Page 42 of When The Dust Settles

He grimaced as the door opened and a cute little candy striper brought in my late lunch of hospital food complete with hot tea, apple juice, and milk. I thanked her, and as I started in, could not help smiling over at Stef as he flopped into the chair and told me that Fort Knox would have nothing on the Red Diamond once Rand was done.

“You and Wyatt,” I sighed, “are the two most precious things in the world to him. How could you expect anything less, Stef?”

“I guess if you think about it that way,” he said softly, looking at me hopefully. “Then it’s sweet all the changes he plans on making.”

“Sure,” I agreed, with a grin. “I doubt it’ll feel like a prison at all.”

“Oh God.”

“Maybe tell him to go easy on the barbed wire and motion sensors and automatic lights huh?”

Apparently I wasn’t as funny as I thought I was.

WHEN STEF tried to call Rand for the second time, he was out of range which made sense. There were so many dead spots out on the prairie—which was why it was just dumb luck that he’d gotten ahold of Everett the day before—and since Rand had loaned his satellite phone to Charlotte when she was on a trip to Paris with her mother, Stef didn’t have that to get back ahold of him on. So he couldn’t talk to Rand again and I couldn’t talk to Mac. I hoped Rand shared with the guy I was ready to start a life with that I was fine, but I had no way of knowing.

To get back at me about the prison cracks, when Stef returned later Saturday night to check in on me, he told me that he’d called over to The Bronc and told whoever answered the phone that I was stabbed but in stable condition at the hospital in Hillman.

“You ass,” I whined. “Do you know what’s gonna happen now?”

He only smiled and nodded before he turned on the TV and started flipping channels.

“They’re all coming,” I told him.

“Not tonight they’re not,” he said cattily. “Visiting hours are over, they can’t get in.”

“Then how come you’re here?”

“I’m family, asshole.”

Nice. “Shouldn’t you get home to your kid?”

“He’s with Morgan and his wife, he’s fine.”

“I don’t know Morgan whoever.”

“Morgan Sowers, he’s our new blacksmith, he’s a really nice guy.”

“What if they drop him on his head?”

“Morgan’s wife is the pediatrician out on the Red; I’m not really worried about it.”

“Rand just can’t keep collecting people Stef, law enforcment’ll start to think he’s a drug lord or some shit.”

He turned off the TV and twisted around in his chair to look at me. “So?”

“So what?”

“Did you bond with the boys?”

I stayed quiet.

“Did you and Rand and Zach work things all out?”

I grunted.

His eyebrows lifted before he smiled. “You did.”

“We had us a bit of a come to Jesus meeting, yeah.”