Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
The car didn’t slow.
I started running, knowing that I couldn’t get there in time but not caring.
“Iris,” I repeated.
It all happened in slow motion.
Iris stepped off the sidewalk, right in the path of the speeding car.
The car’s driver swerved at the last second as Iris finally saw the car.
She turned at the last second, and the car clipped Iris’s backpack as it squeezed past Iris and the bus.
Iris’ tiny body whirled like she was doing a triple axel and she landed on the curb, crying out.
I got to her in the next instant.
“Iris, honey,” I cried, tears pouring down my cheeks.
She started to cry.
It was the best and worst sound I’d ever heard.
Beau arrived like an avenging angel.
He was dressed in his lumberjack best—jeans, black tee, plaid long-sleeved shirt and boots.
He stomped into the emergency room like he owned it and demanded to know where Iris was.
I hadn’t called him. I had no idea how he’d heard.
But I was so glad that he was there.
“Here.”
He glanced toward me, and his shoulders visibly relaxed.
He tapped the nurses’ station twice with his scarred knuckles in apology and headed my way.
“What happened?”
My face hurt from crying.
I’d done it nonstop since I’d gotten here.
Iris was okay.
But she was freaking the fuck out because there were so many people and harsh lights. It became really obvious really quick that they would have to sedate her to treat her.
That was what we were discussing now.
I explained the situation that I was speaking about with the doctors, and Beau blew out a frustrated breath, but pulled me into his side. “Have you tried turning the lights down?”
I relaxed against him, unable to do anything but give him all my weight. He switched our positions, pulling me into his side so my front was pressed against his. He turned us slightly so we could both still see the doctor, but didn’t try to hide his need for touch.
“And the beeping on the monitor?” He jerked his chin toward the monitors that were beeping away above Iris’s head.
“Oh.” The nurse hurried into the room and muted them immediately. “I could stop that.”
We both watched Iris visibly relax, her face bruised from hitting the curb, now settling into relaxed lines.
“Lysander, my brother, had to come to the ER like this when he broke his femur,” he said. “Had to have surgery on it. We had to pretty much give him a quiet room,” he explained when the doctor looked at him questioningly. “They moved him to the back of the ER where they put psych patients? Apparently it’s quieter back there, and away from the hustle and bustle of the ER.”
“We can move her for sure, too.” The doctor was nodding along. “I don’t think anything too bad is wrong. But I don’t want to miss something.”
I nodded against Beau’s chest.
I didn’t want them to miss anything either.
Jesus, I was still witnessing the horror over and over in my brain.
I…
A hand closed around my own as he pulled away. “I’ll go sit with her, okay?”
I licked my lips and felt the loss of his heat like a punch to my soul the moment he let my hand go. “Sounds good. Thank you, Beau.”
He winked as he left, taking a little piece of my heart with him.
I hadn’t realized how much I needed him until he was here.
“Her father?” the doctor asked.
I shook my head. “No. Just a really good friend of mine.”
One of the best.
I would never admit this to Merrill, but Beau was what made it bearable not having her around.
“Wow, she’s actually talking to him.”
I glanced over to see Iris signing away, as if her long-lost friend had shown up and everything was okay in her world.
I knew Iris loved me.
However, she lit up when she was around Beau.
“I’d like to get an MRI of her head,” the doctor continued. “She’ll for sure have to be sedated for that, though. I can give her…”
The next few minutes he talked about what he wanted to do. What meds he would prescribe her.
It was decided that she’d be sedated for the MRI, which would be read immediately in case anything else had to be performed while she was still sedated. If everything checked out okay, they’d go ahead and stitch up her head where she’d hit the concrete curb, then they’d release her.
For the next several hours, Beau stayed at our side.
The two of them watched a documentary on African lions on Beau’s phone and I just watched them, content to do so.
I was so relieved that Iris was okay, that I hadn’t watched her die in front of my eyes, that I wasn’t jealous at all of the attention that she was giving Beau.
Hell, she was practically in his lap as she spoke to him.
The only thing keeping her in her own chair was that she needed Beau to be able to see her hands move.