Chapter Nine
Sharp painsand a feverish heat draw me back to waking over the next several hours, but each time there’s a steady brush of fingertips across my forehead and a soothing voice telling me it’s okay. I can’t be sure it’s real, but I want it to be.
I wake sometime later to arguing. It’s dark outside my window and the lights are dim in the room.
“Do I have to get attacked by a bear so that you’ll remember I exist?”
I blink at the fuzzy form of Darienne framed in the doorway, her hands on her hips as she stares my father down.
“Darrie,” he chides.
In a blur of color, Darienne storms off.
“Hey, look who’s awake,” Dad says on the way to my bedside. He’s smiling, but his brows are knitted together in worry.
“Hey, Dad.” My tongue feels too big for my mouth, so I reach for the cup of water next to my bed. It’s gone warm and tastes of bleach, but I suck it down.
I don’t remember when I changed into a gown, but there’splenty about this day that’s a blur. Could it have been him in my room, stroking my forehead?
“Sorry,” I say.
Dad’s brow furrows. “Sorry? Why?” He glances at the door, then smiles at me again. “She’s just in shock. Nothing for you to worry about.”
Except I think it might be. At first, Darienne was kind to me. We even bonded with a girls’ trip to Montana right before she and Dad got married. But based on how she treats me now, I don’t think her interest in me was ever genuine. Or maybe she’s changed.
It started last spring when Darienne pulled me aside with the news that she had donated the last of my things to Habitat For Humanity. Okay so maybe I should have handled sorting through the last of my possessions myself, but Russel and I were separated and the timing wasn’t right. Then when I was staying with them in Finn River to finalize buying the lake house last summer, she faked a renovation project in the guest room so I had to sleep on the couch and then threw a tantrum the day Dad was taking me to breakfast, so he cancelled.
I don’t believe Darienne has a problem with me specifically. Underneath her behavior, perhaps she feels I’m some sort of threat? It’s weird. But since she and Dad got together, I lose my dad a little more every day. I didn’t realize how disconnected we’d become until the day I walked out of that San Diego hotel bar with my heart in pieces. He’d always been there for me, and suddenly, he wasn’t.
It’s why I’ve been working so hard to make his retirement party perfect. Because maybe it’s not too late to get a piece of him back.
Dad pulls up a chair. “How are you feeling?”
I wish he’d hold my hand or hug me like he used to do when I was little.
Snap out of it, Meg. I’m twenty-seven years old, for crying out loud. Too old to be his little girl.
“Okay.” I try to scoot up in the bed because my bum is sore from lying partially propped up like this.
“I got the story from that firefighter who brought you in.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “What a lucky stroke that was, huh?”
Gratitude that I’m alive and in one piece washes through me. “Yeah. Lucky.”
I didn’t want you to miss me too much.
I take another sip of my water.
“It must hurt.” Dad winces as he stares at my bare leg, swollen and discolored a sickly shade of greenish purple.
“I think the painkillers are working because it’s a lot better.” In the ambulance, I overheard Hutch tell Linden, “Time is tissue.” Meaning the longer it took me to get the anti-venom, the more damage to my body. Is that why Linden carried me down the trail instead of waiting for an evacuation team, and drove to meet the ambulance?He knew.
“That’s good. The doctors say you’ll have to take it easy for a while.”
“Yeah.” I need to talk to my supervisor.
“You need me to call Russel?”
“No.” It comes out raspy. I fiddle with the sheet.
