Page 159 of Dying to Meet You

I open my eyes, but the room swims, and I let them fall closed again. Everything is heavy.

“Hey, Gallagher,” says a voice nearby. “Feel like waking up? I’ll buy you a beer.”

Harrison.

With great effort, I open my eyes. All these years later I still feel the pull. It’s strong enough to motivate me to roll my eyes toward his voice.

I find him sitting close to my hospital bed, stroking my left hand. My right one feels immobile, and it takes me a moment to remember why. “How’d it go?” I croak, meaning the surgery I just had.

“Pretty good,” he says, a furrow in his handsome forehead. “They got all the bones lined up where they want them. No surprises.”

“Okay.” I relax against the pillow. “Let the healing begin. Where is Natalie?”

“Doing donuts on my motorcycle in the parking lot.”

“Harrison.”

He gives me a sly grin. “Tessa brought a pizza. They’re eating it in the hospital cafeteria. I told her I’d text her when you woke up. So hang on...” He lets go of my hand and pulls out his phone.

“You can let her eat.”

“Yeah, but she made me promise.”

It’s been two days since Beatrice attacked me. I spent yesterday having my hand scanned and waiting for the hand surgeon to decide on his course of action. Between medical exams, Detective Fry asked me questions until I was so exhausted that I literally fell asleep in the middle of a conversation with him.

I’m not sure how useful I was. My memory of what happened after Natalie came pounding up the staircase is pretty shaky. I’m told that I managed to convey two things clearly: that the gun was loaded, and that Beatrice had been trying to kill me.

I have only vague memories of Harrison struggling—and finally succeeding—to pull Lickie off Beatrice.

Beatrice lost a lot of blood after Lickie nicked an artery, but somehow survived. She’ll be charged in Tim’s death and my attempted murder. And she’ll be undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.

In the meantime, I’ll be spending the next several months rehabbing my hand and trying to regain my grip strength and range of motion. That crazy bitch stomped on my drafting hand.

Thinking about it makes me burn.Anotherperson I trusted.

The recovery-room nurse comes buzzing by to check on me. She makes some notes on my chart and encourages me to sit up a few degrees as the anesthetic wears off. Her energy exhausts me. “Can I have some water, please?”

“Here.” Harrison produces a cup with a straw from a table on wheels. He brings the straw close to my face.

I still have one good hand, so I take the cup and help myself. But when I’m done, he gently puts the cup back. Then he takes my hand in his and kisses the back of it, his beard tickling my skin.

It’s so confusing to realize that the man who gave me all my trust issues is the one I can most rely on right now. He’s taking good care of me, and of our daughter. I’m basically staring at him in wonder as Natalie comes prancing through the door.

“Mom! How does it feel?”

Astonishingis my first thought, as Harrison gently squeezes my hand in his. But Natalie is talking about my hand. “Ask me in a couple weeks, baby. But right now, I’m fine.”

Her smile is tired, because it’s been a terrifying week.

But it’s a little less terrifying now.

***

They move me to a regular hospital room a little later, and I spend the afternoon napping. My father comes by to see how I’m doing.

I hadn’t told him that Harrison was staying with us, and apparently he got a little testy when Harrison called him to tell him that I’d been hospitalized. I heard Natalie take the phone and more or less tell her grandpa to knock it off.

He’s behaved himself ever since. And after spending a few minutes asking questions about my surgical outcome, he makes an announcement. “I’ve come to steal Natalie away for dinner and a movie marathon.”