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Her buzz was waning. She needed another hit.
“And Mrs. Brand—Vidalia—she’ll be my real grandma. I never evenhada real grandma before. And I’ll have all kinds of aunts and uncles, and two cousins and–”
“That’s real nice, Tyler,” Ang said. He was buckled up in the backseat. She figured she could manage a hit without him even noticing. She reached for the little compact case on the seat between her and Vinnie, but Vinnie covered her hand with his own.
“When I say. Understand?”
She thinned her lips, angry now.
“And as soon as the weddin’s over I’m gonna ask for a puppy. Dad will prob’ly say no, but Kara won’t. She loves animals, just like me. So I bet she’ll get me a puppy. And then everything will be perfect.”
Angela turned in her seat, looking back at him with a frown. He wore braces on both legs and couldn’t walk without those ugly, cumbersome crutches. In what universe did that qualify as perfect?
“I have to go to the bathroom. Are we almost there?”
“Let’s stop for a break,” Vinnie said. “I have to call your dad anyway and make sure my directions are all right.”
“I don’t think they are, mister. I think we must have gone way too far by now.”
He was smart, Angela thought. They’d been driving for forty-five minutes. Frankly she’d had enough of it herself. Vinnie pulled into the parking lot of the motel where they’d been holed up for the past three days. Vinnie had barely let her stick her head outside the door of their room. He said the police were looking for them. She thought he’d been making things up just to keep her under his thumb, until she’d spoken to Jim.
Poor Jim. Vinnie didn’t have to hit him as hard as he had. She hoped he’d be all right
“Let’s go inside,” Vinnie said. “I’ll give your dad a call, make sure things are on schedule. Don’t worry about a thing, kid.”
“I’m scared I’ll miss the weddin’,” Tyler confessed, unbuckling his seat belt, opening his door. Angela got out her own door and headed straight to the room—she had stashed away a little supply of her own and she was damned if she was waiting to use it.
“Angie, what’s-a-matter with you anyway?”
She looked over her shoulder to see Vinnie rolling his eyes, then he opened the back door and helped Tyler get out and up onto his crutches. “There’s no way your dad would start things without you, kid. Besides,” Vinnie added with a look at his watch, “it’s not even time yet Don’t worry.”
“Okay.”
He walked beside the boy toward the motel room. Ang stopped watching them and finished unlocking the door. Then she went inside, straight to the bathroom. She slammed the door and locked it behind her. Tyler had to go, he’d said. But hell, he could wait. This would only take a minute.
* * *
Kara ran through the closest entrance to the emergency room, ignoring that its doors were clearly marked as being for E.R. patients only. She looked left and right, spotted a desk and headed for it, still clinging to her skirts. She heard the stampede of footsteps behind her—Edie and Cal and her mother. “Jimmy Corona,” she barked at the nurse there. “Where is he?”
The woman blinked at her, probably unused to seeing women in bridal gowns racing frantically through her emergency room. Before she opened her mouth to speak, Wade was there, gripping Kara’s shoulders, turning her to face him.
She searched his eyes, desperation and fear clawing at her chest “Where is he, Wade? Is he all right?”
“They’re still working on him. Already stitched him up, then took him down to X-ray. Going to run a CT scan and then they’ll know more.”
“Is he conscious?” she asked.
“No.” Wade blinked, lowering his head. “You look so beautiful, Kara. I’m damn sorry your special day got ruined. If the guys and I had arrived five minutes sooner—”
“Don’t blame yourself,” she said. Then she pulled free of his embrace because a man and a woman in white appeared, pushing a stretcher along the hall and into a room. She glimpsed just one hand—one strong, tanned hand lying still on the white sheets—and she knew it was him. “Jimmy!”
She raced toward him even as they pushed him into a treatment room. Hesitating in the doorway, she sought permission from the faces that surrounded him. A nurse eyed her gown and her eyes turned sympathetic. “You must be Kara,” she said. “Wade Armstrong told us you’d be coming.” She returned her attention to Jimmy. She was taping leads to his chest. “Come on in, hon,” she said without looking up again. “Sit with him a while. Use the call button if you need us.”
“But—but... do you know anything? How is he?”
The male nurse who’d been adjusting the IV line, glanced her way. “The doctor still has to look at his films. We don’t know much yet. He’s been restless. Muttering. Nothing coherent. You sit with him, talk to him. It can’t hurt.”
As the two left the room, she moved slowly toward the bed. He lay on his back, his clothes were missing—from the waist up at least. A sheet covered his chest, but his arms lay outside the covers. The leads they had fastened to his chest were connected to a monitor that beeped in a slow, steady rhythm.
