She would call Eli as soon as the doctor and the nurse were done and find out the real story.
After a thorough examination, they told her that she’d come in with a broken collarbone, a bruised rib cage, and a twisted ankle. They showed her where the call button was in case she needed the nurse and also what button to push to release the pain medication into her IV. Then they said that they would be taking her down for another CT scan soon.
The doctor left the room first, promising to come back and check on her. Then, after a few more instructions, the nurse placed her hands on the bed rail and tilted her head towards the door.
“You have a lot of people waiting to see you. We can limit visitation if you want. Normally, we do, but since yours is a unique situation with special circumstances, it’s up to you.”
A lot of people? Unique situation? Special circumstances?
What was she talking about? Other than Lucky, who was there? Maybe Eli or the chief? She hardly thought that was “a lot.” And why was her particular situation and circumstances special or unique?
The longer Deanna was awake, the more discomfort she felt. She didn’t have the brain power to figure out what the nurse was talking about. She wanted to tell whoever was there that she was okay and wanted to go back to sleep.
“No, it’s fine. You don’t have to do that.”
“Okay. If you’re sure?” the nurse asked, her expression revealing she wasn’t convinced.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” She was also sure that neither Chief Maguire nor her cousin would stay long. They probably just wanted to check on her and make sure she was okay.
“All right. Call me if you need anything.” The nurse smiled sweetly before pulling the privacy curtain back and opening the door.
Deanna couldn’t see outside the door, but she heard the nurse say, “You can all go in and say hi, but then the patient needs her rest. After you all say hello, please limit the amount of visitors in the room to two at a time.”
As out of it as she was, Deanna still thought that the nurse’s announcement was a little overkill. At least she did until people started flooding into her room.
Lucky was first, and he walked directly to her side. Eli followed with her cousins Evan, Easton, and Everett right behind him. Then, Deanna’s aunt and uncle came into view, and beside them were none other than Victoria Lane and Doug Bishop in the flesh.
Wait. What the… Her parents were there? In the same room?
Deanna was still trying to process that when Chief Maguire and Tessa followed behind them. Then Logan, Emma, Levi, Shelby, Nikki, Amy, and even Charlie strode in.
Okay, so it appeared the nurse hadn’t been exaggerating.
She must’ve looked overwhelmed, because after just a minute, most of the crowd offered their wishes of a speedy recovery, said to call if she needed anything, dropped off various flowers and even a couple of stuffed animals, and left the room.
Deanna smiled and thanked everyone in turn. Lucky never left her side. His hand was on her shoulder the entire time. As flattered as she was that everyone had come to check on her, after the whirlwind of people had blown through, she closed her eyes and leaned against the strength of Lucky’s forearm as a strong current of exhaustion pulled her under. In the back of her mind, she knew that her parents, her cousins, and her aunt and uncle were still there, but she was too tired to address them.
“Can you all give us a few minutes,” her mother said. It was more of a statement than a question. Victoria Lane didn’t really ask people to do anything.
Opening her eyes, she saw Lucky gazing down at her. He silently asked if she would be okay. When she nodded, he leaned down and kissed her on her forehead before whispering, “I’ll be right outside.”
She managed to lift her hand and wave as everyone shuffled out. Her aunt squeezed her foot that was under the blue knit hospital blanket and winked at her while she mouthed that she loved her.
When the room cleared, her mother took the seat beside Deanna. Her blonde hair was brushed out straight and framing her perfectly symmetrical face. Though she was in her mid-forties, she didn’t look a day over thirty. Her expression was unreadable as always. Growing up, Deanna had never known what her mother was feeling. A lifetime in front of the camera had taught the supermodel how to wear a mask like a pro.
“You didn’t have to come. I’m fine—” Deanna started.
“Yes, I did.” Victoria’s green eyes filled with tears, which was something Deanna had only ever seen her mother do over her career and Doug Bishop. “I came as soon as Eli called. I’ve been so worried… I don’t know what I would do if anything…happened to you.”
Tears were falling down her mother’s beautiful face.
“I’m okay, Mom. Really.” Deanna tried not to let the pain she was in show.
Her mother took a tissue out of her purse and gently dabbed it on her cheeks as she turned towards the door. Through the small rectangle of glass, Deanna saw that Lucky was standing with his arms crossed, talking to Levi, who had his hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“You found a good man there, Deanna. That boy hasn’t left your side.” Victoria sniffed.
Her memory was still fuzzy, but pictures of Lucky with two girls flashed in her mind. Then everything came back to her at once. The texts from Jessie. The fact that he was only seeing her for his sponsorship deal.
Pain shot through her, but it didn’t have anything to do with the roof that had collapsed on her.
“We’re not together.” The last thing she wanted was for her mother to make this into something it wasn’t and then see those pictures. She might have been humiliated when her boyfriend had played her, but at least she’d been able to handle that in private.
“I don’t think he knows that.” Victoria looked over her shoulder in Lucky’s direction.
Deanna stared at her hands, which were resting on her blanket. “He will.”
“What do you mean? It’s obvious that he loves you. And the look on your face when you woke up and saw him… It was like out of a movie. You love him.”
“What’s love got to do with it?” Yes, she knew she was quoting Tina Turner, but hey, that woman knew what was up.
“Deanna, look at me,” Victoria snapped.
Automatically, Deanna lifted her eyes to her mother’s, feeling like she was five again. She had to stop herself from saying, “Yes, ma’am.”
Leaning forward, Victoria lowered her voice as she asked, “Does this have anything to do with that ridiculous story those girls made up?”
“You don’t know if they made it up, Mom.” Deanna felt a sick sense of déjà vu, except this time, Victoria wasn’t defending Doug. Her mother was defending Lucky.
“Yes, I do. They admitted it.” Victoria pulled her phone out of her purse and clicked on a video.
Apparently, one of the gossip sites uncovered that the girls had been trying to sell the bra and panties on eBay and this wasn’t the first time they’d fabricated a story to try to jack up the price of a memento.
A small part of Deanna was happy that Lucky hadn’t been with them, but that hadn’t been the real issue.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said dismissively.
“What do you mean? Of course it matters,” her mother persisted.
Deanna was tired, in pain, and more than a little overwhelmed. She did not want to discuss this. “No, it doesn’t. He was just using me—like everyone else does.”
She hadn’t meant to add that last part. It had just slipped out. It must have been the pain medication she was on. Maybe it had truth serum in it.
“What are you talking about? Who uses you?” Her mother looked like she had no idea what Deanna was talking about.
That infuriated Deanna even more.
Part of her knew that it was probably just a reaction to the pain or the medication she was on, but that didn’t stop her from saying, “You. Dad. Everyone.”
“When did I use you? And your father? When?” Shocked didn�
��t even begin to describe Victoria’s reaction.
Never in a million years would Deanna have thought she’d be having this conversation with her mother. But now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop.
“The photo shoot, Mom. You told me you were doing me a favor, that you were helping me. But I heard Leann and Ripley talking. They said that you were only going to get that cover if you had me on it. That they wanted a younger demographic. Then you tried to make me feel like you lost the deal because of me, but the truth was they wanted me.
“And dad, that summer of bonding. That was all for publicity. He needed to look like a good family man. Which is basically what Lucky is doing. He needs to look like his bad boy days are behind him so he doesn’t lose his sponsor.”
Victoria stared at Deanna like she was witnessing a spaceship land. Her face held a look of total shock and disbelief, but then it softened and she looked pained. “I’m so sorry, Deanna. For the photo shoot, for your father, for…everything.”
Now, it was Deanna who looked like she was witnessing little green men climbing out of a silver ship. Was her mother actually taking responsibility for something? Actually apologizing?
A single tear fell down her mom’s face. “I haven’t been a good mother, and your father isn’t going to be winning any Father of the Year awards. But I want to try to be better. I want to try to be the mother you deserve.
“Please don’t let our issues influence your relationship. Your father and I are assholes. Narcissistic, self-centered assholes. That man waiting in the hall is not. I know men, Deanna. And I promise you, that one is not using you for a sponsorship deal. He loves you.”
Deanna couldn’t have been more speechless if Elvis Presley had walked through her hospital room door and started singing “Blue Suede Shoes.” Maybe she’d hit her head harder than the doctors had originally thought and she was imagining this whole thing. Maybe she was certifiably delusional.
She was still trying to sort whether or not this conversation with her mom was a figment of her imagination when the door opened and Lucky walked in. Dark circles stood out under his eyes, and his five-o’clock shadow was looking more like a ten-o’clock beard.
“Sorry to interrupt. I can’t wait out there any longer.” His voice sounded strained as he approached her.
“Told you,” Victoria whispered as she bent down and kissed Deanna on the cheek. When she stood, her voice was louder, and she started towards the door. “I’ll go keep your father busy so you two can have a few minutes. But then you need to rest. I love you, sweet girl.”
At a loss for words, Deanna just nodded as her mother left. Her parents were there. They were actually speaking. And her mother had just told her that she loved her and called her by the nickname she hadn’t heard since she’d started elementary school.
Was she in an episode of The Twilight Zone?
Taking a seat in the chair her mother had just vacated, Lucky took her hand and kissed it softly, then held it against his mouth. His voice was filled with desperation as he pleaded, “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
Okay, maybe The Twilight Zone wasn’t so bad.
Chapter 26
‡
“How are you feeling?” He knew it was a stupid question, but he’d asked it anyway.
“Sore. Tired,” she said quietly.
Lowering her hand to the bed, Lucky brushed a few stray hairs off of her forehead and ran his finger across her soft cheek.
Deanna’s face was pale and there were dark purple circles under her eyes. She needed to rest.
“Close your eyes, baby. Rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.” He wasn’t going anywhere.
Lucky wanted to crawl into Deanna’s hospital bed and hold her, but he knew that he couldn’t. The last two days had taken years off his life. When he’d woken up alone in Deanna’s bed and found his phone beside him—open to Jessie’s message—he’d immediately gone to find her and explain.
When he’d shown up at the station, Vivien and Audrey had told him that Engine 23 was out on a call. From what they knew, it was a structural fire that was threatening to spread through the dense and dry vegetation surrounding it. He’d waited at the station for over ten hours before he’d gone back into Brewed Awakenings for the third time to get one more coffee before they closed for the day.
That’s when he’d heard the news. There had been an accident and two firefighters had been airlifted to Sacramento General. Nikki had said that she’d heard it was Deanna and Casey, but she hadn’t been sure.
Lucky’s heart had felt like it’d stopped beating. The same panic he’d felt when he’d walked into the kitchen and found his mother lying on the floor had spiked through him at hearing the news. He’d barely been aware of the coffee cup slipping from his fingers as he had run out of the coffee shop towards his SUV.
Alder, who had been going to the gym, had seen him and told him to get in. His friend had driven him to the hospital like a bat out of hell and even called his brothers on the way. It was good that Alder had been there. The entire drive was kind of a blur, and in his frame of mind, he could’ve killed himself. Or worse, someone else.
He’d been out of Alder’s truck before it’d even come to a complete stop. After running through the automatic glass doors, he rushed to the information desk, but that name was misleading, because they wouldn’t give him any information.
Since he wasn’t family, the woman behind the tall circular desk wouldn’t tell him anything. Not what room Deanna was in. Not what her condition was. Nothing. He’d even offered her money, but she wasn’t having it.
So he did the only thing he could. He paced the waiting room. Alder sat silently while Lucky wore out a path in the carpet.
Just when he was about to start using force to get to Deanna if he had to, the tides shifted in his favor. Victoria Lane breezed through the automatic doors, backlit like an angel.
He was right beside her as she asked for information on her daughter. Which, of course, she got.
Deanna was in room 320, and she was in stable condition.
When Victoria started towards the elevator, Lucky ambushed her, introducing himself and telling her that he needed to see her daughter. She lifted her sunglasses off her head with her perfectly manicured nails, revealing the same green eyes her daughter had, and stared at him for several beats before nodding. Just once. Then she told him to follow her.
That was twelve hours ago. Twelve hours that he’d waited for Deanna to wake up. Twelve hours that his life had flashed before him without her in it. Twelve of the longest hours of his life.
Her eyelids were drooping as she looked over at him. “Lucky, I think we should talk.”
“We can talk later. You need to rest,” he insisted.
She shook her head slightly. “No. We need to talk.”
The last thing he wanted to do was upset her. If she wanted to talk, he’d let her talk. Going against every protective instinct he had, he agreed.
“Okay.”
When she lifted her eyes, he saw that they looked clearer than they had a few minutes ago.
“Did you call the press when we were at the children’s hospital?”
“What!?”
Jake had explained that a roof had collapsed on both Casey and Deanna, so he assumed she must not be making sense because of that.
“I saw the text from Jessie. She said that…you needed me…for a sponsor.”
Shit. This wasn’t the roof talking. She’d seen the text.
“Deanna, I love you. That has nothing to do with my sponsor. No, I did not call the press. But yes, Jessie did think that our relationship was good for my image. But she’s also thought that me screwing everything that moved was bad for my image for years. I don’t give a shit what she, Jerry, Alder, or anyone thinks. If she told me that being with you would ruin me, I would still be with you.
“I love you. I want to marry you. I want us to have babies. And maybe a dog. I want you to be mine and me to be you
rs—legally. I don’t give a shit about my career, about my sponsorship, about any of it. All that matters to me is you. You and me. Do you understand?”
Deanna’s eyes were closing, but she nodded and a small smile appeared on her lips. “I love you, too. And babies. And dogs…” Her words trailed off as she started breathing evenly, indicating that she’d fallen asleep.
She hadn’t exactly accepted his marriage proposal. But she had smiled and said that she loved him. And dogs. And babies…
He would take it.
Chapter 27
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The emcee announced Lucas “Lucky” Dorsey, and Deanna watched in awe as her boyfriend walked through the crowd on his way to the cage. The crowd erupted—the majority in cheers. There were a few boos, but at least eighty percent of this packed arena was rooting for Lucky.
A spotlight shone directly on him as he walked with Alder and the other guys from his camp. The look in his eyes was deadly. His gloved hands hung loosely at his sides, and he was wearing a dark-green robe with white lining.
Her mouth watered and her stomach felt like she was about to jump off the high dive. She was nervous and excited all at once. This was the first fight she’d seen in person, and she was pretty sure it was going to be more brutal in live action than it was when she had watched videos of it on YouTube.
“He’s going to be fine. My boy’s tough.” Charlie leaned over and squeezed her arm.
She smiled back at him. This was the first fight he was seeing, too, and it was a family affair. Not only were Lucky’s brothers, his cousin, and their significant others there, half of Hope Falls had invaded Vegas as well.
Eli was sitting beside her, and some of the guys from the station were in the row behind them. They were sitting with the mayor and Sue Ann from the café. Plus Nikki, Mike, Amy, and Matt.
Even her mom and dad had come to Vegas. They were in a VIP room watching the action with Mandy, the little girl they’d met at Children’s Hospital, and her parents and her brother.
Lucky Kiss Page 26
