Chapter 18
Naomi hoped Chance had been telling the truth about the sliding glass behind Victor, because they spent the short drive from the field to Chance’s front door doing things behind that window that she did not want the driver to see. Not that she’d taken April’s advice, but clothes had required straightening by the time the driver came around to let them out.
Once her feet touched the ground, Naomi looked up to find a sprawling two-story cabin looming before her. A long porch ran the length of the house, with three ceiling fans spinning in the night breeze. Climbing the four steps at the closest end, she crossed to the first rocking chair and saw the arms were worn from use. Strolling farther, she discovered a cat perched inside one window, illuminated by a lamp inside and by the clear bulbs glowing in each of the porch ceiling fans.
“You must be Willie,” she said to the striped puffball eying her closely. He didn’t appear frightened so she leaned closer. “Hello, buddy.”
The cat offered a silent meow and jumped down.
“Willie is cute,” Naomi said, looking up in time to see the limousine drive away. “Hey. How am I going to get home?”
Chance joined her on the porch. “You’re staying, remember?” He swept her into his arms and kissed her neck, igniting tiny embers along her skin.
“Not forever. I have to get home to go to work tomorrow.”
Lifting her higher, he trailed his lips along her jawline. “I’ve got a barn full of cars. You can take any one you want.”
Naomi pushed on his shoulders. “Wait. A barnful? How many is a barnful?”
Releasing an exasperated sigh, he said, “I don’t know. Twenty or so?”
Laughter bubbled out before she could stop it. “You have twenty cars and you can’t drive any of them?” She giggled so hard Chance dropped her to the floor.
“Funny for you,” he said, reaching a hand to the top of the frame around the front door. “In five months, I’ll be back in the driver’s seat.” Sliding his hand from side to side, he muttered, “Well, shit.”
Not a good sign. “What’s wrong?”
“The key. Millie didn’t put it back.”
Sobering, Naomi asked, “Who is Millie?”
Chance checked the windowsill where the cat had been. “The cleaning lady. She comes every other Sunday.”
Relief flooded through her. “Oh, good. Wait. Are you saying you don’t have a key to get in?”
“I never carry one. I just leave it above the door.” He started searching the floor, but the fans didn’t offer enough light to see much.
Naomi pulled her phone from her purse. “Here.” She switched on the built-in flashlight. “Try this.”
Taking the phone, he rose to his full height. “Does my phone have that?”
“Sure.”
“Cool.” Resuming the search, he checked several feet to the right and left of the door. “I don’t see anything.”
The lack of neighbors suddenly felt like a problem. “Are we stuck out here all night? Does Shelly have a key?”
He traveled past two rockers to stop at another window. “She does, but I’m not calling her out here tonight. Hold this.” Chance handed Naomi the phone. “This window gets off track pretty easy. The last time I got locked out, I figured out how to pop it to get inside.”
“Be careful. These don’t look very thick.”
“They aren’t,” he grunted. “I wanted an original cabin look, so I tracked these down. They came out of a cabin built in 1913.”
Just as he said the year, glass splintered and the entire pane caved in, the sound like an explosion ricocheting in the dark. Naomi jumped back and covered her eyes as Chance spewed profanity.
Stepping carefully over the shattered bits on the porch, she pointed the light toward Chance. “Are you okay?”
Head bowed, he mumbled, “I don’t think so.” When he lifted his face, tiny pieces of glass stuck in his hair reflected the light. His face looked white behind the dark stubble on his chin. “My hand hurts like hell.”
Naomi lowered the light and nearly passed out. Protruding from the center of Chance’s palm was an ugly triangle of blood-covered glass. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
He ground his teeth. “I just need to get it out.”
“No!” she screamed. “Don’t do that. I don’t think you’re supposed to do that.” Naomi had never been one to panic in a crisis, and by damn she wasn’t going to start now. Despite the roiling in her stomach, she kept her voice level. “You need to sit down while I figure out what to do. You sit and I’ll call for an ambulance.”
Chance did as she ordered, but when he settled in one of the rocking chairs, she spotted the blood stain already forming on his shirt. It was getting larger by the second.
“That’s way too much blood. Okay.” Keep calm, Naomi. Stay focused. Find a solution. “The keys. Where are the keys? I can drive you to the hospital.”
“You can’t go in that window. You’ll get hurt.”
“I don’t have a choice.” Shuffling back to the mess, she checked the entry point. No way could she fit through there, especially not with the large piece still sticking up from the bottom. “I need to break out the rest of the glass.” Chance looked woozy, which increased the roller coaster going on in her gut. Desperate, she scanned the area and found a gray bucket sitting upside down by a post. “This could work.”
With all her might, Naomi hurled the bucket through the window, taking out most of the remaining shards. If she was careful, she could get through without injury. At least she hoped so. The last thing they needed was both of them bleeding to death on this porch.
“Honey,” she said, lifting Chance’s face. “Where are the keys? Tell me where they are, baby, so I can get us on the road.”
“On a hook on the back wall.” He licked his lips. “Get the ones on the Titan key chain. That’s the truck. I know it’s closest to the barn door.”
She brushed the hair off his damp forehead. “Okay. I can do that.”
Naomi swung her leg over the sill, careful not to get too close to the sharp edges along the bottom. Her head slid through first and her body followed, but she rose too quickly and cut her ear. Ignoring the pain, she pulled her other leg in and navigated over the shattered glass. Willie leaped onto the chair closest to her and Naomi almost had a heart attack.
Reminding herself the cat was likely freaked out, she kept her voice low. “It’s okay, Willie. I just need some keys to get your daddy to the hospital.”
The puffy tail swished, but he didn’t leap to claw her eyes out, so she sped around him and switched on another lamp beside the couch. Glancing to the back wall, which was another fifteen feet away, she spotted the familiar football logo and sprinted to get it. Keys in hand, she nearly went back out through the window before remembering the door was a better option now.
Outside, she found Chance nearly slumped over in the chair. “Stay with me, baby.” Noticing the puddle of blood at his feet, she ran back inside for something to wrap around the wound. Finding a black hand towel tossed over the back of the couch, she snagged it and returned to her patient. “This might hurt, but we have to do something about the blood. I need to lift your hand.”
In typical male fashion, Chance argued, “I’m fine. Just pull out the glass and put a Band-Aid on it.”
A Band-Aid was not going work on this. “Come on, hon. I don’t want to hurt you. Lift it up just a little so I can wrap this towel around your hand.”
Chance did as she asked, but as soon as the towel touched his skin, another litany of four-letter words filled the air. Naomi would rather cut off her own arm than hurt him this much, but she didn’t know what else to do. They had to stem the bleeding as best they could.
When he yowled again, she gave up. “Okay, then. We’ll just drape the towel around it. We need to get you to the hospital now. Where’s the barn?”
“Around back,” he replied, voice barely a whisper as his eyes slid shut. “Follow the driveway.”
“All right. I’ll be right back.”
Before she made it two steps, Chance called her back. “Wait. You need to block the window.”
He could not be serious. “Chance, there’s no time for that.”
“I don’t want Willie to get out. There are things out here that he can’t fight off.” He leaned on the arm of the chair to keep himself from sliding to the floor. “There’s a frame leaning against the wall by the fireplace. Just put that against the window so he can’t get out.”
Knowing it would be quicker to do what he asked than to stand around arguing, Naomi darted back inside and located the large frame leaning right where Chance said it would be. She hurried to the window and fitted it against the opening without looking to see what was on the other side. Closing the door behind her on her way out, she returned to the rocker only to be blinded as the ceiling fan light glistened off the makeshift window.
“Chance, that’s a gold record.”
“I know.” He leaned forward and spit between his boots. “Hurry up and get the truck. I’ll be at the end of the porch when you get here.”
“I’ll come back and help you.”
He threw his head back and she noticed the tinge of green in his cheeks. “Naomi, please. Just go.”
She got the message. She also knew that she didn’t want to see what he was about to do any more than he wanted her to see it. Heart racing, she hurried down the porch as fast as her heels would allow and headed for the barn with only her cell phone’s flashlight to guide her.
“Please, Lord,” she said aloud. “Don’t let there be snakes out here.”
Chance had never felt pain like this before. Every twitch of a finger. Every bump in the road. Hell, even thinking about it made the pain worse.
“We’re almost there. Not much longer now.”
Naomi had been uttering these reassurances for several miles. Since she’d had no idea where they were, Chance had managed to get her to the main road, but talking was growing more difficult by the second. Breathing was all he could manage by the time they reached the end of his long driveway, so she’d pulled out her phone and used the GPS to find the nearest hospital.
“It looks like a couple more lights now. Hang in there with me.”
Hanging in there was getting harder, too. He imagined his head felt similar to a helium-filled balloon. When he closed his eyes, everything spun, increasing the nausea that had left a mess on his front porch. And his boots.
As they sped up Nolensville Road, Naomi spoke to her fellow drivers as if they could hear her.
“We’re in a hurry here. Don’t you see my flashers? Get out of the way!”
Chance hoped someday he’d look back on this and laugh, but right now, he wanted to yell right along with her. Because reality was setting in, and it wasn’t good. He was a musician—a guitarist—with a giant piece of glass sticking out of his palm. Whatever this thing had severed was probably something he needed if he ever wanted to form another D chord.
There was also another reality. Hospitals meant meds. Opiates for pain. Opiates were worse than a bottle of bourbon for an alcoholic, and Chance had worked too hard in the last year to slide into that kind of hell.
“Do me a favor,” he muttered, forcing his lungs to keep working. “No pills.”
“What?” Naomi kept her eyes on the road. “Honey, you’re going to need something for the pain.”
“No pills. Don’t let them give me anything I can’t buy over the counter.”
“What you’re asking is crazy. Chance, you have an obscenely large piece of glass sticking out of your hand. I don’t think a Tylenol is going to cut it.”
She needed to listen to him. “Nay, please. I can’t get hooked. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Face pale in the passing street lights, she nodded. “Okay. No heavy meds. I promise.”
Out of energy, he slouched lower in the bucket seat. “Thanks, baby,” he mumbled before his world went black.
“Help us, please!” Naomi called as she dragged Chance into the emergency room.
Getting him out of the truck had been like dragging a sedated bear out of a tree. Not that she had experience at such things, but April had a thing for those game warden shows, so Naomi had seen a bear capture more than once.
Most of Chance’s weight was on her back, and if someone didn’t help soon, they were both going to be flat on the ground. Thankfully, three people in scrubs—two women and a man—came rushing out of the large brown doors to her left. When they reached for him, she yelled, “Watch his hand. He has glass in his left hand.”
Another woman, this one in regular street clothes, showed up with a wheelchair, and her helpers lowered him gently into the seat.
“What’s his name?” the man asked.
“Chance,” Naomi replied. “Chance Colburn.” Four sets of eyes looked up at her. “Yes, that Chance Colburn. Now just help him, already. I got him here as fast as I could, but he’s lost a lot of blood.”
One of the women—a nurse, Naomi presumed—pointed at her shirt. “Are you hurt?”
She glanced down to find blood splattered across the front of her white sweater. “No, I’m fine.” Which meant she was covered in Chance’s blood. Bile pooled in the back of her throat as her stomach flipped.
Reaching to touch her hair, the woman said, “You’ve got a pretty bad cut on this ear. Did you two have a fight?”
“What?” Naomi smacked her hand away, anger suppressing the nausea. “No. We were locked out of the house and Chance tried to jimmy a window to get us in. The glass broke and . . . Why are you asking me these questions?” She was too frantic to notice the tears rolling down her cheeks. “You need to take care of him.” She held out her sweater. “He’s bleeding, for God’s sake.”
The woman who’d arrived with the wheelchair patted Naomi’s arm. “Okay, honey. They’re going to take good care of Mr. Colburn.” The people in scrubs pushed him toward the doors, and Naomi tried to follow. “You can’t go back there right now. The doctors need to assess the situation without anyone in the way. But you can help me get things started out here. Do you have his insurance information?”
Naomi fought to get to the doors. “No, I don’t. But I need to go back there. Chance doesn’t want any drugs. I need to make sure the doctor knows that.”
“Mr. Colburn is in a lot of pain. The doctors will make sure he gets what he needs.”
“But that isn’t what he wants.”
“Miss, what is your name?”
Wiping her cheeks, she answered the question. “I’m Naomi Mallard.”
“Good. Okay. Ms. Mallard, I’m Valerie, and it’s my job to get Mr. Colburn into the computer so we can get him the proper treatment. Are you Mr. Colburn’s girlfriend?”
“No.” She nearly said yes, but a few kisses in a limousine didn’t award her that title. “I’m his publicist.”
The patient woman with the kind eyes pulled her gently toward a row of chairs against the wall behind them. “Does Mr. Colburn have any family you can call? Someone who could give us the information we need?”
Naomi allowed herself to be lowered into a chair. “I could call his manager.” Buoyed by renewed purpose, she bounded back up. “Shelly. I need to call Shelly.”
“That’s his manager?” Valerie asked.
“No. I mean yes. But she’s also his sister.” Looking down, she found her bloodstained hands were empty. “I need my phone. What did I do with my phone?”
Valerie edged her toward a set of windows with little round holes in the center. “I have a phone in here you can use.”
But Naomi didn’t know Shelly’s number. She needed her phone.
“I must have left it in the truck. Oh my gosh, the truck is still running outside. That’s Chance’s truck. I can’t leave it like that.”
Dark hands clasped her shoulders. “I need you to breathe for me. Focus now. In and out. Come on. You can do it.”
Naomi tried to follow the instructions, but her heart felt like someone was squeezing it out of her chest. Pressing on her breastbone, she felt the panic rise.
Oh no. Not now.
“I just need a minute,” she panted. “I can do this.”
Recognizing the signs, Valerie fanned Naomi’s face. “Do you suffer from panic attacks, Ms. Mallard?”
“Not in the last few years.” The words came out strained, as if her vocal cords had called it a day.
The office lady once again settled her in a chair. “Stay right here while I get someone to help you.”
Naomi shook her head to insist that she didn’t need assistance, but the words wouldn’t come. Bending over, she pressed her hands against her eyes and willed her brain to keep its shit together.