Wild and Free: A Second Chance Romance (The Wilder Brothers Book 1)

by Nicole Elliot

  “Doesn’t matter when you had them. What matters is that you raised them and made a life for yourself,” I said.

  “Met a good man in the process, too. But don’t tell him about us. It’ll be our little secret,” she said, winking.

  “I’ll take it to my grave,” I said, laughing.

  She changed my dressing as I relaxed back onto the bed. I couldn’t get my mind off that beautiful woman from the bar. I closed my eyes and tried to conjure the name of it. The look of it. The theme of it. Anything to give me an idea as to what place I had stumbled into when I realized I didn’t have my cell phone on me.

  “Did anyone come into the hospital with me?” I asked.

  “Nope. Just the team of paramedics,” the nurse said.

  “So there wasn’t a young woman with blue eyes and blonde hair with them at all?”

  “Mr. Wilder, are you already cheating on me?”

  I laughed wholeheartedly as she placed another thick piece of gauze over my stitches and taped it down.

  “No, no one fitting that description came in with you last night.”

  “Do you, by any chance, know the bar the paramedics brought me over from?” I asked.

  “Not off the top of my head, but I could search around and see if that information is somewhere.”

  “I’d really appreciate it if you could, Nurse…?”

  “Delacourt. Erma Delacourt.”

  “A beautifully southern name for a beautifully southern woman,” I said.

  “Too bad I don’t have blonde hair and blue eyes,” she said, winking.

  “Your brown eyes and wisps of gray are beautiful all on their own. Never doubt that for a second.”

  “Don’t worry. I never do,” she said with confidence. “Now, I’m going to go call your parents then see if I can’t track down that information for you. In the meantime, no sudden movements. Those stitches are under a lot of tension, and if you bust any of them the only thing you’re going to be able to have is a local anesthetic to numb you up for stitches again. Which is essentially a big needle stuck straight into the exposed area.”

  “Yeah. Let’s not do that,” I said.

  “My thoughts exactly. But once your parents arrive, I’ll do a final check on you to make sure everything is stable, then you should be free to go.”

  “Even with that many stitches?” I asked.

  “Your movements will be restricted and there will be no heavy lifting or working on ladders, painting, or anything else you and your brothers do to restore houses, but yes. Even with that many stitches.”

  “So, I’m bedridden.”

  “You make it sound so terrible. There are many people in this world who would love to be bedridden for a few weeks.”

  “Weeks?” I asked.

  She smiled a beautiful smile and it was all the proof I needed as to why she had children so young. She was the kind of woman with beauty, grace, and intelligence that any man would’ve wanted to snatch up and keep for himself, no matter what he had to do. Her husband and children were very lucky people to have a warm, kind woman like her in their lives.

  And I hoped they knew that.

  “Nurse Delacourt, you’ve been wonderful to me. Thank you for your help,” I said.

  “Let me go get you situated for your release and get your parents called, then I’ll see what I can do about tracking down where the paramedics brought you in from,” she said.

  I watched her walk out of the room before I leaned back into the pillows of my hospital bed. I was disappointed that I couldn't remember the bar I had stumbled into. I owed the beautiful girl with the electric touch a massive thank you for helping me out when I walked in. I closed my eyes and rested my body, paying attention to the pulse in my abdomen. My muscles were twitching and throbbing, angry at the stitches that pierced my skin. My parents would be irate when they got the call from that nurse. Well, my father would be irate. My mother would be worried sick.

  But my brothers? They would tease me relentlessly all throughout our Sunday dinner.

  My lack of sleep wasn’t new to the family. I’d struggled with my sleeping patterns for some time now. I went to doctor after doctor, trying to get diagnoses like insomnia or something that might be stress-related. But nothing seemed to be wrong. I did multiple sleep studies and had myself hooked up to electrodes that monitored my sleeping patterns at home, but nothing in my brain waves or chemistry suggested I had any sort of an issue.

  You know, other than the fact that I couldn't fucking sleep.

  Some nights were worse than others, and some nights were fine. There were nights where I fell asleep and got eight or nine hours. Then, there were weeks where I was lucky if I got two or three cumulative hours of sleep throughout the entire night. Sometimes, I was fine. I had movies to watch and things to take care of with regard to the family business I ran with my brothers. We didn’t simply restore houses. Sometimes we also helped to sell them. Sometimes we helped to get them dedicated so cities could have public landmarks. And with those types of ventures always came paperwork. All of the rest of the brothers hated doing the paperwork, so I took it upon myself to get it done on the nights I couldn't sleep.

  But last night had been a bad combination of restless legs, a lack of movies, and no paperwork for me to pull out and do.

  I needed to make sure that didn’t happen again.

  I felt my eyes growing heavy and allowed myself to slip into my drug-induced sleep. And there, I dreamt about her. About the beautiful woman in the bar with the panic in her voice. Her bright blue eyes called to me and her hand was firm against the back of my head, propping me up and holding me upright as best as she could while she eased me to the ground. Even listening to her yell to someone in the background brought about a comfort that washed over my body. But when she first came to me? When my body first slumped into hers?

  That beautiful woman’s skin burned my lips.

  Fuck, I’d felt her pulse racing against them. I felt her holding me with all of her strength as her petite body trembled underneath my muscles. The way she smelled—like wildflowers and honey—made my blood boil in a way that throbbed the veins in my groin. No woman had ever had that effect on me, and in the moment I attributed it to my pain. My hurt. My vulnerability.

  But even as I laid there dreaming about her, I knew that wasn’t right.

  “Lucas?”

  I drew in a deep breath as my mother’s voice pierced my dream-like state.

  “Lucas, can you hear me?”

  “How many stitches did you say he had?”

  “Oh my gosh. He looks so pale, Kane. Lucas, please wake up for me sweetheart. Please.”

  “Let the boy sleep. You know he’s always struggled with it, Ruby.”

  “I need to see him open his eyes, Kane. Just once. Lucas?”

  I heard my mother and father’s voices and I tried to pull myself out of my sleep state. But her eyes kept me under. Her fingers sliding through my hair kept me relaxed. The smell of her body kept me wanting more. My body fought a raging battle between staying with her imprint and rising to what was real. And for the first time in my life, I felt myself wanting to stay with the dream instead of waking to the reality.

  I had to find this woman.

  “There you are, my boy,” my mother said.

  “Can you hear me, son?” my father asked.

  My eyes fluttered open as I cracked my neck.

  “Yep. I can hear you both just fine,” I said.

  “What in the world were you thinking?” my mother asked.

  “I wasn’t, which was the issue.”

  “Damn straight it was the issue. You could’ve killed yourself,” my father said.

  “That’s enough, Kane.”

  “You woke him up, so I get to say what I want, Ruby.”

  I reached out and curled my hand around hers as she brushed tears from her eyes. My father sat at the foot of my bed and allowed his hand to fall around my ankle. I got my steely gray eyes from my fat
her, but I got my blonde hair from my mother. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her in, feeling her tears soak the crook of my neck. I held her tightly and kissed the top of her head while my father massaged my ankle with his hand.

  He was never one to show that type of affection, so when it happened we always knew he was struggling.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I said.

  “You’re a grown man. You can make your own decisions and not feel sorry for them. But you can’t stop thinking your decisions through. A teenager is impulsive. A thirty-five-year-old man isn’t.”

  “I hear you loud and clear,” I said.

  “I hate to break things up, but I’m here to perform a last check,” the nurse said.

  “A sight for sore eyes,” I said with a smile.

  “Once I clear you, your pain medication will take about an hour to put together downstairs, then you’ll be good to go.”

  “I appreciate your help,” I said.

  “Thank you for taking care of our son,” my father said.

  “He’s a little flirt, you know,” Nurse Delacourt said.

  “Really?” my mother asked flatly.

  All of us laughed as she sat up from my shoulder.

  “Oh, and I tried looking into that information for you regarding where the paramedics found you. They said they would dig through their records and get back to me, but they were in the process of responding to a call when I contacted them,” the nurse said.

  “Thank you for looking into it,” I said.

  “Wait, what happened?” my mother asked.

  “Where did they find you?” my father asked.

  “A bar of some sort, I think. There was a woman there who helped me out when I stumbled in. I was hoping to thank her for reacting as quickly as she did and generally not freaking out like most would have,” I said.

  “We can worry about that later,” my mother said. “Right now, I want to get you home.”

  “Then I’ll start my exam so we can get that underway,” the nurse said.

  It didn’t take long, and less than an hour later I was being discharged. Dad helped me into the wheelchair, so he could get me to the car and Mom went downstairs to the hospital pharmacy to pick up my pain medication. Nurse Delacourt handed me my clothes from last night, my wallet, discharge papers, and sheets on how to care for my wound so it didn’t get infected.

  But my mind wasn’t on any of that.

  It was on the woman from last night.

  There was a part of me that wanted to do more than thank her. At the very least, there was a part of me that wanted to do more than verbally thank her. But with the nurse’s insistence on bed rest, staying away from a beauty like her for a few weeks was probably a good idea. The last thing I needed was to bust open some stitches losing myself in a beautiful woman’s body.

  Maybe I would dodge the nurse’s informative phone call until I was feeling better.

  Or maybe, I wouldn’t.

  THREE

  Jessica

  “I still can’t believe what happened last night,” Bianca said sitting down next to me with a mug of coffee in her hand. Our apartment was small, but cozy. Bianca had that hippie vibe a bit, so we had loads of warm blankets and candles around. Neutral tones kept the place feeling warm even in winter. Though it was the South. It never really got cold, thank God.

  “His wound looked really bad. You think he’ll be okay?” I asked.

  “I told you to go with him, but you were insistent on not doing it.”

  “You wanted me to go with him to see if we would hook up for being his guardian angel. Which I wasn’t, by the way.”

  “Yes, you were. I saw how you caught him in your arms. You were a modern-day savior for that hunk of muscle. You really should have gone.”

  “And I really couldn't miss out on the hours of work to go to the hospital with a stranger you thought I might be able to hook up with after he recuperated from his stab wound.”

  “Well, when you put it that way,” she said.

  “I could’ve sworn that man was drunk when he stumbled in,” I said. I was so concerned with how drunk he was I almost missed the fact that he was bleeding out. As I sat on the couch I wondered if I hadn’t reacted quickly enough. What would have happened?

  God, what if he would have died? Right on the floor at my feet.

  “Don’t worry. We all thought that, honestly,” Bianca said pulling me out of my thoughts.

  “And you still wanted to hook me up with him.”

  “Seriously, Jess. Get off it. Drunk sex is the best kind of sex if the man can keep it up. They last forever. You need a dose of that in your life.”

  “No, thanks. I don’t find men breathing alcohol onto my skin to be attractive.”

  “How deep was his wound? Did you get a good look at it?”

  “Not really. There wasn’t as much blood as I figured there would be with something like that, but he was coughing it up.” I realized now again, how serious that meant it was. I sipped my coffee trying to push away the fear.

  “Oh shit. That’s not good.”

  “No. It’s not. I really hope he’s okay,” I said.

  “We could always call around to the hospitals and find out.”

  “No, thanks. I’d like to not stalk him, thank you.”

  “Suit yourself,” Bianca said, shrugging.

  “What a way to start a long weekend.”

  “Can I just point out that you must’ve had some serious adrenaline running through your veins? That man was a hulk of granite, and when he hit his knees, you caught him like he weighed nothing.”

  “I was worried for him, yes,” I said.

  “And the way you laid him down like you did? Shit. I bet he’s still thinking of you now.”

  “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  “Nope. I still think he’s a good one for you.”

  “For all you know, he was stabbed by a mobster because he’s on the run for snitching.” I had considered all the possibilities. Hoping that it wasn’t something that serious. I wanted him to be the good guy, saving an old lady from a mugging or something. But part of me had to admit he could be the villain in this situation. Whatever the hell his situation was.

  “Really? You think the guy that stumbled into the tavern is in witness protection?” she asked.

  “You never know. He could be an asshole with a vengeful ex. Or a drug dealer who got shanked by the competition. Or an ex-con running from the law and he popped up on the wrong person’s radar.”

  “How long have you been thinking about this?”

  “Far too long,” I said, groaning.

  Bianca giggled as she took a sip of her coffee.

  “And anyway, even if we did call around to the hospitals, they wouldn’t tell us anything. We aren’t family, and we don’t even know the guy’s name. What are we supposed to say? ‘Hey, do you have a guy with dazzling gray eyes and thick blonde hair that came in with a stab wound? Yeah, just want him to know I’m single and ready to mingle’.”

  “Sounds fine to me,” Bianca said.

  I rolled my eyes and brought my coffee to my lips.

  “I think you do want to know how he’s doing because you did find him attractive.”

  “You’re the one that brought up calling the hospitals,” I said.

  “But I saw the way your eyes lit up at the idea.”

  I took another sip of my coffee to steel away my response.

  “Face it, you thought Mr. StabbyStab was hot,” she said.

  “We aren’t calling him that,” I said.

  “Mr. Granite?”

  “Nope.”

  “Mr. Big Dick?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Mr.—”

  “Enough with the names. He’s just ‘the guy,’” I said.

  “Fine. Then you thought ‘the guy’ was hot. Didn’t you? You can be honest with me. I won’t tease you for it.”

  “That’s the biggest lie if I’ve ever heard
one.”

  “Okay, I might tease you a little bit. But only because I know your kink is men you can fix.”

  “I hate you.”

  “It is! I’ve never seen you date a man that didn’t have something severely wrong with him that you thought you could change. Then, in stumbles this man with a physical issue, he collapses into your arms, and all of a sudden you’re wanting to heal his every wound—physical and otherwise.”

  “You’re a dick.”

  “Admit it. It’s freeing. You think the wounded guy’s attractive,” she said.

  “Yes, okay? I thought he was cute.”

  “You thought he was more than cute.”

  “I’m going to douse you in my hot coffee.”

  “It’s not even steaming anymore.”

  “I’m going to douse you with my lukewarm coffee before cracking the pot over your head.”

  “Mmm, foreplay. Don’t you know you should never get me riled up in the morning? I hate morning sex.”

  “I hate you in the mornings. Why do you make me talk in the mornings?” I asked.

  “Because it’s too much fun for me to watch you struggle,” she said, smiling.

  A silence fell over us before I drew in a deep breath.

  “I really hope he’s okay,” I said.

  “I knew it,” Bianca said.

  “Okay, yes. Fine. You want me to say it? I thought he was attractive.” The truth was I thought he was more than attractive. He was gorgeous. Thick. Strong. And his voice when he spoke rumbled and shook my damn ribcage. “But he was also bleeding all over himself from a fucking stab wound and calling out for help. And I held his trembling body while his skin paled and his eyes went in and out of focus. So forgive me if I don’t want to think about a man in my arms grabbing onto his life with all the strength he had.”

  “Jess, I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, you didn’t mean to. You never mean to do anything. But you always take shit too far. I’m never going to know if that man is okay. If he survived or if his family is grieving his death right now. I’ll never know his name or what he does for a living or if he was passing through or if he lives in the cesspool of Charleston. I’ll never get to go out to dinner with him or even figure out if I’m his type. Because you were right, he was my type. Satisfied?”