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“Does that mean she can go home?” After spending all night in a recliner two sizes too small for him, Adrian’s voice carried a heavy dose of hope. He’d flat-out refused to leave Carly’s side, despite all her pleas for him to go home and get some sleep. Which had turned out to be a good thing in the end, because although she hadn’t realized it at the time, she had needed him to help her sort things out.
As well as plan.
The doctor typed something into her electronic chart, and the sound yanked Carly back to reality just in time to see him nod. “You’ll need to take it easy for the next couple of days at least. And by ‘take it easy,’ I mean, stay home and rest. A head injuries are no laughing matter, so you’ll have to limit yourself. I’ll send the nurse in to go over your release orders with you, but I don’t see any reason to keep you here.”
Carly exhaled in relief as the doctor made his way to the door. “Thank you.”
She’d had jailbreak on her mind as soon as the sun had risen two hours ago. God, what she wouldn’t give to slip into the comfort of her own bed right now, to dive beneath the sheets and never come out.
“You still want me to call Bellamy and Gavin and have them meet us at your place?” Adrian asked, looking at her warily even though they’d been over things no less than a hundred times.
She nodded. “Yes. They deserve to hear the truth about what’s going to happen, and they deserve to hear it from me.” She paused, watching him carefully. “How about you? You’re good to go?”
Adrian’s eyes met hers, his smoky hazel gaze telling her all she needed to know. “Let’s get the hell out of here, what do you say?”
Carly waited until Adrian had clicked her door quietly shut to go make the calls to their kitchen staff before she picked up the phone by her bed.
“Yes, hello. I’m trying to reach one of your guests, Mr. Richard Buchanan.” She paused while the operator looked up the room number, hesitating for just a second before saying with absolute certainty,
“Tell him Carly di Matisse is calling, and that it’s urgent.”
29
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like shit, buddy.” Shane crouched next to a mass of tangled cucumber vines, propping his forearms over his thighs as he offered up a steaming travel mug of coffee.
Jackson took it, but didn’t drink. “Great. I look like I feel, then.” He squinted through the dappled morning sunlight, his eyes dry and tired from a serious lack of sleep.
“Have you been out here all night?” Shane sat down beside Jackson in the soft grass, his dark glance flickering with concern and brimming with questions.
“Yeah. Do you…” Jackson stopped, fully understanding that he had no right to ask the question burning through his mouth, but the words barged out anyway. “Do you know how Carly is? I mean, when I called the hospital a couple of hours ago, Autumn said she was fine. Sleeping, and stuff. But has Bellamy heard anything this morning?”
Shane’s brows lifted. “You had your sister check on her in the middle of the night?”
“Yeah. She was on shift in another department,” Jackson admitted. Christ, he wanted nothing more than to be the one to check on Carly, to make sure she had everything she needed and keep her safe.
But he’d been the one to cause all of her pain. How could he possibly protect her unless it was to stay away?
She’d trusted him, and he’d crushed her heart.
There was no taking something like that back.
Shane cleared his throat and regarded Jackson with a wary expression. “So, ah, you want to let me in on what’s going on here? Your girlfriend spent the night at Riverside Hospital with a head injury, and you’re sitting in the middle of your mother’s tomato cages looking like death warmed up. I’m trying to figure it out, I really am, but…”
“I didn’t hurt her on purpose, I swear to God.” Jackson’s words clawed their way out, and Shane shook his head.
“Jesus, Jax. I knowthat,” Shane said, but Jackson needed to clear the air.
“I was trying to walk away from her, to keep her safe, but she was closer than I thought and then I turned around and even though the whole thing was an accident, I still can’t fix it. Oh, hell, Shane. I fucked this up so bad that there’s no way to fix it.”
He gave Shane a short version of events, and damn if the words didn’t lose any of their ability to make him sick with the re-telling.
“I’m glad you’re not stuffing all of this down anymore. I really am. But maybe you should be saying these things to Carly, rather than bouncing them off me out here in the great outdoors, huh?”
“Ican’t,” Jackson countered, frustration jolting through him. “I’m just going to hurt her again, and I’ve done that enough.”
Shane made a noise of disdain, but Jackson barreled on. “I mean it. I’ve been sitting here all night, trying to come up with the words to erase it all, but I can’t. In the end, I’ll still have hurt her without being able to ever make it right.”
“You love her, right?” Shane asked, and Jackson didn’t hesitate.
