The Divine Creek Ranch Collection, Volume 1 [Book 1 - Divine Grace, Book 2 - Her Gentle Giant, Book 3 - Heavenly Angel] (Siren Everlasting Collection)

by Heather Rainier

  “Let me through. I’m an ER doctor. Let me through.”

  Never had she heard more welcome words. A man came and crouched beside Ethan and swiped at his chest, locating and applying pressure to the wound in Ethan’s shoulder above his collarbone. The doctor looked up at her.

  “Are you injured?”

  “I’m all right. I just banged my head.”

  The doctor lifted Ethan’s shoulder up, located another wound, and seemed relieved by that as he pressed another towel to that one. “Y’all hold these towels to the wounds. We need to stop his bleeding. I have to go see to the other victim. Ma’am, tell the paramedics you hit your head, so they can check you out, too.” He tilted her head down. “You’re gonna have a good-sized knot, but there’s no bleeding. Ice it,” he said rapidly and was gone.

  They did as he instructed. She gathered Ethan’s head into her lap, and they pressed the towels firmly to both wounds. She thought she could hear sirens in the distance, but it was hard to tell because Patricia was still screaming.

  “It’s all right, Grace, don’t cry. I’ll be okay,” Ethan murmured softly to her, putting a bloodstained hand on hers. He reached up to wipe away her tears. Weakly, he grinned at her. “Sorry our evening got cut short.”

  “It’s all right, Ethan. Please be still. I hear the sirens. I’ll bet that’s an ambulance.”

  She could still hear the scuffles and screams directly in front of the door in the foyer, which had gone on far too long.

  “Ow! She bit me. Bitch, I told you to stop fighting, but you wouldn’t listen.” The screaming was cut off by a meaty thunk. Lights out.

  She could see blue and red lights bouncing around on the walls of the entryway to the club, illuminating another person lying in the entry hall.

  Grace looked at Jack, who had followed the doctor to help if he could. She caught his eye, and the look on his face was grim. Grace realized Charity and Justin were still there when Charity reached out and placed her hand over Grace’s hand holding the towel. She didn’t speak, just squeezed Grace’s trembling hand.

  Adam turned to Grace. “What happened, baby?” he asked in a shaking voice.

  “Patricia,” Grace replied softly.

  Grace noticed the bouncers, Eli and Rogelio, stood over Patricia’s prone form. Neither one of those guys looked like the type to willingly strike a woman. She’d sounded insane. The police arrived, and the bouncers pointed to the weapon she’d used lying on the floor, untouched.

  The paramedics came in shortly after, and Adam helped Grace rise from her knees and back away as they took over treating Ethan while another team helped the ER doctor. Angel was lying still as Jack returned to her side. “She shot Angel in the abdomen. He’s semi-conscious.”

  “Will he be all right?”

  “Doc didn’t say,” Jack replied quietly. She went to him, and they wrapped their arms around each other. He looked as pale as she felt.

  He wiped tears from her face. “Did you see what happened?”

  “Patricia came in trying to get past Eli, I guess. Ethan tried to reason with her. She shot Angel and tried to shoot me. Ethan jumped in front of me. She was going to shoot me.”

  Jack and Adam closed their arms tightly around her and held on to her that way for a minute.

  While Grace waited with Jack, Adam, and the others, the police organized the club patrons. Those who hadn’t seen what happened were allowed to leave through the emergency exit. The front entry was now a crime scene. The police talked to all the witnesses, including Grace and the bouncers, and took their contact information.

  Grace stayed near the foyer where Ethan and Angel were being attended to. The paramedics moved Angel onto a gurney to transport him to the hospital in nearby Morehead. Angel looked so pale, not at all like the flirtatious and dynamic man she knew. He caught sight of her as they raised the folding gurney to roll it out to the ambulance. He reached out to her, and she took his hand and squeezed it. He smiled then released her as they wheeled him out.

  She turned to Ethan as he was eased onto a gurney, protesting that he could walk to the ambulance. He grimaced when he lay down but smiled weakly for her. He asked one of the paramedics to look at her head, telling him that she’d struck it on the floor in their fall. The paramedic examined Grace and recommended an ice pack and pain killer, but otherwise she checked out fine.

  Patricia regained consciousness, spitting mad and acting crazy. Hank handcuffed her, put her in the police car, and took her to jail. There had been many corroborating witnesses and it did not look good for her. Watching her now, Grace would have agreed if her lawyer decided to enter a temporary insanity plea.

  Jack got her an ice pack from the nightclub’s ice machine and helped her into the ambulance with Ethan. Angel was already in surgery by the time they got to the emergency room at the Morehead Medical Center. Ben, Quinten, Mike, Rogelio, and Eli arrived a while later and waited with everyone else. Ben and Quinten both needed a few stitches from minor lacerations they received when the mirror shattered.

  Ethan’s bullet wound went all the way through cleanly and had not nicked any arteries or struck bone. They would clean the wounds thoroughly before stitching them both closed and then he’d be admitted overnight for observation, just to be on the safe side.

  Adam and Jack both chuckled when someone came through the swinging doors that led into the trauma rooms. They could hear him with whoever was cleaning his wound and sewing it up.

  Grace frowned and looked at them. “Is that…Ethan I hear singing?” She didn’t have it in her to laugh, but it registered as funny that he knew all the words to “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” by John Denver.

  Jack chuckled softly, also seeming to feel at a loss for how to react. “Yes, darlin’, they must have given him Demerol for the pain. This is how he reacts to it. Whatever comes into his mind goes right out his mouth. You’ll see.”

  Adam handed her a fresh ice pack, and she frowned, wondering why the comical sound of Ethan singing didn’t inspire her to at least smile.

  Grace prayed for Angel as they waited for word on how his surgery went. His parents arrived and took up vigil with everybody else. Her men introduced her to his parents, Maria, Eleazar, Marco, and Ricardo, and they sat together and chatted until finally a nurse came and got his parents and ushered them down the hall to a private office. When they returned, they looked weak with relief.

  Grace reached out to hold Maria’s hands. “Is he all right?”

  Maria nodded, tears flowing from her eyes. “Yes. The surgeon said they had much damage to repair, which explains why it took so long. There were many repairs to make. He is worried about infection but was very careful and thorough. Now we wait. She turned to her husband. “Eleazar,” she said in her thick accent and then proceeded to rattle off several tearful phrases in Spanish, totally losing Grace. Eleazar nodded indulgently to Maria and held out his arms to her, and she went to him.

  Jack smiled at them and said softly, “She’s asking to be taken to Angel right now. She’s telling him she wants him to ‘fix it’ so she can stay with her firstborn, Angel. She wants her baby. That’s basically it.”

  Eleazar spoke with a nurse and then ushered Maria through the swinging doors that led into the hospital, followed by Marco and Ricardo. Maria turned at the last second and blew a kiss to Jack and Grace.

  “Angel looks just like his father. Eleazar, right?”

  “Yes. Eleazar is Angel and Joaquin’s father.”

  “Joaquin?”

  “Yeah, he’s planning on coming to visit for a while soon. You’ll like him. We’re trying to talk him into staying on at the ranch to help with the breeding operation.”

  A smiling nurse walked up to her and said, “Grace Stuart?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Mr. Grant is asking for you. Would you like to come with me?”

  Grace looked at Jack and Adam. “I’ll see if they’ll let y’all in, too.”

  “Take your time, darlin
’. We’ll be right out here,” Jack said.

  When the nurse opened the door, she heard loud singing coming from a cubicle at the end of the walkway. She also heard giggling or snickering from some of the private, curtained-off cubicles as she passed by.

  “Walkin’ through the front door, Seein’ your black dress hit the floor…”

  Grace felt her cheeks heat up as she recognized the words to the Chris Young song “Getting You Home”.

  “Honey, there sure ain’t nothin’ like you lovin’ me all night loooooong…And all I can think about…”

  If he wasn’t high and recovering from a gunshot wound, she’d be inclined to say he sounded pretty good. She flung the curtain aside when the nurse gestured with a smirk to his cubicle, as if Grace couldn’t tell which one he was in.

  “Is gettin’ you home.”

  “Me, too, cowboy,” she said softly as she allowed the curtain to swing closed behind her.

  “Gracie! Here’s my honey pie, right now! Come just like an angel of mercy to nurse me back to health.” He ogled her breasts and waggled his eyebrows. Then he adopted a pouty look and said, loudly, “Come here, Gracie, you look plum tuckered.” He beckoned her with his good arm.

  Hesitantly, she sat on the edge of his bed. He grinned at her, pulled her to him, and kissed her affectionately. Gingerly, she laid her arm over his chest and snuggled as close and tight as she could until she trembled. The tears came, and she quietly wept for a few minutes, wiped out with relief that he was not more seriously injured and that Angel would be okay.

  One of the nurses sweetly brought Grace a set of hospital issue scrubs because her skirt and the knees of her stockings were covered in bloodstains. She laid them aside until Ethan had sobered up a bit more, so he didn’t give their audience a blow by blow description of her stripping, or worse.

  She cuddled back up with him and stayed that way while he talked on and on, asking questions and singing to her, softly this time. He really did have a beautiful singing voice when he wasn’t singing obnoxiously at the top of his lungs.

  An hour later, he began to sound like his normal self, so she took the opportunity to change in the cubicle after letting the nurse on duty know so no one else would come in while she was undressed.

  “Maybe I should just throw this out.” She eased the top up. “There’s blood all over the whole outfit.”

  “Don’t throw it out just yet,” Ethan said. “I love that outfit. Hold off and see if it won’t soak out. I was hoping to see it on you again sometime.” As her nipples came into view, he growled. “Yummy, yummy.”

  Hmm, maybe he wasn’t as sober as she thought. She tried for a disapproving look and shushed him.

  She lifted her top over her head and laid it on the bed. Ethan broke into an appreciative smile at the sight of her breasts perched in the shelf bra. “I feel better already,” he said softly, licking his lips.

  “Yeah, I can see that,” she said, noticing the stiff cock making its eager presence known under the hospital gown. She started to feel her sense of humor return as she smiled at his enthusiasm. She slipped the skirt down her hips, letting him watch her get undressed but not encouraging him. She was still afraid he’d start bleeding again. The side tie G-string would have to stay in place, for now. As she put the scrub top on, she was especially thankful it was a printed fabric. The print would hide the silhouette her body created in the bra, since she was not about to go braless. If it had been a solid color, everyone would have been able to see her nipples poking at the fabric.

  “Just a taste?” he asked softly, trying to sweet-talk her.

  “No, I’m sorry.” She gestured with her thumb to the cubicle they were enclosed in. “That’s a sheet, not a wall. It’s just not private enough. If someone walked in, I would die of embarrassment. Plus, I don’t want to take a chance of your wound bleeding again.” She pulled the elastic-waist pants on over the G-string. She slumped in the chair, feeling an adrenaline crash coming on as she rested her head in her hands. “It’s late, or early, or…whatever. You should be resting.”

  Ethan reached for her again with his good arm. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Come here. My other brain was doing the thinking there for a minute. Come up on my good side and let me hold you some more. Are you feeling woozy?”

  “Like a zombie.” She carefully climbed up onto the side of the bed with him. He slid his good arm down her back to her buttocks as she settled against his side, perched on the bed. “For a second, I thought I’d lost you. Ethan, she meant to kill me, didn’t she? She could have killed you.” The memory of Patricia’s enraged face filled her mind.

  “I stopped her, though. We’re all okay.” He soothed her with his lips against her forehead. “Besides, it’s going to be harder than that to get rid of me. I love you.” He squeezed her ass.

  She carefully placed her right arm across his abdomen and snuggled to him. “Thank you, Ethan. It sounds ridiculous and trite, but…you’re my hero.”

  “No, I’m hardly red-cape material. I just couldn’t bear the thought of her harming you. There were no other options.”

  “You’re still my hero, honey. You’re all my heroes, in fact. What time is it?”

  “It’s almost four o’clock. You should go home and get some sleep.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you leave here. How do you feel? Are you in pain?”

  “I’ve had better days, but the pain meds are helping a lot.”

  “Knock, knock, guys.” It was Adam and Jack, who swept aside the curtain and came into the cubicle.

  “I talked to Charity a few minutes ago and gave her an update,” Jack said, “and I talked to Angel’s parents. They were with him in the recovery unit. I saw Angel for a few minutes, too. He was conscious but groggy, already flirting with all the nurses and one of the doctors. That’s encouraging, right?”

  “He’ll be back to himself in no time,” Ethan said. “Honey, are you sure you don’t want to have Jack or Adam take you home?”

  “No.” She yawned so hard her jaw popped.

  “That’s all right, darlin’, we understand. We’re reluctant to leave, too, but there’s stuff that needs doin’ back at the ranch. Ethan, if you know where your truck keys are, we’ll swing by the club and check in, then pick up your truck and take it home for you.”

  Pointing to his jeans folded on a counter top, he said, “Should be in the pocket. Grace’s evening bag is on my desk. Would you get it for her?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Jack and Adam brought breakfast and a change of clothes for her and Ethan when they returned. The morning progressed rapidly from there. Grace called in to work to let them know what happened and that she wouldn’t be in. Ethan was released, but before they left the hospital, they stopped at Angel’s room to check on him. His mother was fussing and cooing over him like he was a four-year-old on his death bed. His dads just rolled their eyes and smiled. Angel was her firstborn, so she was entitled.

  Grace and her men headed home. On the way there, she called Teresa to let her know what happened. Teresa asked her if Grace thought she should go visit him while he was in the hospital, and Grace told her that she thought it was an excellent idea.

  Once they got home, Jack and Adam convinced Ethan and Grace to go straight to bed. The fact that she was weaving on her feet made it fairly easy to convince her, especially when Ethan started in on her as well.

  She changed into a nightgown and helped Ethan get comfortable, then curled up carefully next to him. Jack closed her bedroom door, and they fell asleep snuggled together and stayed that way for hours.

  She awoke to a warm hand on her shoulder, stroking her gently awake. She opened her eyes and looked up at Jack. He gestured to Ethan, who was also stirring. “We went and got some smoked brisket and sausage from the market smokehouse.”

  “What time is it?” she asked blearily.

  “Six o’clock. The food’s all hot if y’all want something to eat.”

  “Okay. Be righ
t there.” She stretched and turned on her side to Ethan as he rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Hi. How do you feel?” She stroked a hand over his good shoulder.

  “Groggy as hell.”

  “It’s probably time for pain meds.”

  “Not the Demerol. We’ve got some Tylenol. I’ll take that. The Demerol makes me loopy.”

  She grinned and snickered. “It also makes you sing.”

  Ethan got a far-off look in his eyes like he was trying to remember, then groaned loudly. “Oh crap, did I sing ‘Thank God—’”

  “‘I’m a Country Boy’? Yeah, you did. Impressively, too. You know all the words to that one.” She giggled.

  He grinned at her and managed to be sexy, even all bandaged up and in pain. “Did I sing to you?”

  “Oh, yes. It was sweet, too. I’ll let you sing to me whenever you want.” She went to him and kissed him, then climbed from the bed and put her robe on. “Hungry?”

  “I could eat, I think.” He sat up, and she helped him get his robe over his shoulder. He’d refused the sling the hospital offered him.

  After helping him put his robe was on, she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him gently.

  “I’m sorry our evening got ruined, Gracie.”

  “Up until it ended, it was wonderful. I’ll take the good with the bad, honey. That’s just life. Truthfully, I feel like celebrating because you’re still here.”

  “I’m feeling in the mood to celebrate, too,” he said, nuzzling her ear with his lips. His erection testified to his willingness.

  “Ethan! You’re recovering from a gunshot wound.” She giggled as his right hand squeezed her derriere.

  “I still have one good hand. I say we eat and see what comes up.”

  She breathed in the warm masculine scent that lingered on his robe and chuckled softly. “Oh, I think I already know. Come on.” She took his right hand and pulled him from the room before he got her horizontal on the bed again.

  The delicious smell of smoked brisket wafted through the air when they came down the hallway. Adam was setting the table while Jack cut up the sausage links and placed them on a big plate with the sliced brisket.