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I was over the fence and running for her along with a dozen others. I reached her first, cold shock steeling me as I hit my knees and checked her breath, which had started again. But she was out cold.
“Poppy,” I called, smoothing her hair from her face. “Poppy, wake up.”
She didn’t move, not even a flutter of her eyelids.
“Fuck,” I hissed, not wanting to move her for fear I’d injure her worse.
Wyatt skidded to a stop next to me and began inspecting her, finding something that had him letting go of a sigh.
“She’s just knocked out. Pop,” he started, patting her cheek. “Poppy. C’mon, girl.” His frown flipped as something occurred to him. He leaned in, smirking as he said near her ear, “You’d better wake up before Duke wins.”
She stirred, moaning quietly. A garbled mumble passed her lips, and she lifted her head like it weighed a thousand pounds before dropping it back to the ground with a wince. Her head lolled, her eyes cracking open. She tried to say something again, bracing herself to attempt to sit.
I leaned in, sliding my hand under her back to help her. “What’d you say?”
Glassy eyes met mine, and she asked in a gravelly voice, “Did I win?”
A wave of relieved laughter rolled through us. Somebody yelled, “She’s okay!” and the crowd replied with cheering.
“Yeah, you won,” I said, picking her up to head back to the PT room with a disapproving Wyatt at my elbow and a knot of people in our wake.
She’d won, all right.
And I got the sense it wouldn’t be the last time.
She groaned, her heavy head resting on my chest as I carried her away, nestling into me through a sigh. Until I answered someone’s question and she heard my voice.
Wriggling in my arms, she tried to snap at me, which wasn’t so much a snap as it was a sleepy sort of slur. “Lemme go, Duke.” Her fight was barely worth noting, but she tried. “Put me down. I can walk, goddammit.”
“I’m sure you can, but you’re not gonna,” I answered in a tone that usually brooked no argument. To most people at least.
She was not most people.
“It’s your stupid fault, you know. If you hadn’t—oooh,” She hissed, pressing my palm to her head and squeezing her eyes shut. With another sigh, she sagged into me. I had a feeling if I put her down now, she’d definitely puke, and I didn’t figure she’d fancy the town seeing what she’d had for breakfast.
“I know it’s my fault,” I whispered, squeezing her a little tighter. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“You didn’t think I could do it, did you?” she asked, cutting me off.
“No, I didn’t,” I admitted after a pause.
“So I won that too.”
A chuckle filled my chest, wrapping up my heart. “You sure did. Wyatt taught you what I couldn’t.”
“Like I said. Shit teacher.”
“Watch it. I could dump you on your ass right now.”
“But you won’t.”
“No, I won’t.”
We reached the PT room, and I laid her down on a medical bed. But I didn’t leave her side.
Wyatt pushed in next to me with a look on his face that promised all kinds of pain and suffering if I so much as breathed funny. Her family appeared behind him, and Wyatt made room for them, standing where he could still glare me to death. And then it was Doc Harley, the man who had treated the town’s broken arms and tummy aches for forty years.
“Poppy June, I thought I was through patchin’ you up since you became a lady,” he said.
She snorted. “A lady. That’s funny, Doc.”
He checked her eyes, palpated her neck, hmm’d. “Just a concussion—”
“Just?” Wyatt spat.
“Coulda been worse,” Doc said.
“Shouldn’a happened at all,” Wyatt fumed, two little knots of muscle bouncing in his jaw as he clenched his teeth. “You put her in danger for your stupid little game—”
“It’s the law, Wyatt,” I said. “You can’t argue—”
“Oh, bullshit. It’s a stunt to try to screw Poppy out of her shot. And I can argue. I will argue.”
Doc swiveled his gaze to pin Wyatt down. “Wyatt Schumaker, you’d best watch your mouth.”
“Listen, I’m fine,” Poppy said. “I just need a little—” She froze, pale, pinching her lips closed for the briefest moment before opening her mouth to hurl.
Everyone stepped back at the same time with a few groans and one noisy gag. I was too worried about Poppy to notice Wyatt launch himself at me.
He’d grabbed a fistful of my shirt before a couple of guys stopped him.
“It’s your fault,” he yelled over the tops of their shoulders as they wrestled him back.
“I fucking know it’s my fault!” I yelled back.
“Get them out of here,” Doc said, not looking back this time.
Big hands grabbed me by the back of the shirt and my shoulders, guiding me toward the door. I couldn’t shake them off even though I was going quietly. Once clear of the room, they let me go with a shove in Wyatt’s direction.
