The Worst Best Friend: A Small Town Romance

Then I watch him disappear to fate through another big set of steel doors.

As they wheel him away, my legs go out.

The aftershock of everything hits like a fainting attack.

I’m too sad to even wince as I go down hard, my knees banging the ground.

* * *

The next thing I know, I’m on a bed with Gram parked in a chair next to me, stroking my hand with her wrinkled fingers.

West!

I try to jerk up, but I instantly regret it.

My body feels too heavy, too sluggish, every muscle biting and sore. The pain rips me down in warning.

“There, now,” Gram says. “I had them give you something to relax. You were so overwrought I feared the worst, Shelly Bean.”

“Weston?” His name sputters out more like a demand than a question.

“He’s still in surgery, dear, but don’t worry. The nurse told Grady the bullet fell short of a major artery. It’s lodged in bone and it might take time to extract it.” She pats my face. “How are you feeling, Shelly? We came too close to losing you.”

I hate the sadness bleeding into her voice.

“Fine. I’ll live, Gram.” I try clearing what feels like steel wool in my scratchy throat.

I probably scarred my throat from screaming bloody murder during my nettle fight, and again to call down all the healing gods who ever existed to save my man.

Mine.

I decide right here tonight that he belongs to me as much as I always have to him.

“Need a sip of water?” Gram asks.

I nod, taking a long slurp off a curly straw that she holds in front of me.

The stress must completely take over then because I start laughing.

“Girl, it’s so good to see you smile!” Gram beams. “If I knew these curly straws still made you laugh, I’d have had a thousand waiting for you at home.”

“How could I ever forget? You used to give us those kiddie 'beach cocktails' with fruit and lemonade every summer we went swimming in Big Fish Lake. We always used our straws to spray water at each other,” I say, both loving and loathing the memory that comes back.

Young Weston’s sleek, tanned body. Boyish and utterly perfect when he smiled around the straw.

Mischief flashing in those starlight-blue eyes every time he emerged from the lake to spray me when we weren’t both chasing Marty.

“You’ll see better days soon enough. The doctor says your throat will be awfully sore for a while,” she says slowly. “And your neck. It’s already bruised from that lying, two-faced bastard scoundrel.”

My eyes widen in surprise.

I can count on both hands how many times I’ve ever heard Gram curse in my life.

“I can’t believe how he tricked us,” she continues, her eyes pinched shut, shaking her head. “Believe me, Shelly, he’ll spend the rest of his life in jail. Sheriff Larkin will see to it, and so will I.”

Everything that happened flits through my mind like a colony of discontent bats taking flight.

“How’s Faye?”