“Yougot lucky,” the doctor corrected Cooper. “The bottle didn’t cut through the fascia. It’s just a surface laceration. But it could have been bad. No swimming this week, and no limbo contests. Just keep it clean, follow instructions, and stop rescuing women in lighthouses—and you should be fine.”
I stepped forward and took Cooper’s hand—careful not to get in the doctor’s way. “You came to the lighthouse?” I asked.
Cooper opened his eyes at that, met mine, and nodded.
“And that drunk dudeslashedyou?”
Cooper nodded again. “He looked totally shocked when it happened,” he said, “like he never thought it would work. And then suddenly I wasbleeding like mad. And when he saw the blood, he pushed me in the chest and took off running.”
“He pushed you?”
Cooper nodded. “I fell back. I guess I hit my head. The next thing I remember, I was waking up in the Bishop’s Cay hospital with twenty stitches.”
I sighed. “So you probably have a concussion, too.”
“He definitely does,” the doc chimed in, not realizing he was no longer a part of the conversation.
Cooper gave me a shrug. “They said it was mild.”
“Everything’s always mild with you.”
“At least I don’t get pebbles in my shoes.”
I was still putting the pieces together. “The police came to the lighthouse?” How had I missed all this? Those stone walls must have been thick.
“I called them on my way to you, but I guess I wasn’t too clear about the situation because when they got there and found me unconscious and bleeding, they thought I was the person they came for. By the time I told them about you, hours had gone by—and they said you were gone.”
“My dad rescued me,” I said.
“You weren’t hurt, were you? That guy didn’t hurt you?”
I refused to let Pork Pie register as a trauma in my life. “I’m more insulted than hurt,” I said.
Cooper closed his eyes. “I’m sorry all that happened to you.”
“I’m sorry all that happened toyou.”
A pause while the doc finished up the sutures and taped a fresh dressing back over them. He wanted Cooper to rest on the exam table for a few minutes after that.
I took the rolling stool after the doc left the room, and I slid it up next to Cooper to stroke his forehead.
“That’s why you missed the ship in the Bahamas?”
Cooper closed his eyes. “Uh-huh.”
“But how did you get from being in a hospital in the Bahamas to reboarding a cruise ship in Cozumel?”
“I took a puddle jumper to Key West and then a 737 here.”
“When? Today?”
“This morning.”
“Had they—discharged you?”
“I kind of discharged myself.”
I frowned at him like he’d really been naughty. “Cooper.”
