Page 87 of Caretaker

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I went home with a cast on my arm and a big bottle of painkillers. Luckily, only one bone was fractured, and surgery hadn’t been required.

Good thing, too. I didn’t have time for surgery.

Shane was staying in the hospital for another night—maybe longer, depending on how he did the next day.

The nurse called a cab for me, but when she wheeled me out of the hospital the sun was shining and Angus leaned against his truck, waiting for me.

“What are you doing here?” I sounded drunk. My voice was slurred and my eyes were heavy, and I drifted in and out of a soft, fuzzy sleep.

He lifted me from the wheelchair and carried me to the truck. “Taking you home.”

“News?” I rested my head against the back of the seat and drifted, and then the sound of the engine turning over startled me awake. “I’m out of it,” I told him. “So tired.”

“I’ll get you home and put you to bed.”

I was asleep again before he’d finished talking. The crisis had passed, and I was exhausted. I’d also been pumped full of pain medication. Yeah, I was out of it.

I woke up again, sort of, when Angus lowered me into bed. “Sleep, baby,” he murmured, tenderly, and brushed my hair off my forehead. “I’ll take care of you.”

It was six o’clock that evening before I sat up in bed, my mouth dry and full of cotton, my brain still fuzzy. I frowned, disoriented. I wasn’t in my room.

Angus had put me to bed in his room. His bed. And the other side of the big bed was rumpled. I recalled foggy visions of a heavy arm across my stomach, a quiet voice soothing me when I’d been startled awake by bad dreams, and the constant warm scent of…Angus. It’d wrapped around me, cocooning me in safety, and I’d sunk down into it and slept. Recovered.

“I put Leo in your room.”

Angus stood in the doorway, watching me.

“How is he?” I rubbed my eyes, yawned hugely, and tried to crawl out of the fuzzy arms of sleep that still wanted to hold me.

He sat down beside me and handed me a glass of icy water. “Don’t worry about him. How are you feeling?” He reached into the bedside drawer and withdrew a prescription bottle.

I stopped him when he started to twist off the cap. “I’m okay. No more pills. They make me fuzzy.”

He grinned but tossed the bottle back into the drawer. “I like you fuzzy.”

“Angus.” I handed him back the empty glass. “What’s the news? Any sign of Clayton or Alejandro? Rhys?”

He sighed, then leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “The city is in an uproar. I don’t know what’ll happen once they sort everything out, but Crawford called twice today already, wanting to talk to you.”

I put my right hand to my chest. “He got off the island? He’s okay?”

He squinted at me. “Yeah, he’s okay, Trin.” He looked like he wanted to question me further, but shrugged and dropped the subject of Crawford. “Rhys is home.” He pointed his chin at the vase of flowers on the chest. “He had those delivered for you. Said tell you to rest. He has not heard from Alejandro.”

“Dammit,” I whispered. “I hope Al’s okay.” I hadn’t really been worried about Rhys. I’d known he’d escaped the island, because he’d carried us across. And I was more curious than ever about the mysterious and obviously powerful Rhys Graver.

“No sign of Clayton,” he said gently. “I called Miriam and when she didn’t answer, I went to her house. She looked like hell. She said she’d tried calling him home and he hadn’t appeared.”

And we both knew what that meant. “No.” I put my hand to my mouth, trying to keep my sobs contained, but they burst free anyway. “He can’t be dead. All she has to do is find him and put him back together, just like always. Isn’t that right? Did she say she would?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think she’s bringing him back.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, then realized I was dressed only in my underwear. “Give me my phone. I’ll make her bring him back.”

He didn’t even try to talk sense into me. Didn’t tell me that Clayton wanted to die, that he would finally find his niche, that the torture was over.

He knew I understood all that.