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Laura pulled up the chair next to my bed and sat. “I got off the phone with your mother a little bit ago. She and your sisters are looking into flights.”
“They shouldn’t bother,” I said, swallowing some more. Everything to do with using my voice hurt. Maybe there wasn’t any permanent damage from when he’d strangled me, but it definitely didn’t feel good at the moment. “I’ll text Mom and tell her I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Laura replied, raising a brow. “And even if you are, it’s a mother’s right and responsibility to overreact when one of her babies is hurt—and you’re always going to be her baby, no matter how old you grow up to be. Overreacting is part of what we do.”
“I just left Sara in the waiting room,” Dani added, easily changing the subject to something equally painful for me. “She was in here with you for a while, but she had to go sort out some trouble that Connor was getting into. I can go take over for her, though.”
I shook my head, then wished I hadn’t moved that much. “Don’t. Trying to watch that little boy will put you off ever having kids of your own.” And I wasn’t sure I was ready to face Sara after being as stupid as I’d been today. And it wasn’t just today, either. It had started from the moment I’d first arrived in Portland at New Year’s Eve. What if I’d been alone with the kids, instead of with Sophie? What if Guy had attacked when I’d been at the house with all of them instead of at the rink? Any of those things could have happened. I’d put them all in terrible danger, and if Sara didn’t light into me, then no doubt Cam would.
“So now what?” I asked.
Laura poured some water into a cup for me and passed it over.
“It is water, not wine,” Dani said with a grin and a wink. “Already checked.”
Laura rolled her eyes. “What you do now is you stay here until the doctors decide you can leave. At some point, you’ll have to give a statement to the police about what happened. There’s video, though. The rink had security cameras rolling, so it’s all been captured. That should mean you won’t need to be involved too heavily in whatever legal proceedings take place.”
“Or at least that’s the hope,” Katie said.
I nodded and took a sip from the water because Laura was giving me a mom sort of look. Everything I did and everything they said made my head hurt worse, though, so I rubbed my forehead.
“Do you want us to leave you alone?” Dani asked. “We should. Come on, Mom.” She took her mother by the arm and dragged her toward the door. “Katie, you coming?” she said, stopping to look over her shoulder.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Katie said.
The door closed behind them, and then Katie looked down at me with kind eyes. “Jamie told me he’d never seen his brother such a mess before. Levi’s pretty torn up over you.”
“I’m a mess over him, too. I mean— Not that there’s anything—”
“Good,” she cut in, saving me from trying to explain. “We’re both behind you, Jamie and I. We want to see Levi happy. I think you can help with that. You are helping with it.”
The door to my room banged open, and I winced up at Levi and my brother. Sara and the kids were right behind the two of them, with Sara trying to grab on to Cam and calm him down even as she wrangled the kids.
“Shh!” Katie hissed in their direction. “She’s got a concussion.”
I couldn’t do anything but stare at Levi as he rushed in and took the seat Laura had left vacant, taking my hand in both of his. He lifted it and kissed my knuckles.
A smile crept to my lips. “Amazing. I think I feel a bit better.” The words croaked out, and I forced myself to take another sip from my water.
“You should kiss her on her booboo,” Connor demanded. “Kiss it and make it better. That’s what Mommy always does.”
“I’m not sure it works that way with this kind of booboo,” Levi said, chuckling without taking his eyes from mine.
Connor climbed up onto my bed on the other side and let out a beleaguered sigh, rolling his eyes. “You don’t know nothin’, do you?” Then he inched up higher on my bed and kissed me on the top of my head. “There. Now CayCay will be all better.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Yep. Now can we go feed the agilators?”
“Not tonight, buddy,” Sara said. “The bad guy’s in jail.”
He gave me a devious grin. “We could bring the agilators to jail.” Then he cackled.
Suddenly, my head didn’t hurt quite as much as it had before. Maybe the kisses really could make it all better. Just in case, I had every intention of demanding that Levi kiss me all over, as soon as they let me leave this hospital.
