Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true. What mattered was that I had her and her love for the rest of my life.
And when I walked into her room and saw her frowning at Jackson, listing all of the differences between him and me and telling him she didn’t find us identical at all, I smiled and breathed easy for the first time since she’d gone missing.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Addy
Waking up in the hospital and being aware of my surroundings for the first time was a blow. The last time I’d gone through something like this, they’d told me I had freaking cocaine and Rohypnol in my system, and not tiny levels of it. No, Eileen and her man had made sure to put large doses in my drinks, and given that I’d never tried the stuff or any drugs before, I was lucky they didn’t overdose me.
Because I had no memory of getting to the hospital, just of being hot and in the trunk of that damn car, I’d had a mini panic attack until someone had leaned over my bed and spoken softly to me.
Amazingly enough, what snapped me out of it was looking at the Marcus imposter smiling down at me.
“Who the fuck are you?” I croaked, scowling at him.
One side of his mouth tipped up in a grin. “You don’t recognize me?”
Ignoring his question, I looked around the room, searching for the one person who’d help me settle the riot of emotions inside me. “Where’s Marcus?”
“He had to go back to the ranch to deal with something, but your grandma and sister have just gone to get coffee. They’ll be back in—”
Grabbing his wrist, I begged, “Please, get him here.”
Searching my face for something, he finally nodded and then pulled his cell phone out. When the first person he called didn’t answer, he tried another number.
“Hey, baby. Yeah, I’m good. She’s awake and wanting Marcus ASAP. Can you get Remy’s chick to go and get him?”
He was silent for a moment, listening to who I assumed was Sasha, given that there was no doubt this was Jackson.
“Okay, love you, too. Yeah, she’s good, but she knew immediately I wasn’t Marcus.”
He burst out laughing, rolling his eyes at me like I could hear what she was saying. “Yeah, I know you don’t think we look the same either. Right, see you soon, baby.”
Hitting his screen, he lifted his ass and slid his phone back into his pocket. “So, tell me about yourself, Addy. And after that, you can tell me why you didn’t think I was my brother.”
I hated being asked to talk about myself, but it was different when it was your boyfriend’s brother, so I gave him a vague outline and answered the questions he shot at me. Then, I moved on to the differences between them…
“You don’t have the same blue as his eyes. I’ve got a photo of the sky that I took on an airplane, and that’s his exact shade of blue. His hair’s lighter than yours, and his tattoos are different. He also can’t get his hair to lie perfectly like yours, and it’s constantly got a slightly ruffled look to it, which I love. Your noses are different, his is slightly broader than yours, and his eye shape is different, too.”
Stopping, I squinted at him, then nodded. “Yup, your lips aren’t as plump as his either, and your jawlines are slightly different shapes.”
“Nice to see you awake and lucid,” a voice I’d missed and desperately wanted to hear again said from the doorway.
My head snapped in Marcus’s direction, and even though I was damning them and trying to stop them, tears immediately began rolling down my cheeks.
Moving farther into the room, he smiled sadly at me. “Don’t cry, baby. You’re safe now.”
“I-i-it w-was Marni,” I sobbed, covering my face with my hands. “The car was so dirty my leg stuck to the carpet, too.” I was bawling my heart out now, but at the memory of it, I dropped my hands to my lap and flung a hand out, only just missing Jackson.
“Who does that? Who doesn’t clean their car like that? It’s disgusting, and I’ve got it in my hair. I don’t even want to think about what my leg was sticking to, you know. And I’ve got scratches all over me that touched the carpet.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jackson sit back and wiggle like he was making himself more comfortable.
“I’m sorry, baby. As soon as the doctor says it’s okay, we’ll get you cleaned up. Right now, they’re trying to get your temperature down still, so you need to calm.” Marcus was speaking to me like I was a special case. “Have they given you the medication they were talking about earlier?”
That made me stiffen. “What medication?” I barely got the words out through how tense my muscles were.