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“Oh, honey, we’re sorry. How do you feel?” Mom cautiously runs her fingers over my hair. “The good news is you don’t have a concussion, sweetheart. You do have eleven stitches though, and...”
I reach up and touch the bandage covering the stitches and hiss.
Damn it.
“And a dislocated shoulder they’ve already popped back into place.” She trails her finger along the sling immobilizing my arm, and it starts to sink in that I won’t be delivering babies for a few days. “No surgery required there.”
“How long have I been out?” It doesn’t feel like that long, but I’m having a hard time piecing it together as everything starts hitting me all at once. “I remember the lights coming at me. I think...” I push myself harder, trying to remember. “I think I hit a tree.”
“You’ve been in and out for two hours, honey.” Mom finally sits down in the seat next to me, which will hopefully calm the nervous energy coming off her in anxious waves. “What else do you remember, Wren?”
That’s a good question.
What else do I remember?
“I was on my way home from the hospital. The storm was just starting, and I think I hit a patch of black ice.”Wait...“Jace... I think Jace was there. I think he saved me.”
Dad steps closer, clearly confused. That makes two of us. “Jace Kingston?” he asks, and it’s hard to miss the accusatory tone in his voice.
“Yeah. Is he okay? I think he saw it happen and called the ambulance.” Or I’m absolutely certifiable and hit my head harder than I think. It could go either way at this point.
Luckily, Phoebe walks into the room and smiles before I can go deep down that line of thinking. “Look who decided to wake up.” She dims the lights, and I swear she just became my new favorite person in the entire world. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been run over by a truck.” Mom sucks in a breath, and I immediately feel terrible at my poor attempt at a joke. “You’re on the wrong floor, aren’t you?”
“Oh look, she’s got jokes,” she mocks as she checks my chart. “Just checking in on you. You had us worried. There are better ways of getting out of work. Most of them are considerably less dramatic too, Wren.”
Jokes are good.
Jokes I can handle.
“Phoebe, any chance you know whether anyone was brought in with me?”
She shakes her head, then looks between my parents. “Not that I’ve heard, but I can check. Do you want me to get you anything?”
“No, thank you. I just want to go home.” I feel like I could sleep for days.
After she leaves the room, Dad clears his throat and kisses the top of Mom’s head. “I’m going to see if I can get us some answers. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” she whispers before she starts fussing with my blankets, and the calm I she’s been trying to present finally cracks, taking a little piece of my heart with it when I realize what kind of awful déjà vu she must be having. “You scared me to death, Wren. When the hospital called and said you’d been in an accident... I had the worst flashbacks of my life. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so scared. The past... your sister...”
“I’m okay, Mom.” I try to sound convincing, but judging by the look she gives me, I fail miserably. “I am. I swear. I’m just a little sore and a little tired.” Really sore and utterly exhausted, but I don’t think she needs to know that right now. “I’ll be fine for work on Monday. But I’ll need someone to cover my on-call tomorrow.”
“Wren.” She picks up my hand, the one not in the sling, and holds it between both of hers. “This is what I’m talking about, honey. I want you to know that the world won’t end if you need to take time off. I know you’re upset with the way I handled things with the practice, with your sister, with our family. But I need you to understand that I did it for you... for us.”
“I’m working on it, Mom.” At least I was before I ended up h
* * *
Sawyer
When Jace said he needed help, I didn’t think I’d be picking him up on the side of the damn road. But it had been icing outside for a few hours, so I wasn’t going to let him sit there and wait for Triple A or an Uber. What I hadn’t expected was for him to be surrounded by police officers in the storm, not twenty feet from a car that had crashed into a tree.
When he saw me approach, he breathed a sigh of relief, and my nerves settled.Slightly. But something about the situation isn’t right. I pull him into a hug, ignoring the police and their questioning stares. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” He pulls back, like it’s not cool to be hugging his brother. “I was driving home and saw a car spin out on the ice, then hit the tree.” He looks between the officers, then back to me, and I don’t like the look on his face. “Like I just told them. I checked on the driver. That’s when I saw it was Wren.”
“What?” I grab the back of his neck and yank him back. “Wren?MyWren? Why didn’t you say that on the phone?” I look around for an ambulance or any sign of Wren. “Where is she? Is she okay?”
