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No hugs, no tears, no love.
Just seething resentment against the people who’d taken her in, cherished and adored her. She felt safer with Connor and Cain, Sarah and Zeke, than she did in the company of her own blood relatives—how pathetic was that?
Calloused fingertips ran up and down the length of her forearm, lulling her. She smiled at the apparition of Connor even as her brow furrowed in concern. Should hallucinations bleed as copiously as that?
“For God’s sake, Connor,” Sarah huffed. She marched across the room, slipping into her role as nurse as easily as she wore the mantle of warrior. “Bloody men.”
“You can see him?” Jenna whispered.
Joanna rushed forward and set her hand on Jenna’s forehead as Sarah did the same. The rest of the room was forgotten as it narrowed down to two women who had the misfortune to spend their lives coddling her. In unison, they said, “No fever.”
“Baby, I’m right here.” Sweating, grimacing as he shifted in the chair beside her bed, Connor moved his hand so it covered her arm, squeezed gently. “I won’t leave you again.”
“I’m not sewing your leg back up with you sat in a damn chair, Connor. What the hell did you do to ripbothwounds open again?” Sarah scowled and she lasered everyone in the room who wasn’t part of their intimate oddball family with a glare. “Did one of this lot have a go at you?”
“Calm down, Sarah. I did this myself, somewhere between running down the hall like a lunatic and skidding across the floor after ramming the door.” Connor smiled ruefully. “Totally worth it.”
Ilene sniffed loudly.
“Are you still here?” Sarah demanded as she pressed the call button attached to Jenna’s bed. “Jenna told you she doesn’t want you here right now, so I suggest you leave until she decides she can stand looking at you.”
Aaron eased forward, sheepish enough Jenna’s heavy gaze landed on him and held his eyes. Memories flicked past—riding on his shoulders as a girl, listening to him singHappy Birthdayin a deep tenor as she blew out candles on a cake, swinging her around in a circle when she graduated high school. Good things, happy things.
“Ilene, we should let Pene—Jenna,” he corrected carefully, “get some rest. Perhaps we’ve gone about this the wrong way in our haste to see her.” Taking his wife by the arm, he tried to lead her out. “Ilene. I want to get to know my daughter again. Don’t ruin this further, please.”
“Dad’s right, Mom.” Rosemary piped up from the doorway, her voice quiet and sad. “Things have gotten out of hand. We need to go and let things settle. Give…Jenna a few days. We’ve waited long enough, what’s a few more days?”
“I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid some of you are going to have to relocate to the waiting area.” Maryanne steamrollered through the huddle at the door, then stopped and surveyed the disaster awaiting her in Jenna’s room. “I see. I should have known this eventuality would happen on my shift.”
“Annie, I need some supplies. Hero over here has done himself an injury or two.”
“So it would seem. Joanna, if you would get Sarah what she requires, I’ll sort this out.” Maryanne turned and selected the scrum of bodies in the doorway with a circle of her finger. “Surplus to requirements and blocking a patient’s room. Please vacate the area.” With a raised eyebrow, she set Jenna’s parents in her sights. “Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy, I believe you were respectfully asked not to enter the room until told otherwise. The next time I have to ask, it will not be respectfully and there will be two armed security officers involved in your physical removal from my ward.”
As Jenna watched her siblings edge away from the door, Joanna slipped through them all like an eel. Her heart was heavy when her parents walked away, her father offering her a sorrowful curve of lips before he pushed Ilene out in front of him, still sulking.
“Mr. Fairfax and the other Mr. O’Malley, as lovely as it is to see you, your presence is not necessary at the moment.” Maryanne grinned at them and made a sweeping gesture toward the exit. “Cain, we’re more than capable of taking care of Jenna’s needs. Put the mask down and go treat yourself to some cafeteria coffee.”
He looked a little disgruntled but set the mask within easy reach and bent to press his lips to Jenna’s forehead. The contact felt like home. “Counting down the seconds until I can come back in and play nursemaid, sunshine. Your Daddy’s not going anywhere.”
Her eyes slid to the hand on her arm, studying the bruised and still swollen knuckles. It certainly looked like Connor’s hand, and it felt real enough against her skin. “I locked him away. Kept him safe.”
Cain’s gray eyes turned dark. “The thing about Daddies, sunshine, is they never stay locked away when their little girl needs them. He didn’t hesitate to come after you. It’s his job to keep you safe, not the other way around, and he pulled out all the stops to bring you home.”
She closed her eyes as Cain eased away under Maryanne’s eagle stare.
“I, uh, don’t believe I’m needed here,” the doctor mumbled, and she thought she heard an undercurrent of uncertainty in his voice. Probably wasn’t used to the madness of two warring families battling it out in a hospital room.
“Off you go, Doctor. I think Mr. Jenkinson in Room 438 was waiting for someone to explain his test results.” Maryanne offered him a smooth way out which, by the sound of his shoes tapping rapidly away, he took without a second thought. “There, now that’s more manageable. I take it the court order has been dealt with, Sarah?”
“I’m assuming so. Zeke would have carried Connor out bodily if it hadn’t.”
“Excellent. I think if we shift Jenna’s bed over to the right, we might just have room to fit in another, mightn’t we?”
Sarah’s laugh was delighted. “Always a quick thinker, Annie. Saving time and resources. Jenna, would you be okay with us transferring Connor in here with you, sweetheart?”
Drowsily, still not convinced the man in the chair was really Connor, Jenna blinked at her friend. “Are you sure that’s Connor?”
Sarah’s face filled her vision. “I give you my word, Jenna.”
