Page 58 of Dirty Pool

She didn’t want to be here at all.

Anywhere but here.

Gabbie didn’t know …

Would she have survived if he hadn’t came out to help her?

Would she still be here?

She couldn’t think on it for very long. It took no time at all before her father had made his way down the hallway, and darkened her doorway. The nurse in the corner, refilling her water jug and cup of ice, didn’t even notice his presence until she turned to leave and there he was. All towering six-feet-five-inches of an angry Irishman who looked like he was about to kill her if she didn’t get the feck out of his way.

“Move, lass,” he uttered through clenched teeth.

The nurse blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Get out.”

That time, his words echoed back to them as it bounced off the walls from the level his tone took in his anger. The nurse didn’t waste time getting the hell out of the room, and honestly, Gabbie didn’t blame the girl.

She was ready to shrink away when her father’s gaze landed on her, too. Funny how that worked … except it wasn’t funny at all.

“Gabbie,” he said, voice thick with emotion she couldn’t place.

Gabbie stared at her hands. “I … I’m so—”

The apology was the first thing she thought to say. Not because she blamed herself for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but simply because whenever her father was mad, the first thing she did was apologize for angering him.

“Don’t … Christ, lass, don’t you dare.”

She looked up, then, finding her father just beyond the doorway of the hospital room. At his sides, his fists clenched into tight, shaking balls. In fact, his entire body vibrated the same way, shudders wracking his shoulders as his jaw tightened almost rhythmically.

Charles let out a hard breath, his gaze taking her in on the bed like he was trying to imprint every inch of her to his memory. Or maybe, he was finally taking her in and making sure she was, in fact, fine. She didn’t know what he had been told when he got the call that she’d been involved in a drive-by, and was now at the hospital.

Knowing him, he had not taken it well.

At all.

She could tell just by looking at him that he hadn’t taken it well. She didn’t need her father or someone else to confirm it.

All of his fears for her … he was staring at.

Wordlessly, her father closed the door to the hospital room so that their conversation could not be overheard. Or maybe it was that he didn’t want anyone else to see his very obvious fear and pain as he regarded his daughter again. She sat still on the edge of the bed as he closed the space between them—she was back to that again, back to not being able to look him in the eyes.

He had to know.

Where she was when it happened.

With Michel.

“Last night,” he said quietly, directly in front of her, “what did you tell me?”

The lump in her throat grew thicker.

She couldn’t talk.

“Gabbie, speak to me,” Charles ordered.

“I said I was going to bed early,” she whispered.