CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DAKOTA STOOD AMONG the crowd, watching with her sister on her left and Grandmother on her right. They’d heard Dakota talking to Blade when he’d called and a moment later when she’d relayed the message to the sheriff. There was no way either would have stayed home.
Yet even with them by her, Dakota felt alone. She’d searched the crowd for Blade. He had to be there; he’d called.
“What’s happening?” Maria whispered.
“They loaded a man into the helicopter,” Dakota answered. “He looks hurt bad. I can see blood on the blanket and more on two of the firemen.”
“Is it our Hamilton?” Grandmother said, not caring who overheard. “I couldn’t see the bloody man’s face.”
“I think so. I heard one of the firemen say that the deputy was shot.” She looked for one detail, one thing to prove it wasn’t Blade. “I see dark hair. The guy on the stretcher is about his size.”
Grandmother grumbled. “He’s our Hamilton. If anyone is going to shoot him it should be us. This makes me fighting mad.”
“What should we do?” Maria asked.
“I vote one of us goes to the hospital.” Dakota saw the fear on her big sister’s face. “I’ll take you and Grandmother home first. But, I have to go, Maria. I have to know if it’s him.”
Maria nodded. “He’ll understand why I can’t go. Tell him I wanted to, but I can’t go back there. The smells. The noise.”
Dakota gripped her sister’s hand and held on tightly like she had years ago when Maria was so afraid of the dark that she couldn’t find her way out of. “I’ll tell him. He’ll understand.”
“If he’s got any sense left,” Grandmother added. “A bullet in the brain could scramble him good. I wouldn’t want that, not even for a Hamilton.”
“He told me to call the sheriff. All he said was ‘man down.’ He didn’t tell me it was him.”
Maria gripped Dakota’s arm. “Maybe he didn’t want to worry you. Maybe he knew he was dying.”
An old man slapped the side of the helicopter and yelled, “Get Deputy Hamilton there fast, boys!” The engines roared.
Dakota felt tears on her cheeks. “It’s him. I have to go.”
They started back to the pickup with Grandmother talking to no one in particular. “I’d go with you, girl, but I’ve got to get back to watching that ghost crawling around near Indigo Lake. I need to be on guard, or he might just float over the water and step foot on our land.”
Dakota didn’t want to fall into one of Grandmother’s stories. Not tonight. Not with Blade on his way to the big Lubbock hospital.
They rode home in silence. Once inside, Maria made her a basket of food while Dakota packed a few things in a bag. Hospital things she might need. Water, a toothbrush, aspirin, change, a notebook, a small pillow.
“Call me and let me know how he is.” Maria hugged her. “He’s a good man. Don’t let him be there all alone.”
Both women knew the other’s world. When time was measured in shift changes. Dakota couldn’t leave Blade there, hurt and by himself.
“I will,” she promised. She was in a hurry.
“He doesn’t have any family, Dakota. Stay close. Someone tried to kill him.” Maria had come to the same conclusion she had.
“You mean besides Grandmother?” Dakota smiled.
Maria shook her head. “I think Grandmother likes him too. She asked me if we had enough in the Mason jar to buy his land. She said it wouldn’t be Hamilton land anymore if we bought it. It would be Davis land.”
“I’ll suggest that if no one looks at his property. Maybe he’d let us pay him in jelly because the Mason jar only has ones in it.” She picked up her bag and the basket. “I’ll call in with reports. I promise.”
They hugged as if Dakota were leaving on a long journey and not simply driving two hours to Lubbock. Maria remained on the porch, worry on her beautiful face as Dakota got into the pickup and headed out.
Dakota drove the two hours to the hospital, playing the radio as loud as it would go, but she didn’t remember a single song she heard. Once parked and in the hospital she spent half an hour talking her way up to Blade’s room. The guard just outside the door searched her bag and the basket, then frowned when he finally let her in. “I was told he wouldn’t have visitors.”
“I’m family,” she answered. After all, her family had killed most of his family, so that had to make her near to being next of kin.
She bumped her way in and was surprised to see Blade sitting up in bed. Bandaged, plugged into machines and looking very sleepy.
“Hi, Elf. About time you got here.”
“How’d you know I’d come at all, Hamilton?”
He was drugged up enough on painkillers to be honest. “Whether you want to admit it or not, we’re attracted to each other and I don’t mean in a let’s-be-friends kind of way. I’d find you if you flew off in a bird and I figured you’d find me.”
She moved closer, making sure one of those shots he took wasn’t in the head. Absently, she combed his curly hair back. She needed to touch him.
He closed his eyes and smiled. “You could do that all night.”
“I’m just checking that some of your brains aren’t leaking out. I heard someone say you were shot in a dark parking lot wearing black. Were you trying to hide or just make it hard on the shooter?”
“Brown.” His eyes slowly closed. “Get the facts right, sweetheart.”
“Since when did I become your sweetheart?”
“When I passed out from losing a few quarts of blood in the third-floor jail, the last face I saw before all went black was you. I guess that makes it simple. You’re my sweetheart. We need to sleep together to make it official, but not tonight. I’ve had a rough day.” He was fighting sleep and losing the battle. “There’s no privacy around here, anyway. They even cut my underwear off.” He managed a weak smile. “Want to look?”
“No.” She laughed.
She might as well be honest. “I’m not a one-night-stand kind of girl, Blade. I thought you understood that, so you might as well give up on the sweetheart label. We won’t be sleeping together.”
“And I’m not a stay-around kind of guy so you won’t have much time to change your mind.”
He closed his eyes and she wondered if he was asleep.
She moved along the bedside and took his big hand between hers. There were tubes attached to him, but she needed to feel him, flesh on flesh. He was an interesting man. If she ever decided to sleep with a stranger, it would be a man like him. Someone who could make her laugh. Someone who could make her feel.
She had dreams, goals, responsibilities. She didn’t have time for a few wild nights that would probably mix up her mind for months. One-night stands were for wild people, free people, but the what-if settled into the corners of her mind.
What if she risked one night of her life? One piece of her heart. Would she live the rest of her life regretting it, or treasuring the memory?
He opened his now bloodshot gray eyes and mumbled, “Couldn’t we meet in the middle? You come away with me for a few weeks. I could recover. We could talk and go out to eat, and sleep together if it felt right and I was up for it. Think of it as a vacation.”
Shaking her head, she realized that wasn’t what she wanted at all. It would have to be far more, or nothing at all.
She thought of hitting him, but that didn’t seem fair. His left shoulder and arm were bandaged and his right side had a long line of tape on it. “No, Hamilton. I can’t leave for weeks,” she answered politely, “but I will stay here and watch over you while you sleep.”
He closed his eyes again but his hand held on to hers.
“Now get some sleep, Hamilton,” she whispered.
“You running my life, Elf?” he whispered with a smile.
“Someone needs to,” she said, knowing he was probably too far into sleep to answer. “The minute I wasn’t watching over you, you managed to get yourself shot.”
She studied him as he rested. Cleaned up, he looked almost handsome. His jaw was cut a little too hard. His hair a bit too long. But his lips were perfect. She leaned over and kissed those lips softly. “In another lifetime, maybe,” she whispered. This one was already packed.
He didn’t open his eyes again as the night slipped away into morning. Dakota never left his side, not even when the sheriff came in to check on him. Brigman stayed awhile, then went out in the hallway to talk to the guard. The sheriff didn’t leave until the nurse assured him they would watch over Hamilton.
Dakota snacked on the cookies and fruit in the basket Maria had sent and watched the nurses come and go, but she didn’t talk to them.
Finally, a team of doctors came in. They didn’t seem to notice her as they checked Blade.
As they were leaving, one doctor, a woman in her forties, smiled at her, so Dakota asked, “How is he?”
The doc raised an eyebrow, “You family?”
“I’m all he’s got,” Dakota lied.
“I figured that, or the guard outside wouldn’t have let you stay.” She moved closer to Dakota and lowered her voice.
“The federal agent has had many inquiries about his health. He is doing great. He was very lucky. The bullet in his arm didn’t hit any bone, so it wasn’t hard to extract. It’ll heal quickly. The one at his side slid along, tearing up flesh and causing blood loss exacerbated by heightened activity after being shot.”
Dakota finally relaxed. Blade wasn’t going to die.
The doctor paused at the door. “You can go home if you like. We’ll watch over him.”
“If it’s all right, I’ll stay just a little longer.”
She pushed the recliner close to his bedside to hold his hand as she slept. Just before she drifted off, she smiled. He might not know it, but they were finally sleeping together...again.