Page 59 of Coyote
I looked around and realized the tables on both sides of my hospital bed were filled with cards and balloons. All the cards were standing up and oriented towards me, so I could see the front. I wondered how long I’d been out for, I felt like I’d been run over by a truck, and lifting my hand I could see yellow and purple bruising over my knuckles.
I needed to talk to Bethany, to see her beautiful brown eyes and hear her voice, but I was reluctant to wake her. God only knows how long it had taken her to finally wind down long enough to catch some sleep of her own. Minutes ticked by as I stared at her lovely face, wreathed with now messy dark hair. To me she looked angelic. When she finally moved in her seat and stretched her arms above her head I asked, “Are you awake, querida?”
Bethany jerked upright, her eyes worried as she looked at me for a brief second as though she couldn’t believe I was awake. She jumped to her feet and approached the bed. “Oh my God, Lucas, you’re awake! How are you feeling?”
“How long have I been down?”
“It’s been forty-eight hours. You’ve woken up several times and each time the conversation starts just like this.”
Fuck, two days? That surprised me. I didn’t remember waking up before now, nor did I feel like I had been down for quite that long. “I’m sorry if I worried you sweetheart. I’m pretty sure this time is for good, I’m feeling surprisingly okay, I felt worse when I crashed my bike a year ago. Did they say what was wrong with me?"
She took my hand in hers, careful to avoid my bruised and battered knuckles, “The doctor said you have three rib fractures, it took twenty-seven stitches to close your shoulder wound and your lung collapsed. They said the lung collapse was likely related to the chest trauma, and one of the broken ribs nicked an artery. The doctors say there was a significant amount of internal bleeding.”
“Fuck me. It sounds like I really underestimated my physical endurance on this one.”
“I wish this had never happened, I hate that I’m the cause of it.”
“Don’t talk like that querida, this is not your fault. Don’t worry about me, I’ve bounced back from much worse than this. I’m feeling pretty strong and clear headed right now. That’s got to be a good sign, right?”
She nodded but I could see she was fighting back tears. So, I changed the subject.
“Did the police show up to take a statement?”
“No, thank God,” she said quickly. “Storm convinced them you got your injuries from wrecking your bike. I’m not sure they bought that story completely given you looked like you’d been in a bare-knuckle fight, but they went with it anyway.”
“Nothing good ever came from talking to the cops in this town. They’re fucking incompetent idiots who generate more problems than they solve in a day.” That was my opinion, and I was sticking with it.
“Don’t think about them. Just try to relax. Your body needs you to rest while it heals.”
I gave her hand a squeeze, “I’m gonna be fine.” After a pensive pause, I added, “You could have told me about Cyclops. You know that, right?”
She glanced away. “I just wanted to bury it all, not have you two trying to kill each other over what he did to me. And look where that got me.”
There was a tired, dispirited tone to her voice that I didn’t like. I said quietly, “I wouldn’t have wanted you to go through that all alone.”
She teared up. “I worried about telling you because it might have gotten you thinking about Nessa and who her father is. I couldn’t risk telling you until I knew for sure she was yours, I still don’t. Was what you said back there true? How do you know?”
Desperate to make her feel better, I came clean. “I suspected, but I didn’t know for sure until yesterday. Breaker had gotten one of the prospects to take Nessa’s hairbrush for a DNA test. The morning after the fire when he and Callie dropped by, they got suspicious, telling me she looked older than two. I honestly didn’t know what he’d done until he took me to one side yesterday and fessed up, I wanted to speak to you about it yesterday, but we were having such a good time. I didn’t want to ruin it, and have you think I didn’t trust you or something.” I started coughing and Bethany’s eyebrows creased in worry.
“I’m the one who should have trusted you. You aren’t angry that I kept her from you? I wanted to tell you she might be yours, I just couldn’t seem to find the right time.”
I reached out for her hand. “You had your reasons, we would have gotten there eventually,” My thumb rubbed over her knuckles. I loved this woman with all my heart, and I never wanted to let her go again.
Bethany’s expression brightened. “I always thought of her as yours, I wanted her to be yours so much.” Her softly spoken admission hit me right in the feels.
“Let me set your mind at ease, even if she wasn’t mine biologically, I would have been proud to be her father. That little girl is part of you and we’re a family. We might just be starting out and I’m still learning how to be a good dad, but if you would let me, I’d take such good care of her, and you too,” I paused, remembering how shell-shocked she looked after the fight, “Maybe you wouldn’t want a killer around your child, but I hope you could overlook what happened with Cyclops, because I didn’t really have a choice and because I had your best interest at heart.”
She leaned down to drop a tender kiss onto my lips. “There is nothing to overlook. If not for you I would have been trapped with him, you saved my life.”
I felt the anger roll through me as I thought about what could have happened. “That fucker was bat shit crazy. I hope you know nothing that went down between the two of you was your fault.”
She nodded, clearly feeling conflicted about it. “I truly wish I’d never met Cyclops. Their club is a rough, scary place. One of the men was jerking a woman around by her hair while I was there, and several of them were strung out on drugs. Before you arrived, Cyclops punched another guy in the face for staring at me. It seemed like the whole lot of them were varying degrees of unhinged. And it was weird how the women were all acting like it was just another day.”
“For them, I’m sure it was. Twisted Metal are outlaws, they were involved in hardcore crimes like running guns, selling drugs, and even trafficking women. Although Steel is getting them away from all that, most of the brothers in the club participated in loads of illegal shit. It taints the soul, ya know?”
She nodded. “Yes. I do know. I could see it in their faces and hear it in their voices. There was a certain hopelessness that permeated the whole place.”
“Well, you never have to go back. Just stay here where I can protect you.”