Squeezing her hand, I watched Nurse O’Tally walk around to the other side of the bed and pick my wrist up to take my pulse.
Over her shoulder, the doctor rolled his eyes at me. “I think we’re good on the pulse, but if you just keep an eye on the room and check in on him from time to time, we’ll be great.”
Pouting at him, she argued, “But it’s my job.”
Tamsin looked like her head was going to explode, but she managed to hold it in. “Would you guys mind giving me just five minutes with my fiancé, please?”—fiancé?—“He’s just been shot while he was proposing, and all I want to do is make sure he’s okay.”
Hell, even I would have left the room if I was them after hearing that. The doctor was already walking over to the door, but the nurse seemed like she was there to stay.
She was just about to say something when the door opened, and DB popped his head around it, smiling when he saw that I was awake.
“Ah, good, you survived the surgery.” His head disappeared, and I heard him hissing at someone, then he walked into the room with my brother trailing behind him, carrying the mass that was Clyde in his arms. “We brought someone to see you. He’s been sniffing your shit in the department and howling like he was fucking mourning, so we brought him in to shut him up.”
“What in the fuck are you feeding this beast?” Raoul snapped, gratefully sitting down when Tamsin pushed the chair toward him.
The second he was settled, Clyde lost it and wriggled off him, whining as he walked up to Tamsin and stuck his head in her crotch.
“Ranger does that to me, too,” Raoul commented. “Does anyone know why? It makes me feel slightly violated.”
“I heard that it’s because they can smell other dogs on you,” Nurse O’T breathed, staring at DB and Raoul wide-eyed.
DB took a step away from her, and Raoul leaned slightly to the side so that he had Tamsin as a shield between them. “I’m not entirely certain that animal protection organizations like people like that.”
Making sure his badge was clear, DB used his Sheriff's voice. “Do you think you could give us some time with our man here, please?”
The effect was instant as she moved straight to the door. “Absolutely. Call me if you need anything. My name’s Nurse O’T—”
“O-Tits?” Raoul whispered around Tamsin to me.
“That’s what I thought,” I snickered, stopping more from the look on Tamsin’s face than the pain it caused in my shoulder.
When she was gone, they all turned around to look at me.
“Okay, hit me with it. Well, unless it’s another bullet or you’re aiming for my good shoulder.”
Crossing his arms in front of him, DB looked pissed. “How much do you remember?”
Leaning my back against the raised bed and giving it all of my weight, I breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought maybe I’d gotten drunk and hurt myself, but I remember now being out at the house to show Tamsin. She didn’t kill me for ordering the kit without her, by the way, because she’s perfect for me,” I smiled smugly at them, knowing full well that’s what they’d placed bets on happening.
“Well shit, Logan fucking won,” Raoul groused. “Rose would’ve killed me if I’d done that.”
“Tabby would’ve, too,” DB agreed, narrowing his eyes at Tamsin. “What kind of mutant are you?”
“An awesome one,” she smiled smugly.
“Anyway, I’d just asked her to marry me—she said yes even though I don’t have a ring yet. Oh, and she said it in the ambulance. There was a bang, pain and Clyde went running into the trees. I remember you guys arriving, but I’m not getting much after that because I was so focused on keeping Tamsin safe.”
Nodding, DB rubbed his jaw. “Cevdet Gjorka was spotted by Hurst in town about an hour before all of this went down. He pulled over to the side of the road and called us but lost where the asshole went. We told him to stand down, but then he put two and two together and decided to do a little hunting.
“Just as I was hanging up to call you, I got notified that the FBI and CIA were now involved in Gjorka’s case, and he has a whole list of shit they want to talk to him about,” he snickered, shaking his head. “What a dumb fuck. They also froze his accounts and assets, leaving him with just the clothes on his back and the money in his pocket. His associates did what good little rats do and ran when for safety when they heard about his situation. They don’t want the eyes of the Feds on them for any reason, and they also like getting paid for the job they’re doing.”