Deeper Than The Ocean by Julie Ann Walker
Chapter 11
8:48 AM…
Wolf was being charming.
Too charming.
Again.
The jerk.
He had remained in bed with her all night, lending comfort when the pain meds the nurse administered in the wee hours brought on a drug-induced night terror where she was back in the warehouse, hearing that terrible shot, seeing that look of fatalism contort Winston’s handsome face right before his eyes rolled back in his head.
Wolf had shaken her awake by crooning, “Shh, darlin’. It’s okay. I gotcha. You’re okay.”
And she had been. Because she’d done something she never did. She’d abdicated all her control, and placed all her fear and worry onto his broad shoulder with the thought, Wolf’s here. I’m safe. I don’t have to worry.
And then she’d slept. Slept like the dead. Slept like she hadn’t slept since she was a little girl and knew nothing of the weight of the world.
When she finally opened her eyes hours later, it’d been to see him standing at the window, the rising sun silhouetting his manly form.
The rays of light had made love to his tall, lean body. Streaming past his bold profile. Emphasizing his trim waist. Curling around the plump, hard rise of his ass in those jeans that should definitely come with a warning label.
She’d felt her heart skip a beat—the organ was nothing if not totally cliché. And then he’d gone and made everything so much worse by turning to smile at her. That sweet, hot smile that transformed his normally fierce-looking visage into something almost boyish.
“You’re up early,” she’d complained, picking at a piece of lint on the blue hospital blanket and castigating herself for having been so fragile the night before. For needing him so much.
“I don’t sleep much,” had been his reply as he walked to her bedside. His onyx eyes had swept her from head to toe, examining, scrutinizing every inch until she thought she could feel them moving over her like a gentle, searching touch.
She’d loved it and hated it at the same time.
She blamed that for her acerbic reply, “They say sharks never do.”
One sleek brow had winged up his forehead, making the scar near his temple pucker. “Oh, so now I’m a shark?”
“If the teeth fit.”
Instead of getting offended, he’d playfully snarled at her, displaying his straight, white teeth to full effect.
See? Charming. The jerk.
Then, when the morning shift nurse had come in to check Chrissy’s vitals, Chrissy had asked the woman when she would be released. All she’d wanted then and now was her own bed and a bath—but in reverse order.
The nurse had hemmed and hawed, and Chrissy had been glad the blood pressure cuff had been taken off. She was sure her levels had spiked through the roof.
Wolf had clearly read the situation and stepped in. “Have a heart,” he’d cajoled the nurse. Was it Chrissy’s imagination or had he thickened his aw-shucks accent? “There’s nothin’ more to be done for her here. Send her on home so she can eat ice cream and watch Netflix. Isn’t that what you’d want after gettin’ shot?”
The nurse had preened at Wolf—and it hadn’t been Chrissy’s imagination when she saw the woman squeeze her arms together to deepen her cleavage. “Well, since you asked so nicely, I’ll see what I can do.”
Once the nurse had left, Wolf had swung back to Chrissy with a self-satisfied grin. “We’ll have you out of here in no time.”
And he had. Thirty minutes later, she’d been signing her release papers and changing into the scrubs the nurse had procured for her since the ER docs who’d helped her out of her wet, bloody clothes the night before had simply stuffed the items into a plastic bag, rendering them still wet and still bloody this morning.
Also, she’d finally located her phone! Wolf had placed it in the bag with her clothes. Alas, it hadn’t survived the night completely intact. The fall from the dock had broken her Otter case and allowed water to seep in.
After she’d emerged from the bathroom in her new outfit, her arm supported by the sling, Wolf had thanked the nurse and smiled that schoolboy smile until the poor woman blushed so hard Chrissy thought it was a wonder her cheeks didn’t ignite.
See? Charming! The jerk!
And now he’d gone and said all the right things to Curtis and Maryanne Turner. Talking about how brave Winston had been and assuring them he’d seen softer men than Winston suffer harder wounds and still pull through.
He’d been so charming, in fact, Maryanne pulled Chrissy aside and whispered into her ear, “You know I always hoped you and Winston would get together, but now I understand why that’ll never happen.”
“Maryanne,” Chrissy hissed, “you know as well as I do Winston and I are way better at being friends than we are anything else. That’s why we’ll never get together. It doesn’t have anything to do with Wolf.”
Maryanne was one of those women who got better looking with age. Her large nose and high cheekbones—features that’d made her look harsh in her younger years—now made her look chic and sophisticated. Which is why she could pull off the imperious, slightly haughty look she gave Chrissy when she shrugged. “If you insist.”
Chrissy opened her mouth to do exactly that, but Maryanne moved away from her to return to Winston’s bedside.
Winston.
Chrissy hated seeing him like this.
He was so pale he nearly matched the hospital sheets. His eye sockets were bruised and sunken into his head. A respirator kept him breathing, and a heart monitor beeped. Its steady rhythm was a small comfort in the sudden silence of the room.
“I’ll come back this evening to check on him.” Chrissy moved next to Maryanne. She placed her hand on top of Winston’s, glad to find it warm with life.
Come on, Winston. You can’t have been born so stubborn for no reason. Prove these damn doctors wrong.
“No.” Maryanne shook her head. There was fear in her eyes, but also determination. “You need to rest and recover. We’ll call or text you as soon as they take him into surgery.”
Chrissy noticed Maryanne didn’t say if they took him into surgery.
Her best friend and business partner had inherited his doggedness from this here iron lady. And thank heaven for that.
Chrissy pointed to the plastic bag she’d placed on the floor by the door. “My phone’s waterlogged. It’s only kinda, sorta, maybe working.”
“We’ll put it in rice,” Wolf spoke up from the other side of the bed where he stood next to Curtis. “If that doesn’t fix it up, I’ll run out and buy you a new one.”
“Handsome and handy.” Maryanne nudged Chrissy with her elbow. “My, my.”
When Chrissy scowled at her, Maryanne bobbed her eyebrows.
Wolf shook Curtis’s hand, and Chrissy took the opportunity of his distraction to whisper harshly to Winston’s mother, “I would like to introduce you to an acquaintance of mine. His name is subtlety.”
“Pfft.” Maryanne scoffed. “Innuendo and nuance don’t work on you. You’re the type who needs a ball-peen hammer between the eyes.” Chrissy bristled, then all the fight went out of her when Maryanne added, “Which is one of the many reasons I love you, kiddo.”
Chrissy’s eyes welled. She felt so…tired.
“Oh, honey, come here.” Maryanne pulled Chrissy into her embrace and Chrissy shook with the effort not to dissolve.
This woman’s only child is lying in a bed, hooked up to machines and fighting for his life. I should be comforting her, not the other way around.
“I’m so sorry, Maryanne.” She stepped from Winston’s mother’s embrace. “Maybe if I’d been able to—”
“You stop that right this minute, young lady.” Maryanne’s eyebrows arrowed over her nose. “I know exactly what happened last night. That rumpled-looking detective told us. Winston would be dead if you hadn’t had the wherewithal to run and get help.”
Chrissy nodded although she was still struggling with all the what-ifs. What if she’d run faster? What if she’d taken a different route? What if she’d zigged instead of zagged? Could she have avoided getting shot and gotten to Wolf even quicker? When it came to blood loss, every second counted.
“Come on, darlin’.” Wolf came around Winston’s bed to gently touch her elbow. “Let’s get you home so you can start healin’.”
Maryanne’s eyes widened and she mouthed the word darlin’.In response, Chrissy rolled her eyes. But then she pulled Winston’s mother in for one more hug, loving the familiar smell of Sunflowers by Elizabeth Arden.
Maryanne had never quite moved beyond the ’90’s.
After bussing Curtis’s cheek, Chrissy allowed Wolf to escort her into the hall where the two policemen assigned to stand watch over her and Winston conversed. One of them—Rick Ryan, the officer who’d taken over Chrissy’s security from Denny Parsons—trailed along behind them as she and Wolf made their way through the hospital.
Having a fully uniformed, fully armed shadow was unsettling to say the least. But what bothered her even more were the female heads that turned in Wolf’s direction.
More than once she caught herself glaring at the ogling women—although, it seemed Wolf was oblivious. The fourth time she tried to slice a fellow member of the sisterhood open with nothing more than her switchblade eyes, her mind skidded to a stop.
What the hell are you doing?
She tried blaming her jealousy on physical pain and the mental anguish of having just left her best friend in the ICU fighting against the odds. But those explanations rang false.
Worse, they sounded like rationalizations.
If there was one thing she hated more than a milksop woman who unloaded all her troubles onto the big, strong man in her life, it was someone who refused to face the music when it came to their own thoughts and feelings and rationales.
But call me Queen of the Hypocrites, ’cause I’m too tired to go there.
Instead, she kept her eyes straight ahead for the remainder of the walk.
Once they pushed through the automatic front doors, she pulled the salty sea air into her lungs. The familiar scents of tropical flowers and hot asphalt tunneled up her nose. After the antiseptic air inside the hospital, she welcomed the smells.
I’m alive, she told herself. Winston is alive. For now that has to be enough.
“There was supposed to be a taxi waitin’.” Wolf cut into her thoughts. “I used the phone at the nurse’s station to call for one before we went to visit Winston.”
Well, of course he had. The man thought of everything. She should probably be annoyed by that. But right then, the only thing she felt was grateful.
“It’s nice having someone to help you shoulder the burdens of life.” Her mother’s words rang inside her head. This had been Josephine’s answer to, “Why do you keep letting yourself fall in love when it never works out?”
Chrissy had asked the question after her mother’s fourth divorce was finalized, and at the time her mother’s response had only confirmed Chrissy’s stance she would never stumble into the trap of depending on someone other than herself.
Yet here she was. Relying on Wolf.
“Can we catch a ride with you?” Wolf asked Officer Ryan.
The policeman made a face. “I wish. But I drove my personal vehicle for this detail.” The officer hitched his chin toward the parking lot and the late-model Toyota 4Runner with two kayaks attached to the rack on the roof. “It’s policy not to drive with civilians while we’re on the clock. You know, liability issues if I were to get in a wreck and one of you got hurt or—”
Wolf waved him off. “No need to explain. Spent fourteen years in the Navy. I know all about the protocols put in place to cover everyone’s asses.” He turned to Chrissy. “That phone of yours kinda, maybe, sorta workin’ right now?”
Digging into the plastic bag, she pulled out her iPhone. Thumbing it on, she discovered that, miracle of miracles, the screen flashed. But it was only a flash. The low-battery icon blinked before the device went dark.
“Sorry.” She grimaced. “It needs juice.”
“No worries. I’ll run inside and ask the admissions desk to make a call to the cab company. You goin’ to be okay out here?”
She smiled wanly. “I have a flesh wound, Wolf, not a mortal injury. I’m sure I’ll be fine standing on the sidewalk. Besides”—she pointed to Officer Ryan, whose hand rested on the butt of his weapon—“I have Officer Ryan to watch over me.”
Wolf let his gaze run over her, as if he needed to reassure himself. Then, he nodded and turned back into the hospital.
She gave herself permission to watch him go—and yes, I realize I’m doing exactly what I tried to eye-murder other women for. She’d always admired the way Wolf moved. His back was straight. His shoulders were back. His head was held high.
Military bearing,she decided. No wasted movements. Just confidence and efficiency in every step.
When the automatic doors closed behind him, she headed out from under the shade of the awning.
“Don’t go too far,” Officer Ryan warned.
“Just going to soak up some sun,” she assured him.
“Really?” He wiped a drop of sweat glistening on his temple. “It’s hotter than Satan’s ball sac today.”
As soon as he realized what he’d said, he grimaced. When he opened his mouth, Chrissy stopped him with a raised hand. “Please, if you’re going to be my protection for the next little while, you need to understand that I’m on a first-name basis with the full gamut of curse words. You can’t offend me unless you start badmouthing conch fritters.”
Officer Ryan looked genuinely confused. “Who’d badmouth those? They’re delicious.”
“I work with tourists,” she told him. “You’d be surprised what passes for good food”—she made air quotes—“in other parts of the country. Ever heard of mayonnaise on fries? Kombucha? Turkey bacon?” She shuddered again for effect.
“No accounting for taste, I guess,” Officer Ryan mused at the same time his cell phone rang. Pulling it from his pocket, he glanced at the screen. “My wife,” he said by way of explanation. “I wouldn’t take the call while I’m on duty, but Dustin, our oldest, tried out for the baseball team today and—”
“Say no more,” Chrissy interrupted him.
He nodded gratefully before holding his phone to his face. Using his free hand, he plugged his opposite ear against the noisy traffic on the nearby road.
In that moment, she was envious of Officer Ryan. Of his family. Of the nervous excitement she heard in his voice when he said into the phone, “Tell me he made it.”
Will that ever be me?
She was beginning to have her doubts.
Rummaging through her plastic bag, she searched for the bottle of pain pills the nurse had given her.
She didn’t normally resort to prescription medication. On those rare occasions she suffered a headache, she tended to fight it off with two full glasses of water followed by a catnap. Even the time she was caught in a bad tide and slammed up against a reef, getting coral lodged in her thigh, she’d only cut the pain with some topical analgesic and a big slug of rum before going in with tweezers to pull out the foreign matter.
But according to Nurse McCleavage, Chrissy was, “Better off staying on top of the pain, or believe me, that pain will get on top of you.”
Placing a pill on the back of her tongue, she turned her face into golden light shining from above and swallowed it down.
Her mother used to throw back the curtains on their little conch house after a rainy day. “Sunshine is Mother Nature’s disinfectant. Let’s open all the windows and let that healing light in,” Josephine would say.
Chrissy wasn’t sure there was any science to back her mother’s notion, but she closed her eyes all the same, letting the warmth of the sun seep past her skin to sink into her bones.
Which is why she didn’t see the beat-up sedan barreling toward her.