by Isabel Wroth
“What just h-happened?” she gasped, still breathless from where Saint’s tackle had knocked the wind out of her.
“Drive-by.” Saint grunted back.
“Drive-by? This is Austin, there aren’t drive-by shootings in Austin! Oh my god, Sam? Is Sam okay?”
Saint shifted enough to look and Ripley saw the wince he gave. For a second she was terrified Sam had been shot and killed in her spa.
“He’s fine. Shit.”
Ripley looked around in disbelief at the ruin of her front entryway. Sam was huddled in a ball back behind one of the displays, covered in jasmine water, white in the face and seemingly frozen in fear. Saint pressed a relieved kiss to her throat and lay back on the floor, his hand pressed to his left side with another tight grunt. Tears blurred Ripley’s eyes when she saw bright red liquid seeping up from between his fingers. Blood.
“Saint? Oh my god, oh my god!”
He replied to her horrified outburst with a grunt, almost nonchalant about having been shot. “It’s just a graze, princess. Went through the meat. I’ll live.”
Ignoring the cuts and bruises on her hands and knees, Ripley scrambled forward through the glass and managed to get up onto her feet to run to the hall closet. She threw a pair of towels and some sheets at Ruckus where he was crouched over Gee, using his body weight to keep pressure on Gee’s wound.
Ripley forced herself to ignore the huge pool of blood spreading under the prospect, so bright on her white concrete floor. She could hear the screaming of sirens coming closer, uncertain how far away they were because her blood was pounding so hard she could hear the buzzing of it in her ears.
Ripley dropped to her knees beside Saint and pressed one of the towels to his side as hard as she could. Saint half shouted in pain and then started to laugh, but stopped because that must have hurt too.
“Easy, Ripley. I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding from a gunshot wound! That in no way, shape or form, constitutes FINE!” Ripley shrieked back at him. Her stomach threatening to heave as the blood seeping out of his body began to soak the towel.
“Ripley.”
“Don’t you dare use that sweet, I’m-a-tenderhearted-bastard tone of voice with me, Saint! Don’t you even dare!”
He grinned a sloppy grin up at her, “You are one silly bitch, princess, but I love you anyway.”
Ripley choked out a sob as the tears really started to flow. The white towel almost squishy because it was so saturated with Saint’s blood.
“If you’re telling me that now because you think you’re dying, you shut the hell up!”
Saint grabbed her around the neck and yanked her down so he could press a hot kiss to her trembling lips. “I’m tellin you I love you because I mean it. Worst thing that’s gonna happen is I’m gonna have to stay the night in the hospital minus a few inches of my guts. It’s gonna be fine, don’t cry. No more cryin, princess.”
*****
Saint woke up to the smell of gardenias and cleaning solvents. There was a warm weight settled comfortably on his chest and an incessant beeping grating in his ears. The ache in his gut plus that distinctive solvent smell, the dry fuzziness of his mouth, and the beeping told him he was in the hospital.
Like a flash, the reason for why he was in the hospital came blasting across his mind in full, vivid details. The white SUV with the passenger side windows down, gunfire, windows breaking, Ripley jerking like a marionette on a string.
Ripley.
The panic of not remembering what happened after seeing Ripley flinching and screaming had Saint surging out of the drug induced stupor to demand to see her. But it turned out he didn’t need to demand anything.
The warm weight on his chest was Ripley’s arm.
She was tucked up against his right side, her hair a mess, makeup gone, fast asleep right there beside him. The relief was so intense he felt dizzy. He shifted to try and get more comfortable, feeling pain radiate down his side and heard Ripley gasp. She sat bolt right up in the bed beside him.
“Ohmigod, you’re awake!”
“Settle down, princess.” Saint chuckled, pain totally forgotten when he saw the gauze wrapped around Ripley’s hands. “You’re hurt. What happened?”
Ripley looked at her hands, sniffling a little and gave a weak little laugh. “A few cuts and scrapes from the glass, it’s nothing. You’re awake.”
Saint could hardly take his eyes off of her. He hadn’t gotten to see her very many times barefaced and undone like this. But every time he did, he realized just how beautiful she was. He noticed the sweet little freckles dotting across her nose. How big and bright her blue eyes were. How her lips were just naturally rose-colored.
“How long have I been out?”
“Six days. You had a bad reaction to the anesthesia. How do you feel?” she was crying again, though this time they seemed to be tears of relief.
“Like I drank a case of Cuervo and got my ass kicked. Didn’t I tell you to quit cryin?”
Those must have been the magic words, because Ripley went from being relieved and a little weepy, to pissed off and shouting at him. She got up on her knees beside him so she could shout at him from three feet of height, berating him for scaring her to death.
“You son of a bitch! I told you not to tell me you love me and then die, and you bastard, you passed out right before the ambulance got there and almost died twice on the way to the hospital because of the blood loss!”
There was very clearly something wrong with him, because the more she shouted, the more turned on Saint got.
“I didn’t exactly have control of that, princess.”
Ripley slapped his arm and he didn’t even care that it made him jolt, thereby making his belly give a scream of agony.
“Don’t you sass me! My spa is riddled with bullet holes! You’ve got a bullet hole in your abdomen because you jumped in front of a barrage of bullets, to tackle me to the ground! Gee has a concussion AND a bullet hole!
“He’s in a coma, Ruckus is inconsolable and won’t go home to change out of his blood-soaked clothes. I had to fight Nurse Ratchet and threaten to rip her mustache off with honey wax to stay in here with you, and you’re sassing me?”
Saint’s heart flopped in his chest. The intense feelings surging through him mirrored in the echoing beeps of the monitor he was hooked up to. Ripley was shouting at him, but he could plainly see the fear that had her pupils blown wide and her pulse hammering in her throat.
“Ripley.”
“’It’s just a graze. Just hit the muscle. It’s fine. It’s no big deal. The worst that’ll happen is I’ll spend a few nights in the hospital minus a few inches of my guts!’” she parroted, mocking his voice by letting her own drop to a comically low level.
Saint was pretty certain she wasn’t going for funny, but it was hard not to laugh.
“That’s what you said, and you know what happened? You spent almost seven days, six of those unconscious, missing two feet of intestines!” Her eyes were shining now, the anger fading as the emotion started to overwhelm her.
“Princess, I’ve got a hole in my gut. Don’t make me come up there.”
“After ten hours of surgery, you better not have a hole in your gut! You’re hurting, aren’t you? I’ll get the nurse.”
Saint sighed and couldn’t help but to smile at this silly woman bouncing angrily on her knees on the hospital bed beside him. Risking it, Saint reached down and pushed the button to elevate the head of the bed. Ripley shrieked at him for being an idiot. Turns out it hurt like a bitch to sit up, but it would have hurt more to drag her down to him.
“Toldja not to make me come up here.” Saint wheezed, and the mad drained out of her on a soft sob.
He opened his arms and Ripley carefully slid right in against his chest, snuggling under his chin. Saint touched a kiss to her temple, palmed the softness of her wild hair and kept her tucked close. He drug in enough air to make his lungs feel like they would burst, closing his eyes to savor the sweetness of
her girly, flowery scent, hoping to banish the smell of the hospital.
“I love you, princess.”
“I believe you.” she whispered back. Without a hint of hesitation.
*****
Saint lay back in the hospital bed, sweat gathering on his brow after Nurse Roberta had finished checking his incision line. Doing the whole vitals routine, asking him twenty questions and he had refused an excessive dose of morphine to knock him back out. Six days out because of the anesthesia was more than enough. He had shit to do. Like watch Nurse Roberta trying to tell Ripley that the down comforter Ripley had brought from home to cover Saint with, was not an approved item for a guest to bring.
Saint had seen Ripley be dramatic.
He had seen her get so pissed that she swung her purse around like a wrecking ball and stomped her foot.
He had seen her drunk as a skunk, getting in on defending her rights as a woman to speak her mind and not be called a man-hating feminist at one of Ever’s little ‘lady club’ nights.
He had seen her haggling with some distributor on the phone at her shop, threatening to take her business elsewhere in a tone that had inspired rabid fantasies of Ripley in a classroom with a ruler in hand.
All of that turned him on. Some of it made him laugh, but Saint had never seen Ripley calmly and confidently out-logic another woman who was trying to browbeat her.
“The hospital is not responsible for your personal bedding, Miss McFarland.” Nurse Roberta was saying, hands on her hips and staring down at Ripley.
For the third time he had ever seen, Ripley was in public without her mile high heels on. Which put her at about a foot shorter than Nurse Roberta, though it didn’t seem to intimidate Ripley in the least.
“I don’t expect this hospital to be responsible for my personal bedding, Nurse Roberta.” Ripley responded in a polite, respectful tone.
Saint sat in his bed and watched, giving an idle thought to whether or not a video might be good for posterity later. Nurse Roberta huffed and forced a smile on her face, clearly struggling to maintain her own professionalism.
“We have plenty of blankets to ensure the comfort of our patients. Those blankets are washed daily to ensure they are appropriately laundered and sterilized. Daily.”
Ripley smiled right back and patted the fluffy pink comforter keeping Saint actually much more comfortable than the usual thin, scratchy hospital blankets.
“Daily, yes. I understand. However, your patient and I have shared bodily fluids, sheets, towels and bedding over the last eighteen months and, unless I was uninformed, I haven’t yet contaminated him with anything fatal.
“My washer and dryer are not hospital grade, but they have only one to two person’s laundry being run through them. Whereas I am certain the number of patients with laundry needing to be washed in this facility, daily, is a great deal more than two.”
Saint had to hold his breath to keep from busting out laughing. It would have hurt, and it would have ruined Ripley’s calm deliverance of her rebuttal. He was glad, beyond glad, she hadn’t ever used this tone or tactic on him. He’d never have won an argument if Ripley had been able to keep this calm when he did something to piss her off.
“And if the patient’s stitches were to bust and blood or other…bodily fluids soak into your bedding?” Nurse Roberta challenged.
Struggling to say ‘bodily fluids’ with a straight face and not be obviously wondering about those situations where said fluids had been shared. Ripley bent and pulled a huge ass tote from the floor to set on the bed, rummaging around until she came up with a folded up trash bag.
“I will fold it up, put it in this trash bag and burn the entire thing later as though the patient had contaminated it with plague.”
There should have been a little ding and a sparkle to accompany the perfect smile Ripley gave the nurse.
“Jesus, princess. How the hell did you carry that up here by yourself? You sure you didn’t forget the kitchen sink?”
Nurse Roberta almost jumped out of her scrubs when Top blew into the room with all the subtlety of a bazooka. If someone had not known him, they would assume the dirty look Top gave Saint, might mean the Prez was pissed. But that glare in the old man’s eyes was the closest thing Top would get to crying in public.
Top moved around Nurse Roberta like she was in his way and hugged an arm around Ripley’s shoulders, snuggling her up like a favored daughter while dropping a kiss to her dark hair. Saint could tell it overwhelmed Ripley, hell, he could practically see the adoration in her eyes when she looked up at Top.
Ever and Athena looked at Top with an almost identical expression. One that made Saint wonder what the old man had done to get on their good side so solid, as to be receiving regular cookie and treat deliveries from all three of the women.
“Nice blanket. They upgrading from those shitty ones that let the cold air up to freeze your nuts off?” Top’s disgusted tone made Nurse Roberta’s complexion go from pink, to positively molten with heat.
Saint was grinning so wide his face hurt. “Naw. Ripley brought it for me from home. It’s pink, but if it keeps me from freezing my nuts off, I’ll deal.”
Top frowned seriously and gave Ripley a squeeze. “You’re a good girl, princess. You’re addicted to pink, but I suppose there’s worse things to be addicted to. Did you need to do something for my boy, cupcake, or are you standing around with your thumb up your ass for no good reason?”
The blunt, gruffly asked question directed at Nurse Roberta had the woman giving a little eep of surprise. She mumbled something unintelligible and turned on her heel to flee the room without any further guff about Ripley’s comforter.
Top grunted, “How you feelin, kid? You look like you had a few fifths of tequila and got your ass kicked.”
Ripley giggled as she continued to stay snuggled up against Top’s side, seeming to find comfort in his presence.
“That’s about how I feel. How’s Gee?” Saint’s question had the smile dimming from Ripley’s face and had Top sucking in a pissed off breath through his teeth.
“Stable. Lost a fair amount of blood, but it was the fall that got him. He conked his head on the granite counter-top of the coffee bar and fractured his skull. Got some swelling of the brain going on, so he’s in a medically induced coma.”
Saint felt that burning lump of rage in his throat, the one that had been stuck there ever since the day they had learned Pike and Susan had been murdered, grow a little hotter. A little bigger. Saint wondered how much longer it would be before that searing lump got too big and all the rage he kept choking down rose up to strangle him.
“Ruckus?” Saint rasped.
Top hummed, rubbing Ripley’s arm firmly while he held her tight. “Not a scratch on him.”
“Anybody else hurt?”
Saint wanted to ask Ripley about her boy toy, but he’d just gained some ground with her. Woken up to her cuddled up to him in his hospital bed, the comforter from her bed covering him, and a big ass bag of supplies to keep him comfortable. He wasn’t about to make her feel bad and walk out with all that care.
Top gave a short shake of his head. “Naw. A pair of pedestrians have few cuts and scrapes from hittin the pavement and some hipster shit himself in the lobby.”
Saint bit into his cheek to stem his smile. The dirty look Ripley shot him urged Saint to frown seriously at Top and nod.
“Good. Glad no one else got hurt. We get an ID yet on the shooters?”
Top arched an eyebrow and tilted his head meaningfully down at Ripley. She was pink with mortification or anger and staring at her boots.
“It was because of me,” she murmured.
Saint didn’t even get the chance to hotly deny that was even remotely possible, because Top beat him to it.
“That’s the biggest load of shit I ever heard come outta your mouth, princess.” Top snorted and ignored Ripley’s scoff of disagreement. Speaking to Saint like she was no longer there. “Ripley got some emails f
rom some racist fuckers, who got their panties in a knot about a private party hosted at her girly palace for a Saudi Arabian woman’s bridal shower few months back. But we checked those racist bastards out and it wasn’t them. They’re all talk and no fuckin trousers. Nasa dealt with them.”
By ‘dealt with’, Saint knew that Top meant, ‘ruined their lives beyond repair.’ Which was satisfying.
“If you’ve been sittin in here for the last six days, thinkin those bullshit emails had something to do with the shooting, you’re not as smart as I thought you were, princess.” Top told Ripley with a disappointed shake of his head.
Ripley glowered up at Top and poked her finger into his cut. “The police thought it was a completely plausible explanation.”
Top snorted and looked down at Ripley like she was the most adorably dim kid he’d ever met. Ripley’s scowl didn’t diminish in the least.
“Any news on Ghost?” Saint prompted, getting a dark, displeased look from Top. A dead no if ever he saw one.
Top lingered to talk shop with him and Ripley had produced a little travel-sized toothbrush and tube of paste for Saint. She brought him a cup of water to rinse and spit, then retreated to the other side of the room to do something on her phone.
Raid, Roar, Pen and Nasa showed up to welcome him back to the land of the living and Saint saw Ripley smile a little sadly as she looked at each of his brothers. It was a look filled with longing, a look Saint didn’t understand. He definitely didn’t like it when she made to leave the room and he called out to her.
Ripley stopped in the doorway and gave what Saint was sure was the fakest smile he’d ever seen her give. “I need to make some calls to my insurance people.”
Beyond the realm of confused, Saint looked expectantly at Nasa. “You didn’t take care of that already?”
Nasa shrugged his big shoulders. “Course I did. Cops are doing their usual song and dance about investigating, but got the insurance shit done while we were waiting on you to get out of surgery.”
“I still need to call and check in, and your brothers no doubt have stuff to tell you that I shouldn’t be here for. I’ll be back.” Ripley murmured, nodding at all of them before slipping out the door.
