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But she wasn’t going to think about Major Crimes or the TSP today.
Hope was coming home.
Hope’s surgery had been touch-and-go. No one could forget that. The bullet had done minimal damage. But what had happened after…the bullet had migrated. Near her sister’s heart.
Hope had had a small heart attack on the operating table when they were retrieving the bullet. They had discovered some of the repairs she’d had during her last heart surgery when she’d been five hadn’t been done completely right. It was a miracle she’d not had problems before. Samia suspected that she had, they just hadn’t caught it before.
But they had repaired that damage now. Made Hope’s heart stronger than ever.
Her sister should make a full recovery. Lead a full, reasonably normal and healthy life now.
They had her back. They had her safe. And in twelve weeks, she’d be completely healthy again. And now, they had her coming home.
Heather wasn’t driving her this time. Bonnie was bringing her home—and staying very close to her side. Eden was planning to take the next two weeks off to stay with Hope at home. Eden worked in the cardiac care unit. Everyone wanted her with Hope right now. They would find the money for Eden’s lost salary somewhere.
They had always found a way to make it through anything before. She was remembering that. Her family was dealing with what had happened. In the best way they knew how—together.
To her surprise, Miguel’s three kids were in the kitchen when she carried Ember in.
“Hi, Aunt Heather!” Jago said, giving her a suspicious look. The almost five-year-old looked so much like his father. “We are here now.”
“I see that. Where is Daddy?” She kissed Emilia on her little head when the toddler chattered at her and waved little hands around, saying “Ho, ma, ho, ma, ho, ma.”
Hope Mama.
Heather got a kick out of that. Miguel’s older two kids called Hope ‘Mama Koala’ now. Hope had rescued his son from a tree at the Barratts’ barbecue by telling Jago he was a baby koala and Hope the mama koala. And they were going to climb down like koalas together. Hope had gotten Jago down—but had broken her arm in the process.
The name had stuck.
Even the baby tried to call Hope that. Miguel’s kids adored her sister.
Hope adored them just as much. That had just deepened in the week Miguel had stayed with them after he’d been injured.
Heather was glad Miguel’s kids were there today. Hope would like that.
Summer set a cup of juice in front of Miguel’s little Raine and sent Heather a look. “Daddy drove Grandma Bonnie to the hospital to get Mama Koala, Aunt Heather. He just sort of showed up to do that today, rather unannounced. That man was definitely a man on a mission. An entirely too beautiful man on a mission.”
Joy gave a snicker. It was her day off. Her five kids were settled around the kids’ table, too. Waiting on the waffles Samia and Cashlyn and Crispin were preparing now. “Some mission. I hope he knows what he’s getting in to.”
Well, Heather agreed with that. “I just…want her home. Where she belongs. She can figure out Miguel later.”
“I suspect she’ll have a lot of fun doing exactly that,” Cashlyn said mildly. “He is a rather virile, robust specimen, that one. I do hope she takes notes. For the rest of us. To live vicariously, you understand. That is one fine man. I do hope he is…proportional. I can see it being very disappointing, if he isn’t.”
Her niece’s quiet words surprised a laugh out of her. Cashlyn did that sometimes. Said random things that were so unexpected.
Cashlyn hadn’t recently, though. Not in days. Not since what had happened to Hope. What Cashlyn had seen happen right in front of her. She had heard Kimball’s words about Hope being hurt. Had heard what had happened to Heather. She and Samia. And it had shaken them, too. Cashlyn was one of their most sensitive, too.
Cashlyn had been extra quiet. She and Hope were extremely close. Hope was only seven months older. They’d been best friends their entire lives—those two, and Cara, who was ten months younger than Hope.
They were all hurting. And they would be for a long while.
Her family had been a little hurt and angry that she and Hope hadn’t told them what had happened with Steve. With Ember. They had known something had happened with Steve four years ago—she had adamantly not wanted him in her life after what he’d done while she’d been pregnant with Frankie. But her family had never questioned her. They’d never even asked who Ember’s father was. Just accepted that Heather was having another baby. They had taken care of Heather when needed. And they loved her daughters so much.
Her girls were all that really mattered to her now. Her girls, and her family. Ember and Frankie were the only good things Steve Wilson had ever done. That was what mattered.
Steve was in a coma. No one knew when he would wake up. Or what kind of condition he would be in if he did. They would just have to wait.
Detective Kimball had fared worse. He was still in intensive care, in a medically induced coma. No one knew what would happen to that man either. She was conflicted about him. There was no denying that.
