She nodded and speed-walked across the lawn to keep up with Jig’s long stride. “Okay. That’s easy enough.” Thank God. She wasn’t sure she had the mental capacity to recall a complicated story after all she’d been through the past twenty-four hours.
“Yeah, we wanted to keep you out of it as much as possible.”
“Where is he?” She looked around but didn’t see Copper anywhere. Panic had her grabbing Jig’s arm. “Did they take him already?”
“Nah.” Jig pointed to the massive black pick-up. “They got him lying in the bed of the truck. You can ride back there with him. Stay low. We got some blankets back there so you shouldn’t be too cold.”
“Thanks, Jig.” Shell took off toward the truck. Zach helped her climb into the back. Copper was lying on a thick stack of folded blankets with another covering his body.
Shell lowered to her knees and crawled over to him. As carefully as possible, she laid down next to him. Comfortable wouldn’t exactly be the word she’d use to describe the set-up, but she’d lie on broken glass to be next to Copper.
“Closer,” he mumbled, eyes closed.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Need to feel you.” His slurred words had worry skittering across Shell’s nerve endings. Copper was a steel pillar, and those should never crumble. Seeing him in such a weakened state was unnerving, to say the least.
She inched her way closer until her body was pressed along his side. Gently, she rested her arm across his chest. “Better?”
He grunted.
“We’re done, Shell, you hear me?”
Her heart stopped. Literally died. “W-what?” He was breaking up with her? Tears spilled down her cheeks.
Now?
“Done with this bullshit. Soon as I’m on my feet, we’re getting fucking married.”
Shell couldn’t help it, she laughed. “Copper, you’ve lost a lot of blood. I think you’re delirious.”
“Not fucking delirious,” he muttered. “Say yes.”
“You didn’t ask me a question.”
“Goddammit, woman.”
Shell bit her lip to keep from laughing again. God, she loved this man. Some of the intense anxiety she’d been experiencing since he went missing abated. He was going to be just fine if he could still goddammit her.
Might as well agree. It wasn’t like he was going to remember it come morning. “Yes, Copper.”
He just grunted.
The rest of the trip was made in silence, but with a smile on her face.
It was over. Whatever the club decided to do with Rusty, Shell had no doubt it was over. He’d never bother her again. She no longer had to hand over half her salary to Joe each month. Copper knew her secrets and still loved her.
Once he was healed, everything would be perfect.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“BABE, WHAT’S IT gonna take to get you to go home and catch a few hours’ sleep?”
Shell glanced up from her phone where she’d been reading about tibial fractures. She blinked at Copper. “Huh? I told you. I’m not leaving until you do.” She bounced her knee and went back to her reading. Turned out there were a few ways to repair a tibial fracture depending on where the actual break was. And the type of surgery determined the restrictions and rehab course.
Huh, she’d have to remember to question the orthopedic surgeon next time he came around. Since they dragged Copper back to surgery, she’d been doing everything she could to learn about his injuries, how best to care for him, and what to expect recovery-wise. Drumming her fingers on the armrest of the most uncomfortable chair she’d ever sat in, she scrunched her forehead.
No weight on his leg for a few months? That wasn’t going to go over well.
As she concentrated, she kept up the knee bouncing. The moment the trauma doctors dragged Copper behind the thick operating room doors, anxiety shot through her, and it hadn’t left, even now, hours after surgery. It felt like she’d been zapped with a live wire, aftershocks zinging every few minutes.
“Babe, put down the phone and lie next to me,” Copper said.
Was he crazy? She looked up at his bruised face. “What? No, I’ll hurt you.” There were way too many injuries for her to be crawling into bed with him. The tibia and fibula were broken on his right leg. The femoral artery on his left leg had required surgical repair as well as the broken bones, but he’d be allowed to stand on that leg, thankfully. Then there were a host of stitches in his thigh as well as cracked ribs, a broken nose, and countless deep bruises. Oh, and the nasty blade-shaped third-degree burn on his abdomen. Couldn’t forget that one.
Copper reached out and snatched the phone from her clutches. He tossed it on the two-drawer nightstand on the opposite side of his bed.
“Hey!” Shell yelped. “I was reading that.”
“No,” he growled. How the man could be two hours out of major surgery and still so commanding was beyond her.