The Truth Within (Pelican Bay 3)

As his fingers touched mine once again, I didn’t know whether to be pissed at him or pity him. I reminded myself that I’d been down this road before and while Carter hadn’t been a homophobe, he’d still chosen the safety of calling himself “straight,” despite the fact that he’d fucked me in every conceivable location and every conceivable position.

He’d even chosen the self-denial when my entire future had been on the line.

It took effort, but I managed to pull my hand away and rest it on the butt of my gun. I kept my eyes forward so I wouldn’t have to see Ford’s reaction.

But I swore I heard it in the form of a little whimper. I knew I was right when Jodi looked over her shoulder at Ford. I saw him cross his arms in that all-too-familiar move as she asked, “You okay, honey?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.”

Was it just me or did his voice sound kind of strangled?

“You really should stay for observation, Ford. You may be feeling fine now, but there’s a chance you could have complications that could come on fast…”

“I’ll think about it, okay?” Ford said.

Jodi smiled but she seemed about as convinced as me.

Which was zero.

I wanted to shake some sense into him, but I reminded myself that he wasn’t my problem. I’d done my job. And once I was done with Walter, I’d get back to it.

I was beyond glad to get out of the elevator because my need to touch Ford despite my vow not to was like a living, breathing thing beneath my skin. We followed Jodi to a room on the far side of the busy floor.

“Walter, I brought you some visitors,” Jodi said as she opened a sliding glass door and pulled back a curtain for one of the many small, private rooms on the unit floor.

She motioned for us to enter.

Walter was awake when we stepped inside, but even from where I was standing, I could see he was drugged up to the gills. He looked small and pale in the bed. I heard Ford gasp behind me.

“Walter?” he said.

“Lenny?” the old man asked as he squinted his eyes at Ford and then smiled wide. I watched in disbelief as a tear slipped down his face. “Lenny, they didn’t get you?”

Ford stopped mid-stride for a moment, then looked at me. I shook my head because I had no idea who Lenny was.

Walter held out his hand. “I saw the Huey go down but I knew you’d get out.”

“I think he’s talking about an army buddy,” I said softly. “Huey is a nickname for one of the kinds of helicopters the army used to fly.”

My voice seemed to wake Walter from his haze of confusion because he looked at me, Jodi, then Ford. “Ford, my boy,” Walter said groggily.

“Walter, are you all right?” Ford asked as he hurried to Walter’s side and took his hand in his.

“Pish,” the man said, then he chuckled. “Pish,” he repeated, like it was the funniest word he’d ever said. He kept saying it over and over until his voice drifted off and his eyes slipped shut.

“Like I said, he got the good drugs,” Jodi said.

“What are his injuries?” I asked.

“He’s suffering from hypothermia, but it was a mild case. He’s got some scrapes and bruises, but the biggest concern is his hip. From what he was able to tell us when he arrived, he fell down the stairs when he was trying to get into the basement to check on some pipes after the power went out sometime overnight.”

“One of his pipes burst,” I acknowledged. I watched Ford as he sat on the edge of Walter’s bed and held his hand. “Is his hip broken?”

“No,” she responded. “It was dislocated, though.”

I saw Ford pale. “I moved him,” he whispered. “I made it worse—”

“You kept him from getting wet, Ford,” I said almost angrily. “It was an accident that he fell… it could have been a hundred times worse if you hadn’t gone to check on him or if you’d left him on the stairs to get drenched by that pipe.”

Ford didn’t respond to my outburst other than to turn away from all of us to stare out the window.

Jodi seemed to sense the tension but didn’t ask about it. “A hip dislocation is very painful, but obviously if he’d broken it, it would have been considerably worse. A broken hip for a man his age spells weeks in a hospital, sometimes even months, along with possible surgery and months of rehab. He’ll still need to stay with us for a week or two and have some physical therapy, but his chances of recovery are really good. I know he wasn’t all that mobile to begin with because of his knee, but the physical therapists might actually be able to help him with that too.”