‘He’s in surgery,’ Mackenzie told Lois a couple of hours later when the other woman joined her and Hans in the waiting room outside the operating theatres of the hospital.
‘Still?’ Lois asked with a frown.
‘It hasn’t been long. He didn’t go into theatre straight away,’ Mac assured her. ‘There were others with more urgent injuries.’
‘Shit! It’s the messiest operation I’ve ever been involved in. There’ll be a huge enquiry into this.’
‘At least it’s over,’ Mac said with relief. ‘King Gabriel flew over as soon as he heard about Dev being shot, and he’s just gone to see if there’s any news about how the surgery is going.’
‘Can I talk to you for a little bit, alone?’ Lois asked her.
‘Yes.’ Mackenzie welcomed the distraction. She was up and out of her chair before Lois had even finished the question. ‘I won’t be long,’ she told Hans.
‘There’s a spare room just down on the right,’ Lois said as they walked past a couple of the royal bodyguards from Santaliana and along the hospital corridor.
Mac looked sideways at her and wondered how Lois coped with all the danger she faced with each assignment she undertook.
‘Devereaux’s strong. He’ll be fine,’ Lois told her—intercepting her look and mistaking the reason for it.
‘I hope so.’ The paramedics had given every indication that Dev would make a full recovery and she pinned all her hope on a positive outcome.
Lois stopped in front of a room, opened the door and motioned for Mac to go inside. Following Mac in and closing the door behind her she said, ‘I got a look at his wound site. It was too low to hit the stomach, and not deep enough to reach the kidneys. No serious damage done.’
No serious damage? Was she for real? Had she seen all the blood?
Mac was still lost in the awful mental picture of Dev’s wound when Lois shrugged out of her jacket and hitched up her camisole top. ‘This one was serious,’ she said, pointing to a scar. ‘It got my lungs.’
Mac’s eyes widened and she leant forward for a closer look. ‘Is that a bullet wound?’
‘Yep. I was lucky it wasn’t an inch higher or it would’ve got my heart.’
The blood rushed towards her calves and she felt light-headed. ‘How did you get shot?’
Lois shrugged. ‘On a mission.’
‘Is Dev still in danger?’
‘No.’ The word was adamant. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. This whole thing is going down as Prince Devereaux being caught in crossfire when Scampinelli was arrested. None of this will come back to haunt him.’
‘What about you?’
‘As far as Vito knows, I was taken to the station for questioning but then released. That’s what the police records will show. I was interviewed legitimately to cover my tracks, although I doubt he’ll spare me a second thought.’
‘I don’t know how you do what you do.’
‘Someone has to do it.’ She sat forward a little on the edge of the bed.
Mac wanted to sit down too. Her legs were tired and felt like they’d give out before too long.
‘Unfortunately, it’ll be an office job for me now for awhile because this assignment put me in the public eye too much. If I want to do field work again, I’ll probably need to have some plastic surgery so I’m not recognisable.’
Mac sucked in a breath at the radical requirement. ‘Will you go back to the field?’
‘Definitely. I had to lay low after Grayson’s death when my image was plastered around from the hotel security camera footage. Office work drives me nuts.’
The way Lois lived wasn’t something Mac even wanted to relate to.
‘Listen, I have to go,’ Lois said, ‘but I wanted to say goodbye. Take care, Mackenzie. I’m sorry we’ve encountered each other twice now under less than favourable circumstances. I hope there’s never a cause for our paths to cross again.’ Lois gave her a quick, awkward hug and was gone before Mac could say another word.
As she made her way back towards the waiting room, Mac agreed with Lois’s sentiments. She hoped this was one case where things didn’t come in threes.
A surgeon left the waiting room. Picking up her pace, she was running by the time she got into the room.
‘You’ve got news?’ she burst out, not caring for any royal protocol as she addressed Gabe.
‘It’s okay, Mackenzie. The surgery was straight forward and went well.’
‘Oh, thank God.’ She hadn’t realised how tight her shoulders were until she heard the good news, and the tension lessened.
Gabriel held out his arms, and she stepped into his embrace and hugged him tight.
The King of Santaliana stroked his hand over her hair in a soothing action. ‘They’ll let us know as soon as the anaesthetic wears off and he’s up to receiving visitors.’
Unable to speak, she just nodded against his chest.
‘My brother’s going to be fine—although I think he’d probably have elevated blood pressure if he walked into the room now and saw you in my arms!’
Suddenly self-conscious, Mac drew back. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Gabe laughed. ‘Don’t be! Nothing wrong with receiving a brotherly hug in a time of crisis, and I suspect I may become your brother-in-law fairly soon.’
Mac wasn’t sure what to say to his suggestion, so she said nothing.
‘If I’m not mistaken, you’ll be the first person he wants to see when he comes to.’ Gabe’s smile was broad, ahead of feigned sternness. ‘If you aren’t, I’ll take great delight in smacking his thick skull until I knock some sense into him!’