Trust Me (Last Stand #1)(57)
Author: Brenda Novak

“I’m afraid not.”

“Then give me a minute to locate him.”

“No problem,” she said, and the woman put her on hold.

Skye wiped her damp palms on her jeans while she waited. Then, without another word to warn her that the call was going through, the phone began to ring and a different woman picked up. “Nurses’ station.”

“Oliver Burke’s room, please.”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

Skye drew a deep breath. “His mother.”

“If you’ll hold, I’ll see if anyone’s awake.”

Skye expected to hear from the nurse again, but she didn’t. Instead, the phone rang again and someone whispered, “Mom?”

It was Jane. Skye recognized her voice from the other night. Burke was at the hospital, probably being doted on by his wife. And Skye was standing alone in her house after shooting the man he’d sent to kill her. “Jane?” She kept her voice low and breathy and, she hoped, unidentifiable.

“Yes?”

“How’s Oliver?”

“He—he’s going to be fine. Who is this?”

“Just someone who knows the kind of man he really is,” she said and disconnected.

Tears streamed down Skye’s face—for no particular reason. She was alive. She kept reminding herself that she should feel relieved. But Burke was alive, too. He was recuperating in a hospital room for now, but as long as he was still out there, somewhere, she knew this wasn’t over.

15

The ringing of the phone and his wife’s quiet voice woke Oliver after a night of drug-induced sleep. Opening his eyes, he glanced around the colorless hospital room, noted the IV trailing to the shunt in his arm, the dotted yellow line on the monitor beeping steadily as it showed his heart rate, and finally Jane, who was standing with her back to him at the window, as she had much of yesterday.

This had hardly been the joyous homecoming they’d anticipated.

“Hey,” he said, his voice cracking.

Jane turned but didn’t approach the bed. “How’d you sleep?”

He winced because the simple act of clearing his throat brought pain. It radiated from his wound down the left side of his body. “Better than you, apparently.”

She offered him a feeble smile. “They didn’t give me any morphine.”

“I’ll ask for some Valium, if you want.”

Her smile became more of a grimace. “I don’t think it would help with what’s really bothering me.”

He knew what was bothering her. It bothered him, too. They’d lost far too much, and the suffering had gone on for far too long. “We’ll reclaim our lives. This is just a temporary setback.”

She nodded but hardly seemed convinced. She was different than Oliver had expected. She seemed more like a stranger than his wife, and it wasn’t hard to tell that the years he’d spent in prison had been hard on her. She used to be a bright, bubbly woman, quick to smile. Now she was subdued, withdrawn. New lines around her eyes and mouth made her look older, too, even a little hard-bitten. She’d gained a few pounds. And now she smoked.

Smoking was a distasteful habit. Oliver hated it. His parents hated it, too, especially his father. Concerned about Kate’s exposure to secondhand smoke, Maurice had mentioned Jane’s new vice in one of his letters, and Oliver had asked her to quit by the time he was released. But he could tell that hadn’t happened. She must’ve gone out for a cigarette a few minutes before he woke because he could smell the residual stench as if she’d lit up right in the room.

“Who just called?” he asked.

A certain wariness entered her eyes, which were smudged with mascara from when she’d been crying yesterday. “Wrong number,” she mumbled.

“In a hospital?”

“The caller was looking for another patient.” She returned her attention to whatever she’d been looking at beyond the window. “The floor nurse patched it through by accident.”

“Oh.” He let his gaze wander over her backside, hoping to feel some kind of lust. He wanted to prove to himself that he hadn’t changed sexual orientation while he was in prison. It’d be disappointing and embarrassing if he couldn’t get it up for his own wife. But he felt nothing.

It’s the pain. And the medication. No man would feel like having sex right now, regardless of how long he’d been in prison.

But he should want to touch her, shouldn’t he? He shouldn’t be thinking that the added weight made her look sloppy. She’d been up all night, watching over him. Where was his gratitude?

“Is Mom bringing Kate today?” he asked.

“They’ll be here during visiting hours.”

His parents had stopped by yesterday, too. Oliver seemed to possess a hazy memory of his mother smoothing the hair off his forehead, but with all the medication they’d given him, he wasn’t positive that had actually occurred. In fact, he wasn’t sure of anything after T.J. stabbed him. He didn’t even remember the ambulance that had brought him to the hospital.

“I’ve got to go.” Jane began gathering up her purse, coat and novel from the cart that otherwise served as his meal tray.

Surprised by this announcement, Oliver shifted carefully in the bed. “Where?”

“To work. I asked for the day off, but they couldn’t give it to me. We’re too busy on weekends.”

“It’s still early.”

“I have to get home and shower, then check on Kate. I’d like to see her for a few minutes before I go in.”

She saw Kate every day. She hadn’t seen him for years. “Doesn’t your boss know I’m in the hospital?”

With a sigh, Jane ran a hand through her hair, which she’d begun to dye to hide the gray. He could tell because it was so much darker than her natural color. “They know. They just don’t care.”

“That’s pretty insensitive, don’t you think? I wouldn’t go in if I were you.”

“If I don’t show up, they’ll fire me.”

“Let them fire you! That’s ridiculous!”

“Oliver, someone’s got to support us until you’re well enough to work.”

The irritation in her voice annoyed him. She’d never used that tone with him before. He’d thought she was feeling sorry for him, but this suggested she was feeling more sorry for herself. “My parents will help us,” he said.