“Summer’s a sweetheart, Jamie. Talk to her. Apologize. Ask her about Halia. She loves your little girl, and would do anything for her, including forgiving her father for being an ass.”
“I’m not her father.” No point in denying the ass part. The two times he’d been in the same room with Summer, he’d barked at her.
“Halia is Kosamina’s daughter, she has your last name, and she’s here. She’s a part of you, and a part of us, whether you like it or not.”
He didn’t like it. Not at all. But for as long as she and Summer stayed, he’d do everything in his power to protect them. To keep them safe, ensure they were comfortable, happy, and unaffected by the ugliness of the shit the JTT was dealing with.
Yeah, no question. He owed Summer an apology. And if he got on her good side, maybe he could talk some sense into her? Convince her to see things his way. Wouldn’t be easy. Then again, he hadn’t signed on for easy when he’d chosen this life.
“Alright.” Suddenly eager to go find his little pixie, he rubbed his hand down his thigh, fingers and thumb digging into muscles that had seized months ago. “How do you want to do this, and when do we start?”
“I’ll work up a treatment plan and proposed schedule this afternoon. Look it over, and we’ll get started tomorrow. We should also discuss options for pain management. In cases like yours, I recommend hydrocodone in addition to acetaminophen as the best combination to reduce pain and swelling at this stage of rehabilitation.”
He shook his head and shoved off the table. “Opioids are a no-go for me. The smallest doses mess with my brain, and I can’t afford to be off my game any more than I already am.”
“Jamie, it takes quick action and effective pain management to recover from knee surgery under the best of circumstances. It’s been more than two months since you…”
“Were shot?”
“Well, yes, since you were shot. By the way”—she waved her hand around his midsection—“how’s the liver. Any residual issues we need to consider in terms of your physical therapy?”
He lifted his shirt and slapped his hand against the pink scar running across his upper right abdomen. “Good as new.”
She snorted as she stood. “Suppose I have to take your word on that, but if it becomes a problem, you’ll let me know?”
“Yep.”
“Anyone ever tell you doctors make the worst patients?” Grabbing the crutches off the wall, she handed them to him.
“All the time,” he replied, his smile genuine as he jammed the hard rubber pads into his armpits. He’d missed her. Missed their chats about life, and work, and things in general. She was the calm in the midst of their chaos, and even after everything her family had put her through, kidnapping, imprisonment, and abduction by a serial killer, she was the beacon of light they all gravitated toward. “I missed you, Eve.”
“I missed you too.” She walked with him as he crutched his way to the door.
“I haven’t asked you how you’ve been. Everything good with you?”
She paused with her hand on the knob. “Adam is my rock, but I won’t lie to you. Some days are harder than others, and I’m still trying to figure out how to live with the survivor’s guilt.”
Twelve women had been murdered after being abducted by her adoptive family and imprisoned beneath the garage of her childhood home. Eve blamed herself for not knowing about her stepbrother’s obsessive-compulsive paraphilia before becoming one of his victims herself. Not her fault, but a burden she carried despite narrowly escaping the same fate as the others.
“Does talking with Dr. Christina help?”
“Absolutely. Nalini has a way of making you see things from a different perspective. Plus, she’s fun to chat with.”
“You already know Adam booked me an appointment with her this afternoon, don’t you?”
Eve shrugged her shoulder. “Whose idea do you think it was in the first place?”
Jamie harumphed, and her grin widened.
“Give her a chance, Doc. She can help you sort through some things if you let her.”
“I’m only doing this for you,” he grumbled.
“It’s a start,” she replied, opening the door, and shooing him out with a flick of her fingers. “Family game night in the great room. After dinner. Don’t make me come find you. And Jamie?”
“Yeah?”
She waited until he executed a crutch turn before knocking him over with the full weight of her bossy glare. “Keep your weight off that leg until I say so, lay off the rum, and be nice to Summer. Got it?”
