Page 76 of Silver-Tongued Devil

The shout had come from him. He wasn’t underwater, he was in a hospital bed. And Dakota was beside him, sitting up herself, looking sleepy and confused but absolutely alive, pushing her hair out of her face.

She was here. Right here. She was fine.

“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong? Your… your knee?” Her voice was raspy, and she coughed a few times. See? More life.

“Oh.” Blake felt stupid and fuzzy. It was the drugs. “No. Bad dream, that’s all.”

“Do you want a drink of water?” she asked.

He almost laughed, it was so prosaic after the horror of his nightmare. “Sure. Thanks.”

She reached over for it and handed it to him, and when he’d drunk from the straw, she took the cup from him and drank herself. It was so unexpectedly intimate, and something in that sharing, and in seeing how pale her face was, the tubes and wires, the mess of her hair, was making his chest tighten.

“Sorry, baby,” he said. “Wrecked your nap.”

“No,” she said. “That’s all right. Bad dreams are the worst.”

He lay down with her again. She came right back into his arms, and it was so much better. “Except maybe good dreams,” he said. “You ever have those?”

“Like when you’re talking to somebody you love, and you wake up smiling, and then you realize they’re gone? Yeah.” She sighed. “Those can be even worse. They feel so good, and they’re not true.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, thatwouldbe worse. I was more thinking like you’re playing football, and you wake up and you’re not.”

“I suppose that would be bad, too,” she said. “Maybe not quite the same, though.”

Eventually, he fell asleep again, and when he woke the next time, it was to the sound of voices. A nurse, he found when he blinked awake, who was switching the IV bag on Dakota’s stand.

“Oh,” Blake said. “Sorry. I’ll just…” He got his good leg on the floor and himself in the chair.

“No problem,” the nurse said. She had a thermometer in Dakota’s ear now. “We’re usually one to a customer, but we make exceptions.”

Dakota asked, “What time is it?”

“Almost two,” the nurse said, and Blake blinked again.

Dakota said, “That was a while. Our nap.”

“It was,” the nurse said. “I’ve been in here twice. That’s good, though. You might as well sleep. Sleep is healing, and being in the hospital’s boring otherwise.”

“Do you know where my stepdad is?” Dakota asked. “Russell? I don’t have my phone, or… or anything.”

“He went home to get you some clothes, since you’re likely to be released soon.” The nurse wrote something on Dakota’s chart. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”

“Uh…” Dakota glanced at Blake again. “Yes. Please.”

“Good. That’s what we like to hear. I’ll give you a hand. It can be a little bit of a production.”

Dakota hesitated. “Uh… Blake?”

“Yeah?” he asked.

“This hospital gown is sort of, uh… do you think you could wait for me? Outside?”

“Oh.” He considered pointing out that she’d been naked, or close to it, during most of the time they’d spent together in the past eighteen hours or so, but decided it wouldn’t be too helpful. Women were weird about things like this. “Sure,” he said instead. “I’ll go down and grab some coffee and something to eat, and get you something, too, if you want. You must be hungry.”

“All right,” she said. “Or you could go home. I’m all right.”

That one rocked him back. “Do you want me to go home? Want to be alone?” The nurse was still waiting, but too bad. He needed to know.