Page 16

I paced back and forth at the hospital, waiting to get news on how Kyrie was doing. When we got the call, a horrible feeling hit my gut. I wasn’t sure where he was going or why, but whoever was watching him had known he was at Grandma’s house for them to catch up with him so soon after leaving.

He told me he’d just left her house and was heading to his mother’s house. I didn’t know what was going on, but hopefully, he would enlighten me. The doctor approached me and said, “He had a couple of broken ribs that we had to reset and repair. The man is strong. That vehicle flipped several times. He also has some lacerations from the glass cutting him, along with a concussion. We’re going to keep him here for a couple of days for observation.”

I released the breath I was holding. Just because he seemed okay and only a little banged up, that didn’t mean that all was okay internally. I was worried about him. “When can I see him?”

“In another hour or so.”

“Thanks, Doctor Clark.”

Finally, I sat in a chair in the waiting room. I had been pacing for nearly three hours. Kyrie had said not to let his mom come to the hospital but for her to get out of town as soon as possible. That made me nervous for my mama and grandma. If things weren’t safe, maybe they should leave, too, since Kyrie’s last known location was at my grandmother’s house.

I grabbed my phone and called Ms. Carolyn. She answered on the first ring, sounding completely panicked. “Genesis, is he okay?”

“Yes, ma’am. He’ll be fine. He has a couple of broken ribs, a few lacerations from all the glass, and a concussion. They are going to keep him here for a couple of days to monitor him.”

As I talked to her, listening to her try to keep it together, I noticed a detective approaching me. “Miss Carolyn, let me call you back. I need to speak with a detective.”

“Okay. Please, call me right back, Genesis.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I ended the call and stood, staring at the lady as she approached. “Hello, I’m Detective Johnson. Is he gonna be okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I wasn’t sure what to reveal to her, because at this point, I didn’t know who could be trusted. Someone in the system was dirty, and for all I knew, it could be her.

“Can we sit?”

I nodded and sat back in the chair I was in. She glanced at me and said, “I really like the haircut, Chief.”

“Thank you.”

She nodded. “I called him with some information I found out. He apparently had found something as well, because we’re suspecting involvement from the same person. He knew he wasn’t safe at Grandma Jean’s. That’s the only reason I could think that he would leave.”

I nodded as I tried to think of all the people that were supposed to be investigating this case. “I’ll be able to see him in an hour or so. Are you going to hang around?”

“Yes,” she said as she tensed slightly.

I looked up to see the lieutenant approaching us. “Why in the hell did he leave the safe house?”

“I don’t know,” she answered calmly. “We haven’t been able to see him yet.

“Hello, Chief. Congratulations again on your position. I’m Lieutenant Gamble.”

I nodded. “Hello. I’m familiar, sir.”

Detective Johnson stood and said, “We’ll be right back.”

I nodded as I watched them walk away. She glanced back at me. I was sure she was communicating something. I just wasn’t sure what. It definitely had to do with Lieutenant Gamble. There was no way I could let Kyrie continue to deal with these people alone. He’d already gotten into two accidents, survived a drive-by, and survived a fire. The next attempt, he may not be so lucky.

After his text message earlier, my heart was soft. Although I’d only responded with a simple thank you, my heart wanted to say so much more. It wanted to ask him if his pride was greater than our love.

It wanted to ask him if what we had was worth losing over a disagreement.

It wanted to ask him if there was some sort of agreement we could come to and meet each other in the middle.

I’d had other relationships in the past, but he and I had something so special. The way I felt for him in such a short amount of time was overwhelming. I was only twenty-seven years old, but I couldn’t see myself with anyone but him. He’d gotten my soft nurturing side… a side I barely knew even existed anymore. She didn’t come out of hiding easily, but with him, because of how we met, she was front and center from day one.

As I sat, waiting to see Kyrie, I received a text from a fellow firefighter. Chief, when are you coming back? Bransford is walking around here getting on everyone’s nerves about how he should be running the place and how you’ll eventually mess up. I’m ready to punch him right in his hating ass lips.

I took a deep breath. I just knew Bransford would have put in his transfer by now. He was hanging around, seemingly to make everyone miserable. I had been at training class at the Downtown fire station all week. So they hadn’t seen me but for a couple of hours a day. However, he didn’t know me as well as he thought. I would make him just as miserable. I responded to the text message.

Next week, I will be back full time, and I promise, he will hate every minute of it. He hates taking orders, especially from me. We will talk when I get back.

He sent the smiling devil emoji, and I chuckled. I’d never seen a firefighter more disliked than Bransford. Now my chief said a guy named Oscar Monroe was the fire chief before him, and he was hell on wheels. He said he was hell on wheels before he even became chief. More women came to that fire station than a few, and he was a married man. I could only shake my head at that revelation. I prayed that I would never have to deal with a man with wandering eyes. If Kyrie and I could work through our differences, I would probably never have to deal with such blatant disrespect.

“Chief?”

I turned to see a nurse beckoning me over to her. I quickly stood and made my way to her. “It hasn’t been an hour yet, but he’s awake and asking for you. The procedure was short and only done to stabilize the bones. If nothing else pops up, he will be good to go,” she said as I followed her to the back.

“What about the lacerations? How bad were they?”

“He had one in his arm that was pretty deep. They cleaned it out real good. There was still glass in it. So he has stitches there and in another spot on his leg. The others were all minor and will heal in time.”

I nodded. When she got to where he was in recovery, I could see him lying still and staring straight ahead. He was propped up with quite a bit of pillows. I made note of that so I would know how to take care of him and how he should be taken care of when I couldn’t be there.

When he looked over and saw me, he gave me a tight smile. The nurse smiled at him and asked, “Is this beautiful lady who you wanted?”

“Yeah. Thanks,” he said softly.

I went to his bedside and slid my hand in his. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he replied. “I like your cut. It’s beautiful on you.”

I smiled and ran my hand down the back of my head. “Thank you.”

“You’re blushing.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to step away from him, but he wouldn’t release my hand. When I stared into his eyes, he said, “I missed you. I thought I was protecting you. I’m sorry I broke your heart. Please let me try to fix it.”

I lowered my gaze to our hands and softly caressed his with my thumb. Looking back up at him, I said, “I’m a firefighter, Kyrie. I’ll try to remember to tone down my protective instincts when we’re together, but it’s who I am. I save people.”

“I understand, Genesis. I just need you to understand me. In no circumstance do I want you putting your life on the line for mine. Saving me today and from the burning building, I get it. That’s your job. However, when shots rang out at Some Other Place was a totally different ball game and out of your scope of expertise. In situations like that, I need you to be protected, not the protector. I love you. I will never be able to accept you laying down your life for me to have mine.”

I lowered my head again and nodded. “I understand.”

“Is that something we can compromise on?”

“I don’t know. I’ll let you know when I finally get my seafood dinner.”

A slow smile made its way to my lips as I leaned over and kissed his. Heat went through my body, just as it had done earlier, when his lips touched mine. When I pulled away, I said, “I missed and love you too.”

He finally released my hand so I could sit in the chair next to him. “So, I know you don’t plan to leave me in the dark about what happened, but Detective Johnson is out there, and she seemed a little tight when the lieutenant arrived. She was talking to him privately when I came back here. They will probably be making their way back before long. So is there something you can tell me about what happened?”

He nodded. I knew he really didn’t want to talk about it, since he had been so tight lipped about it before. Things were getting more intense, and if I was his woman, I needed to know what was going on so I could be aware of what or who I needed to look out for. Plus, my grandmother could possibly be a target for whoever was after him.

As my mind raced, before he could say a word, I said, “Oh shit.”

“Oh shit, what?” he asked.

“For them to be using my grandmother as a safe house, one of two things has to be true. Jesus Christ. Samuel has to be in on this. My daddy will turn flips in his grave if he is. If he isn’t involved in the corruption, he’s being blackmailed or forced to cooperate. How else would they know to use my grandmother’s house unless Samuel introduced them to her? It’s just so random that they used her. They used her before, but they know we had something going on… I mean, it just all seems so coincidental, along with Samuel’s disdain for us dating.”

“Shit,” he said breathlessly.

We were both quiet as we allowed the information I’d just spewed to settle into our minds. “Why would Samuel get involved in this? I mean, if he needed money, he could have come to me or Mama. My mother got compensated handsomely when Daddy was killed. She invested a lot, too, and that only made her more money. He knows that. She would have gladly helped him. I just don’t understand it.”

Kyrie coughed then groaned. I could imagine that would hurt with fractured ribs. He brought his hand to them as the nurse came inside. “You okay, Judge?”

“Yes. I just coughed.”

“Ooooh, I know that’s painful. I’m sorry.”

She gave him a tight smile, and he did the same to her as I watched her fumble with the ice packs in her hands. “We have to ice your ribs for fifteen to twenty minutes to keep the swelling down. You’ll have to do this for at least the next week. The doctor may recommend longer. After that time has passed, you’ll be able to use heat.”

Kyrie nodded then winced as she laid the ice packs on him. “Start that timer immediately,” he said.

She chuckled. “I started it before I put them on you. So you’ll get a fifteen-second advantage. Once I take these off, you’ll be getting transported to a room. You have people waiting to see and talk to you.”

He nodded as she left us alone again. I stared at him for a moment and asked, “Where will you stay?”

“Probably my house. There’s no point in going back to Grandma Jean’s house.”

“Oh, so you’ve adopted my grandma as yours?”

“Absolutely. She’s a fun time. I had to beat her ass in dominoes for her to calm down a bit.”

I laughed and lightly clapped. My grandmother thought she was a master of dominoes. Unless you could beat her, you would never have her respect. I ran my hand down the back of my head again as I questioned myself about what I was about to say. We’d just gotten back together, and I was ready to dive all the way back in. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my insides. The way my body was trembling, it was like I was about to ask him to marry me.

“Just say it, baby,” he said.

I looked at him to find him staring at me. “I umm…”

“Genesis, why are you nervous? I know we just got back together, but I was hoping we would just be picking up from where we left off and not starting over. Tell me, baby.”

Although I knew he was talking softly because he was in pain, he sounded so sexy. My body didn’t even care that he was injured. It was still filled with desire. “I was going to offer my place. You can stay with me if you want to.”

He smiled slightly. “I want to, but I think my house is best. My mama can come and go as she needs to, because I know she didn’t leave town. She’s so hardheaded.”

“She’s worried about you. She wants to come up here so bad.”

“Yeah, I know. Can you call her so I can talk to her?”

“Yeah.”

I dialed her number, and she answered immediately, not bothering to say hello. “Is everything okay? How’s my baby?”

“He’s in recovery and doing fine, Miss Carolyn.”

I put the phone on speaker just as she said, “Kyrie wanted me to leave, but he has to be out of his mind if he thinks I’m going to abandon him. He’ll just have to get over it and accept that he has some strong, loyal women who will tear this raggedy ass city up when it comes to him.”

I laughed as Kyrie extended his hand so I could give him the phone. “Woman, tone all that down.”

“Oh, thank God. Baby, I was so worried. To hell with what you say. I’m coming up there.”

“Mama, there are seriously people trying to get at me. You don’t think they may try to get to you to get me?”

“Absolutely not. To hell with those people. You’re my baby. You are not the boss of me. I’m the boss, Kyrie Jameel Patrick. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah. I hear you.”

“Excuse me? Don’t play with me, boy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said as I snickered.

He side-eyed me as I did my best to hold in my laughter.

“That’s better. Don’t have me whupping your butt in front of my daughter-in-law.”

I had to be red because my face heated up tremendously. Kyrie turned to me, staring at me. There wasn’t a smile in sight. “Never that, Ma. I wouldn’t dare let you embarrass me in front of your daughter-in-law.”

That did nothing for my emotions. My eyes watered as my body trembled. Kyrie was mine again. I wasn’t for the back and forth, so I hoped he would take the time to talk to me before acting. I was only allowing one comeback. Yeah right.