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“I heard them talking one night. I guess they made a mistake taking me. Someone sent them there for you.”
“Who the hell would want to come after me?”
“I have no idea. But I intend to find out as soon as I get out of here.”
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere. The police said you’ve been shot.” His jaw tensed as his attention turned to my left arm.
I glanced down at my bandaged bicep. “It’s fine.”
“It’snotfine, mon coeur.”
“It was a through-and-through. All things considered, I’ve had far worse.” I gave him a cheeky grin, hoping it would soothe his hackles.
He brushed his thumb along my cheekbone, frowning at what I’m sure was the most magnificent bruising across my face. “I promise you we’ll find them and make them pay. Elijah and Cole are already tracking them down. Their license plate registers to a company out of Blue Springs.”
It hurt to arch an eyebrow, so I frowned instead. “The police told you that?”
He frowned right back at me, like I’d asked the dumbest question ever. To be fair, Iwasconcussed again. “Of course not. You’re not the only one who knows people.”
“Was it just a company or was there a name to go along with it?”
“Don’t worry about it. You need to focus on resting.”
“So do you.” I touched his cheek gently.
He leaned into my hand, closing his eyes. I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head against his chest, matching my breathing to the steady beat of his heart. “I hate hospitals. I just want to go home.”
“Have the police finished getting whatever information they need from you?”
I nodded mutely.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Then I’ll go get the doctor.”
“Please don’t yell at him. I don’t need you getting arrested again.”
Smirking, he raked a hand through his curls and ducked around the curtain.
* * *
I’d never been sohappy to see that little teal house in my entire life. If I could have, I would have hopped out of the car and ran in the front door like a kid at Christmas. As it was, I shuffled up the front steps with Leander watching every step and scolding me when I went “too fast.” A turtle could have passed me and he’d still say I was going “too fast.”
“You have a concussion,” he snapped when I insisted on going up the stairs by myself and — daredevil that I was — didnotuse the railing. After that, I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere unsupervised.
“I want a shower,” I whined when we finally made it upstairs.
“You have stitches.”
“So put a bag over my arm. I’m gross and I’m not soiling the sheets with farm funk.”
“I’ll buy new sheets.”
“What about a bath?”
Huffing out a sigh, he marched me into the bathroom and promptly shoved me onto the toilet. The look on his face dared me to move. For once, I complied without being a smart ass about it.
While the bathtub was filling, he stripped me out of my dirty clothes, inspecting me from head-to-toe despite the fact the doctor and I both told him I was fine. I mean, minus the bullet hole in my arm. Or the concussion, which, yes, hurt like a son of a bitch. But I was fine. A broken nose, some cuts and bruises. All in all not too bad for getting my ass handed to me for the second time in a year.
The first injury to draw his attention was the bruising across my face from the shotgun butt, along with the scab in my eyebrow. Those weren’t pleasant, but they were nothing compared to the tiny little lacerations from the corn. Hours later, thosestillstung.
