Page 67 of Hostile Witness
“Tell Flynn I want my side of the bed back when I get home.”
She chuckled through her tears. “Okay.”
He licked his lips again. “And pick a day I can visit your classroom, okay?”
Tia nodded. “I will.”
“And get some freaking food in the house besides tofu and horseradish.”
She nodded as Mac snorted a laugh.
Ethan continued, “I’m all in, T. We’re not done talking about it.”
The orderly locked the screeching side rails in place, released the brake, and started pushing the gurney out of the room.
“Get Tia out of here, Mac. I don’t want to see her until I’m up and moving.”
And just that fast, Ethan was gone. When Mac put his arm around her, she folded into him and cried her eyes out.
40
Tia alternated between pacing the living room and sipping at the caramel macchiato she’d purchased on the way home from the airport. Flynn had given up on following her and lain down on his bed by the new back door, intently watching her.
The inside of her house resembled a humid inferno. The past two days had been swampish and in the high eighties, an unusual temperature for early May. Opening a few windows, she made sure the crosswind would cool the place down with the ocean breeze.
Had Ethan woken from the second surgery yet?She massaged her forehead with a couple of fingers. Mac had promised he’d call her when he had news. Glancing at the mantel clock, she plugged her phone into the charger. It might be a long night.
She was fried. Both physically and emotionally tired beyond her usual limits. But every time she considered thewhat-ifsof Ethan’s injuries, the monitors, the fluid drips, and the lax expression on his bruised face while sedated, her body kick-started into overdrive again. And the exhaustion was fueling the vicious cycle.
What she really needed was to settle down and grab a few hours’ sleep. She considered the huge iced coffee on the countertop. Surely it wasn’t helping. If she had any sense, she’d pour it down the sink. But plain water or chamomile tea didn’t appeal right now. Maybe accomplishing something would help her frazzled mind calm down enough to rest.
Her decision made, she whistled for Flynn and grabbed her phone and charger. The last thing she wanted was to miss Mac’s call due to a dead battery. Flynn trotted up the stairs ahead of her and waited at the top. Halfway up—the gun—she jogged back down and retrieved the weapon from the hutch.I promised Ethan.It was a wonder she could remember where she’d stashed it from day to day at this point. Security was a practice she meant to keep, just so she could look him in the eye and say that seriously, she was watching her back.
Three stairs up, Tia sighed.The alarm system.She backtracked and reset it, allowing for open windows and the cross breeze upstairs. Taking the stairs two at a time, she joined Flynn at the top, plugged in her phone, and placed the Glock on her dresser.
A blessed coolness blew across her face as she opened the bathroom window. The gusty ocean wind she often cursed in the winter was a welcome friend today. After lifting a sash in each of the bedrooms, Tia got to work switching out her closet from winter to summer. As usual, it was exciting to see the vibrant summer clothes again and hide the subdued winter colors in the cedar closet she’d customized by herself.
May as well purge as I go.She made a discard-and-donate pile on a chair and held up a seafoam-color gauze midi dress with a plunging neckline.Love, love.What she wouldn’t give to wear it again. Well, that meant she’d have to make a decision soon between skin grafting or a tattoo to cover her elongated scar.
Ethan’s velvet bass voice whispered in her memory,That scar brought you back to me. Inhaling a quick breath, she stepped back from the closet. He wasn’t a flowers-and-candy kind of guy. She liked to pick out her own flowers anyway. He was a new red coffeepot, Thai food, and salsa dancing sexy-as-hell man who made her heart race and was perfect for her.
After spending almost an hour hustling clothes from one closet to another, she changed the sheets on the bed she and Ethan had tumbled into several times. She opened the closet door and tossed the soiled linens down the laundry chute. On reflection, she dropped the pink-rosebud winter comforter down the big funnel, too. A thump echoed as the dirty laundry landed on top of the washer.
Every time she used the chute, Flynn would still combat crawl to the huge opening, peer over the edge, whine, and back away. Tonight was no different. His apprehension was healthy as far as she was concerned. After the ordeal of extricating him from the old doggie door, she couldn’t imagine trying to get him out of the laundry chute. That thought was so not funny.
A minute later, a noisy blast of wind slammed the bathroom door shut. Huffing, she propped it open again with a painted brick one of her students had gifted her.
Tia yelped when her phone rang, because the volume was high enough to wake the comatose. Jumping over Flynn, she grabbed the phone.
“Mac?”
“Yeah, hi. He’s out of surgery. They said it went well, but he’s in for a hell of a recovery with the repaired tendons and ligaments in his arm. The good news is... they fixed everything.”
“Is he awake?”
“Not now. He’s out for the night.”
“What’s his prognosis?”