“Drat,” she grumbled.
Everyone laughed as Brooks, one of the triplets, rounded the corner and demanded, “What did I miss?”
Yvette rolled her eyes as he came over and yanked on her big toe through the blankets.
She looked over at Neil in chagrin. “No wonder you were so hot and bothered to get out of the hospital before. I get it now.”
Tyler piped up with, “Hey. At least you weren’t shot, Yvie.” He was fully recovered from the gunshot wound he’d suffered a few months back, thankfully.
“Nah. I was just mugged. Garden-variety crime. Nothing fancy like you,” she retorted.
The conversation ebbed and flowed around her with her siblings laughing and talking about their jobs and homes and general gossip. It turned out Ty and Ashley were planning to take a vacation soon, and a spirited debate over where they should go ensued with Venice and Maui emerging as the two front-runner choices.
When the conversation lagged, Yvette commented, “Gee, it’s too bad Jordana’s not here to enjoy this gathering of the troops that she arranged.”
“Yeah. Where is she, anyway?” Neil demanded.
As if conjured by the question, Jordana turned the corner into the room no more than a minute later. “I see everyone’s here,” she commented. “That’s great. I have an announcement to make. I’ve told Mom, and Yvie already knows, but I’m moving to Chicago to be with Clint, and I’m going to open up an office there for Ty’s security firm.”
Exclamations and congratulations were forthcoming, and Yvette was delighted not to be the center of attention as the others focused on Jordana. It was great of her family to show up like this, but frankly, the whole Colton clan at once could be a little exhausting.
Perhaps two minutes passed with nobody else coming into her now crowded room, but then one more body filled the doorway. Reese. The gang greeted him, and he joined in to the conversation easily.
Yvette noted that he and Jordana seemed to have come to an understanding, for the two of them were relaxed and joking with each other. Thank goodness. She would have hated to put a rift between them with her thoughtless revelation of Jordana’s plan to leave the force and move away.
One by one, the siblings started to drift out, citing jobs and other obligations. Jordana was the last one left. She came over to Yvette’s bed and leaned down, looking concerned. “Do you have any idea at all who could’ve jumped you in the parking lot, sis?”
“None.”
“No enemies? Disgruntled exes?”
“You have to have exes for them to be disgruntled,” she retorted.
Jordana smiled but the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m worried about your safety, Yvie. If last night’s attack is related to a case you’re working on, the attacker may not have gotten what he wanted.”
“Meaning what?” she asked her older sister sharply.
Jordana sighed. “He might have meant you more serious harm than this.”
“Are you tiptoeing around saying the attacker might have meant to kill me?” Yvette demanded.
“Well, yes,” Jordana allowed reluctantly.
“I’d already thought of that,” Yvette confessed.
Reese jumped into the conversation. “Don’t worry, Jordana. I’m taking her back to my place and not letting her out of my sight. I’ll see to it she’s safe going forward.”
Jordana nodded in relief. “Call me if you need help or you need me to spell you. Yvette can be a bit of a pill, especially when she’s not feeling good.”
“Hey!” Yvette exclaimed. “I’m an angelic patient.”
Reese and Jordana both laughed at that.
A wave of fatigue washed over her and Yvette closed her eyes.
Reese murmured to Jordana, “Yvette’s looking a bit droopy. Maybe we should let her rest a bit?”
Her sister took the hint, planted a quick kiss on her cheek and left.
“Thanks for kicking her out,” she murmured to him.
“I knew it meant a lot to you to have your family rally around you, but you need your rest.”
For the first time since she’d come back to Braxville, she felt like she was really home. She reached up to touch the bandages on the side of her head. “It’s a heck of a way to finally reconnect with my family.”
He smiled gently. “Maybe you can go a while without hitting your head again? It would help my blood pressure immensely.”
Worried about her, was he? Okay, that made her insides feel even warmer and squishier. “I forgot what it’s like to be part of a big family. Or at least, I forgot for a while what the best part of being a Colton is.”
Reese did a strange thing. He frowned for a moment. His lips parted as if he was going to say something in response to that, but then he closed his mouth and turned away. What on earth?
Without looking back at her he mumbled over his shoulder, “I’m going to arrange for a police officer to stand outside your room. Once he gets here, I have some stuff to do. But, I’ll come back in a little while to check on you. Get some rest, eh?”
“Umm, yeah. Sure.” What was up with him? He kept blowing hot then cold with her, and it was confusing as heck.
The door closed behind him and silence fell around her. Alone at last. Her eyes drifted shut.
She dreamed of running after Reese as he strode away from her, calling for him to come back, and him never once turning around to even look at her.
She woke with a lurch, feeling lost and alone, abandoned by everyone she loved. Startled by how powerful her reaction to some stupid dream was, she reached up with both hands to dash tears off her cheeks. Sheesh. Since when had she become so sappy and sensitive?
From the doorway, a male voice boomed, “Yvette? Are you awake?”
Well, duh. She would be now if she hadn’t already been. “Hi, Dr. Jones.”
“I came to have a look at you and see how you’re feeling.”
“I’m feeling ready to get out of here.”
The doctor smiled as he shone a blindingly bright little torture device of a light in her left eye. “All my patients say that.”
She responded dryly. “You mean not everybody loves being poked and prodded awake every hour on the hour around the clock?”
His grin widened. “Well, I can see your ornery wasn’t hurt in your mishap.”
Not hardly. She was still ticked off at herself that she hadn’t had more situational awareness when she went out to her car last night. She’d been so relieved not to run into Reese that she’d forgotten everything she knew about self-defense.
Another male voice spoke from the doorway. “What’s the verdict, Doc? Can she go home today?”
She peered around the physician to see Reese leaning against the door frame looking long and lean and sexier than any one man had a right to.
“She can go home if and only if she’s got someone with her around the clock for the next twenty-four hours. She’s going to need to be woken up every couple of hours for at least one more day—”
Yvette groaned. “You’re killing me with all this interrupted sleep. Is it really necessary?”
The doctor looked down at her sternly. “You have a serious concussion. Immediately after a serious head trama, there’s a risk of you falling unconscious and slipping into a coma. You have to be woken up periodically to make sure that hasn’t happened.”
“Oh, please. I’m fine.”
Reese spoke over her. “I’ll see to it she’s woken every two hours like clockwork. Any other care instructions?”
“I’ll send her home with painkillers and antibiotics, and I need her to stay on anti-inflammatories for at least a week to prevent any swelling in or around the brain.”
“Got it,” Reese said briskly.
“Complete bed rest for the next day. She can only get up to go to the restroom. Af
ter that, limited activity for another three to four days. It goes without saying that she mustn’t do anything that will shake her head or move it abruptly. No sports, no vigorous activity, no exercise.”
“Party pooper,” she mumbled.
Reese grinned at her and she gifted him with her blackest scowl.
The doctor left the room and Reese commented, “You’re so cute when you’re mad.”
“Did you just call me cute? Now, I’m going to have to kill you. As soon as I can engage in vigorous activity, you’re a dead man.”
His grin widened. “I can think of a few vigorous activities I’d like to engage in with—” He broke off. “Sorry. That was out of line.”
Her cheeks heated up until they felt on fire. He was thinking about sleeping with her, was he? “There’s still the matter of you lying to me to deal with, mister.”
“Me? I’ve never lied to you.”
“What do you call not telling me about my father’s fake arrest?”
“That’s an omission, not a lie. I would never lie to you. We couldn’t tell any of the Colton kids about it because the cameras were there to record your reactions. They had to be real.”
She huffed. “I still don’t like it.”
“I didn’t like doing it if that makes you feel better,” he said soberly.
Actually, it did. But she wasn’t about to admit that to him until he groveled a little more.
“I swear, Yvette. I will never lie to you—”
The doctor stepped back into the room and Reese broke off.
The neurologist boomed, “I’ve had a nurse send all your prescriptions over to the drugstore. They should be ready for pickup by the time you’ve finished the release paperwork and you’re ready to get out of here.”
For a man who worked around people with head pain a lot, the guy sure was loud.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said politely. She opened her mouth to forgive Reese for not telling her about the fake arrest of her father, but a nurse came in and shooed Reese out of the room.
The woman had a clipboard and shoved it under Yvette’s nose. It took a half hour to wade through a mountain of documents with print too small for any reasonably sighted human being to read, but at long last, the woman held out a large plastic bag. “Here are your clothes and personal effects. Do you want me to help you get dressed?”
“No. That’s okay. I can dress myself.” Just how helpless did they all think she was?
She was dressed and seated on the edge of the bed, reluctantly admitting to herself that she had the beginnings of a monster headache coming on, when Reese came around the corner into her room.
“Let’s spring you from this joint,” he said jauntily.
“Thank goodness.” She jumped off the edge of the tall bed and knives stabbed her brain from about fifty directions at once. Whoa. She paused until the pain subsided enough for her to actually see—
A hand gripped her elbow and Reese loomed beside her. Man, that guy was fast. That, and he could read her well. He must’ve seen the pain on her face and jumped over to support her.
“You okay?” he asked quietly enough not to send the knives back through her skull.
“Yeah. Sure,” she mumbled.
“Liar.”
“Just get me out of here. I hate hospitals.”
He paced himself beside her as a nurse pushed her to the elevator in a wheelchair. When it opened on the ground floor, he jogged ahead and was waiting at the exit in his truck by the time she arrived. He helped her into the cab, shut the door gently and climbed in beside her. “I promise to drive like Grandma’s soup and a couple dozen crates of fresh eggs are in the back of my truck.”
“Thanks,” she sighed.
He navigated out of the parking lot.
“I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me. If you could just take me to my car, I’ll go home and stay out of your hair for the next couple of decades.”
Reese’s frown was immediate and intense. “Did you not listen to the doctor? You can’t be alone. The only reason he let you out of there was because I agreed to look out for you.”
“Which I appreciate you doing. Deeply. But I’ll be fine—”
“I swear to God, Yvette. If you tell me you can take care of yourself and don’t need help one more time, I’m going to shout at the top of my lungs.”
“Please, no,” she blurted. Her head was already pounding.
“You’re coming to my house. And that’s that.”
“You are so stubborn.”
“Pot, meet kettle,” he replied dryly.
She huffed and crossed her arms, sitting back in irritation as he drove past her house—literally past it—on his way across town to his place. Oh, he was just taunting her now.
However, by the time he pulled carefully into his garage and turned off the engine, she actually felt wilted and in need of painkillers and a nap, in that order. He opened her door and she moved to get out, but he stepped forward and shocked her by scooping her up into his arms.
“Reese! What are you doing?” She flung her arms around his neck to regain her equilibrium.
“I should think it’s patently obvious what I’m doing,” he said, using his hip to shut the truck door, and heading for the kitchen. He leaned down a little for her to turn the doorknob and entered the house with her. Another hip check to close the kitchen door and he strode through his house to—ohmigosh—his bedroom, where he deposited her on his bed and left to get her meds.
His room was neat and masculine. His bed looked handmade out of logs sanded smooth. She would bet he’d built it. There was something intensely intimate about lying in it, knowing he’d made it with his own two hands.
He came back, setting down several prescription bottles with her name on them and a tall glass of water. He’d picked up her medications for her? When? He must have raced out while she was filling out the discharge paperwork and gotten them.
He reached out again to pick her up so she could pull the blankets out from underneath herself. He set her back down on the soft mattress gently. Her arms still rested around his neck, and their faces were about a foot apart. Her heart fluttered at the sexy proximity of this man.
“I’m glad you’re going to be all right,” he murmured. “When I got that call from Lilly that you were hurt—” Reese’s voice cracked.
“I’m tougher than I look.”
“You don’t have to be tough for me, Yvie. I’ll take care of you and keep you safe.”
“You can’t always be there for me.”
“I can try.”
Their gazes melted together, hers in gratitude and his in concern. His eyes were so blue and beautiful she could lose herself in them forever.
“Kiss me, Reese.”
His lips curved up. “Thought you’d never ask.”
“You were waiting for me to ask?”
His hand slipped out from behind her knees and he ran his fingers across her forehead ever so gently. “You don’t seem to have had much luck with men. I didn’t want to scare you off.”
“And here I was, worrying that I’d scared you off.”
He frowned slightly. “Why would I be scared of you?”
“I think it’s safe to say I’ve proven I’m a bit of an accident risk.”
His frown dissolved into a wry smile. “Truth. But I’m generally pretty good at anticipating trouble and heading it off.”
She smiled up at him. “You obviously haven’t hung out around me for long.”
His mouth lowered slowly toward hers. “No, but I’m looking forward to doing so.”
His lips touched hers lightly, preventing her from responding. Which was just as well. She was totally speechless. Did he just admit to wanting a long-term relationship with her?
His lips pressed against hers a litt
le bit more firmly, and she threaded her fingers into his hair to tug him closer. He resisted, and she finally mumbled against his lips, “I won’t break.”
“Still. Not gonna risk hurting you,” he mumbled back, stubbornly refusing to increase the pressure of the kiss.
He did take his time, however, brushing her lips with his mouth, kissing his way lightly across her cheekbone to gently nibble her right earlobe. When she was panting a little and starting to feel more than a little hot and bothered, he lowered her shoulders to the stacked pillows and straightened. Took a step back from her.
“Lord, you’re tempting,” he murmured.
“Then don’t stop.”
“Doc said no vigorous activity for a week. If I don’t stop now, there are definitely going to be vigorous things going on in my bed.”
“Well…hell.”
He laughed down at her. “Can I get you something to eat? Maybe a drink?”
“How about a stiff shot of vodka?”
“Can’t mix your pain meds with alcohol.”
“You’re such a buzzkill.”
“That’s me. The old stick-in-the-mud.”
She looked up at him quickly. “You’re not a stick-in-the-mud. Far from it.”
“That’s not what you’ve spent the past year telling me.”
“I didn’t know you for the past year.”
“And you think you know me now?” he asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“I’d like to think so.”
“Then how can you blame me for not telling you about your father’s staged arrest? Not only was I doing my job, but I’m trying to catch Markus Dexter and solve a murder. You know Gwen Harrison. It’s agony for her not to know who killed her mother and if that killer is still alive. I would never do something like stage your dad’s arrest just to harass your family. The Coltons have been through plenty in the past year.”
She sighed. “I believe you. I was just so shocked and angry at the unfairness of the accusation I didn’t stop at the time to think about why you’d have done it.”
He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt when you did stop to think about it.”
Harlequin Romantic Suspense December 2020 Box Set Page 41
