where I can protect you.”
I wanted to scream at him, but I clenched my hands into fists instead. “Look at yourself, Tanner. You’re in no shape to be protecting anyone right now. Just let me go back to the clubhouse and take care of Reid there, where he will be comfortable and away from all the sickness of a freaking hospital.”
“Matt,” Tanner gritted out, his eyes hard as they drilled into me. “Call Doc. Tell him I want to be closer to home. Make them transfer me to Creswell Springs.”
“Dude, you can’t be moved right now. You’re scheduled for surgery in the morning.”
He glared up at his brother. “They have surgeons in Creswell Springs. Whatever they want to do here, they can do there. Make it happen, or I’m walking out of this place right now.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said with a snort.
“Jos, go talk to Bash. Get him to call Raven and make this happen.” Matt was still trying to get his brother to lie back down. “We were going to have him moved closer to home once he was out of ICU anyway.”
“But he’s not out of ICU,” I snapped at the younger Reid. “This is ridiculous. I’m going back to Creswell Springs.”
“Jos…” My name was choked out, but it had more of an effect on me than if Tanner had shouted it. “Fontana knows you are important to me.”
I closed my eyes, wishing it were true. It was just another one of his hallucinations, though, or a ploy to keep me where he wanted me. Tears filled my eyes, so I kept my back to him. “Then he knows more than I do,” I said, my fists pressed to my chest, begging my heart to stop hurting. “I’m going back to my son.”
