Page 98 of Drifter’s Heart

He lifts an eyebrow, leaning his butt against my window. “Would you prefer to be inundated with visitors?”

“Well, no,” I admit. “Except for Sally. And you.”

“Mmm.” He rubs a hand over his mouth.

I frown. “What?”

West clears his throat. “Then you’re going to hate this.”

I glance at the doorway, expecting to see a team of nurses bustling in, but instead a head of flaming hair that I last saw the night I nearly lost my daughter fills the doorway. “Lanie?”

My crazy-ass wolf-biologist best friend, still pregnant, waddles toward me, tears streaming down her face. Apologies tumble from her lips as she stares at me in horror.

I open my arms, shaking my head to forbid her words, but her hands trace over my injured side without touching me.

“I left her. I’m a monster. I left her,” Lanie whispers.

“You are not a monster,” Cord and I say together. My hospital bed groans under their combined weight and mine.

West disappears out the door and returns a moment later, his oversized biceps straining his shirt sleeves as he hoists a pair of matching chairs that look much sturdier than the ones I slept in last time I stayed at the hospital, waiting on my brother to wake.

“Off,” he says shortly. “She can’t breathe. She just won’t tell you.”

Cord lifts Lanie off my bed and I manage a brief inhale. Big ones hurt and I cough. That hurts too so I just don’t.

“Thanks,” I manage on an exhale. It’s the best I can do.

“Sorry,” Lanie mumbles between a mouthful of wild red hair and my brother’s shirt.

“Stop it,” we both say at the same time.

I hold out a fist—the right hand this time—and Cord bumps it. “Don’t apologize anymore. Anyone,” I direct the room. “Got it?”

West leans back against the window frame, reducing the glaring light that filters into the sterile room. “Sally’s with Billy.” He forestalls my next argument.

I frown at him. “Why is she there and not here?” I assume that means she’s up at Coyote. I can’t imagine Billy coming off the land for anything. There’s a donkey hidden in that sentence, but I’m on too many good drugs to puzzle it out.

“Because we need to talk.” Lanie flicks her waist-length hair back and nearly strangles my brother.

I watch on with interest as he ducks to avoid being slapped in the face with the ends, fails, and chokes a little. Apparently this is the Lanie Show today. “Does he do that a lot?”

“More than you know.” She grimaces.

“So what’s on the menu?” I keep my eyes on my best friend, though West’s stare hits me hard.

I can’t avoid him forever, and I figure there’s a second talk coming after this one. I’m not sure which I don’t want to deal with just yet, but Lanie pulled dibs fist. With a man as stubborn as West, that’s impressive.

“You.” Lanie waves a finger at me. “Him.” The finger redirects to my stoic cowboy man. “Booty calls.” She curtails the rest of that sentence, which could have involved my parental absence but doesn’t.

I’ve paid that penance. Sally is okay, and I’m lucky. We know that. Brad’s locked away. With the help of Cordell’s tame lawyer, Richard McCullins, who usually deals with business and estates but has stretched his muscles for me, my ex-husband won’t see the outside of a jail cell for a long time, regardless of how much money he thinks he has.

“Booty calls are fun.” I want to perk up brightly to the task, but I’m far too tired and my side wound where Brad stabbed me—the fucker—won’t allow it.

“They are.” Lanie’s lip twitches.

“Told you she’d brat out.” West tosses his two cents’ worth into the ring.

“I’ll get to you in a moment,” Lanie says mildly, and not without an undercurrent of threat.