Page 31 of The Coppersmith Farmhouse (Jamison Valley 1)
Because every time I thought about that snake, I shivered. To say I was terrified of snakes was an understatement. Bugs, rodents, heights. Totally fine by me.
Snakes?
No thank you.
I didn’t want to be reminded of this incident for years because of two circular scars.
I’d been in the ER for about ten minutes and was going to need to sit there and let the medications do their work for an hour.
Ida was working in the ER today, and since it was slow, she’d taken Roe to get a snack and walk around a bit while Everett tended to me. He was the weekend’s on-call doctor and luckily, he was already in the building when I arrived so I hadn’t waited long to be treated.
This was a very good thing. Because I had firmly held it together on the drive into town and when explaining my situation to Ida, but as I was getting set up in the ER bed, the adrenaline was leaving my system and pain was taking the spotlight.
My fraying ends were going to unravel soon and I didn’t want to scare Rowen more than I already had.
She was a trooper, my girl. I was absolutely getting that karaoke machine she’d been begging me for. The least I could do to reward her for such a stoic show was listen to her sing Frozen songs on loop for endless hours each night. Torture for me, yes, but today she’d earned it.
Since Rowen still wasn’t back, I decided to close my eyes for a minute. No sooner had my top lid hit the bottom than a pounding noise rang in my ears.
Not a headache.
I opened my eyes to see an extremely unhappy Jess storming down the hallway.
Destination? Me.
He stopped a few feet into the ER bay, gave me a once-over and planted his hands on his hips. Today, he had traded his white T-shirt for a navy one. It made his eyes appear even bluer than normal. Blue, but very pissed off.
“She okay?” he asked Everett.
“She’ll be fine. I’ll get out of your way and she can give you the details,” Everett answered, then scurried out of the room.
Coward.
Jess turned back to me and removed his hands from his hips to cross them over his chest.
“Where’s Rowen?” he asked.
“She’s at home, cleaning the house and baking a cake.”
Jess’s eyes narrowed and I swear steam started to roll from the top of his head.
“Kidding. She’s right behind you.”
I made a mental note not to joke with Jess when he was angry.
He swung around to see Roe walking up to us with Ida.
When she saw him, Roe ran the last few feet toward him and jumped into his arms.
Neither Jess nor Rowen said anything for a few moments. He just held her as she burrowed her face into his shoulder and wrapped her little legs as far around his waist as they could stretch.
To my knowledge, Roe hadn’t ever hugged Jess, so a running leap into a full-body embrace meant my baby girl was one hundred percent freaked way the hell out.
Eff.
“You okay, little bit?” he asked softly in her ear.
She nodded and unwrapped her arms from his neck, leaning toward me.
