Inked Ever After (17 page)

“Come to the wedding. Please,” she said, watching as his
whole face lit up. “My mom is happy with you around. And I can see you care
about her. I’m sorry I haven’t been too welcoming. The truth of the matter is,
I suck at talking about feelings. James, my fiancé, can attest to that, so
please don’t take it personally.”

“Your fiancé thinks the world of you.” She thought the world
of him too. Before she could say anything, Ron stunned her into silence. “Your
mom too.”

Her throat tingled like hell. Her eyes too. “Please come to
the wedding.”

“Well, only if you want me to.” He looked at his watch.
“I’ve got to go. Your mother and Maggie may be wondering where I am. Thanks,
Tate.”

She watched Ron walking away. She wanted to speak with James
so badly she was bursting at the seams. He would be very proud of how she’d handled
the whole situation. No meltdowns, no childish-behavior crap. She tried his
phone, and again it went straight to voice mail, so she left him another
message.

She worked on the flowers a while longer until she decided
to get something to drink. Leaving her shoes by the door not to mess up the
floors, she headed for the kitchen.

On her way back, she spotted Max walking toward her.

The second she saw his expression, she knew something was
wrong. Very wrong.

“Tate.”

“What?” Her fingers tightened around the glass.

Max’s face was ashen. “There’s been a car accident. They
called from the hospital. It’s James. We need to go.”

The glass slipped from her grip and shattered on the floor.

Her heart stopped. Time too. The same way it had stopped
when they’d told her about her dad and Jonah. She wasn’t sure how long she
stood there, but suddenly her heart kick-started and lodged in her throat. She
broke into a run, stepping on the glass shards, barely noticing the pain. She
needed to get to a car.

“Tate,” she heard Max call.

Keys.

She turned back and ran to the table, her feet scattering
the glass in all directions, grabbed the car keys, and flew out of the house.

Please. Please. Stay
with me. Please don’t die.

“Tate!”

Max yelled something else, but she didn’t understand him.
All she could hear was the roaring in her ears and her heart madly thumping.

“Come on, come on,” she chanted in desperation, trying to
get the key into the ignition, but her hands were so badly shaking she couldn’t
get it in.

Someone took the keys away from her.

“What are you doing? Let me go. I need to get to James!”

“Calm down, honey,” Max ordered as he restrained her. “I’ll
take you to him. You are in no condition to drive. You don’t even have shoes.
You’ve probably cut yourself. Let’s get you—”

“Now, please, Max,” she begged. “Take me to him now.”

Max looked at her for a second, then nodded. Lifting her, he
moved her over the console onto the passenger seat. “Buckle up.”

She was trembling so hard it took several tries before she
got it. By then the engine had roared to life.

“Where is he?”

“Massachusetts General,” he said as they sped down the road.

She froze. Massachusetts General. She hadn’t been there
since the day Jonah and her dad died.

She was scared shitless to ask, but somehow she choked the
words out. “How is he?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t tell me anything.”

Oh God. They hadn’t told her anything then either. And by
the time she’d gotten the phone call, her dad was dead and her brother dying.

Please. Please. Stay
with me. Please don’t die.

As if he could hear her thoughts, Max said, “I’m sure he’s
okay. James is tough.”

With her heart beating a thousand miles an hour in her
throat, she couldn’t hear much of what Max said, not that he said a lot. And
what she heard she hardly understood. Something about Cole being in LA.
Something about their dad, but for the life of her she didn’t know what.

She knew they weren’t more than twenty minutes from the
hospital, but the trip felt like an eternity. She sat with her back straight,
eyes in front, not really processing what she saw. Repeating again and again
the same words in her head.

Please. Please. Stay
with me. Please don’t die.

She closed her hands into tight fists, her nails digging
into her palms. Eyes dry. Totally dry. And she couldn’t breathe properly, as if
her body was so tense she couldn’t relax her muscles long enough to let air in.
Probably that was why her eyes were dry.

She kept replaying in her head all the times she’d fought
him.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Wasting time fighting while today he could be hurt. Or
worse. She didn’t want to think about the worse. She couldn’t. Her mind would
shut down. Her body too.

“Tate?”

She turned to Max. He smiled at her, but the smile was tight
and didn’t reach his eyes. His knuckles were white, his shoulders rigid with
tension. She hadn’t seen him this strained. He resembled Cole more than ever.

“He is okay, honey. Hang in there.”

“If something happens to James, I—”

“Nothing will happen to James. Nothing.”

His tone was savage. She thought she nodded, although she
wasn’t sure.

She saw the ominous building and her chest tightened so
badly, the pain almost doubled her over. Before Max got the car fully stopped,
she opened the door and jumped out, running to the ER. Her head was filled with
noise, the static of panic getting louder and louder, drowning out everything
else.

“James Bowen,” she said to the first nurse she found. “I
need to find James Bowen.”

“One moment. I’m—”

“Please,” she begged as Max caught up with her.

“We’re searching for my brother, James Bowen,” he said. “Car
accident.”

The nurse moved to the counter, typed in the computer, and
pointed to the left. “He’s in room forty-seven, but you should wait for the
doc—”

Tate didn’t wait to hear any more. She darted down the
corridor.

Please. Please. Stay
with me. Please don’t die.

She turned a corner, and there was his room.

For a split second she stared at it. Terrified out of her
frigging skull, trembling uncontrollably. But then she remembered James was
behind that door, hurting and alone. In whatever state he was, he needed her,
so she charged inside.

James was lying on the bed, very still, his eyes closed. His
abdomen was bandaged, some sort of IV drip on his hand.

Oh God.

“James?” she whispered.

He had a bunch of nasty cuts and bruises all over his upper
body and face. One of his eyes was almost swollen shut, and his lip was split.
Dry blood matted his hair.

He turned to her. Smiled feebly. “Princess.”

At the sound of his voice, her legs almost gave way. Alive,
he was alive. Her eyes, totally dry until now, filled with tears and overflowed
right away.

“Baby, are you all right?” she asked, reaching for him.
“What happened? How badly are you hurt?”

“I’m all right. I just got a bit banged up. Nothing to worry
about.” He sounded a little slurred, as if he were sleepy.

She wanted to throw herself at him and hug him, but she was
afraid of hurting him, so she just leaned over and cradled his face.

“Don’t cry, princess.”

She shook her head, wiping the tears with the back of her
hand, more coming to replace those ones instantly. “Not crying, honey.”

With a wince he scooted to his right and pulled at her hand.
“Come here, give me a kiss.”

She sat on the side of the bed and kissed him, trying to
avoid contact with his split lip, her tears freely running down her face.

“I’m okay. I swear,” he whispered against her lips. “This is
nothing.”

“I thought you—”

“Shh, princess. You shouldn’t be here. I told them not to
call you. I didn’t want you to see me like this and get scared.”

“There is no other place I’d rather be than here with you,
baby,” she said, stunned at his words. “Nowhere.”

“Fuck, man, you scared the shit out of me,” Max interrupted.

James looked over her shoulder. “Now you know how it felt to
us when you went on your crazy escapades.”

That loaded comment was entirely ignored. “What happened?”

“Some fucker lost control of his car and came barreling onto
the sidewalk. I tried dodging, but I wasn’t fast enough.”

She shuddered at the image his words created.

The door opened, and a nurse came in.

“Honey, you’re bleeding,” she said as she approached.

Tate looked alarmed to James, but she couldn’t see any
bloodstains on his bandaged chest. Or fresh blood anywhere else.

“Not him,” the nurse said. “You, honey. Your feet are
bleeding.”

“What?” She glanced at where the nurse was pointing, and
true enough, blood was dripping onto the floor.

“What do you mean her feet are bleeding?” James asked,
trying to see her feet. “Where are your shoes?”

She had to think. “Home?”

James narrowed his eyes on Max, who lifted his hands in
surrender. “Don’t look at me, man. She stepped on broken glass. I tried to get
her to clean it before coming, but she wouldn’t listen.”

James looked furious, so Tate tried explaining. “I was in a
hurry. I’m okay. It doesn’t even hurt.”

“Come with me,” the nurse prompted. “Let’s get your feet
sorted out.”

“I’m not leaving him.”

“You’re bleeding all over the place. Come on.”

Tate didn’t move, but James nudged her. “Go. I’ll be here
when you come back.”

She leaned over him, stroked his hair. “Don’t dare go
anywhere without me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he answered, his lips slightly
twitching.

“Can you walk?” the nurse asked.

As she was going to stand, Max came and scooped her in his
arms. “Okay, lady,” he said to the nurse. “Lead the way.”

“I can walk,” Tate complained. She hadn’t remembered the
cuts, but now she could distinctly feel her feet stinging. Not that she was
going to say a damn thing in front of James.

Max snorted. “Not a chance. Did you see his face when he
found out you didn’t have shoes and were bleeding on my watch? I don’t want him
trying to kick my ass when he gets out of that bed. I would hate to hurt the
poor bastard.”

James grunted something she didn’t get. Max ignored him.

The nurse directed them to a cubicle, where Max placed her
on a bed.

“Go to him,” she said. “I’m fine. As soon as I’m done, I’ll
be there.” He didn’t have to be told twice. In spite of his easy smiles and
jokes in front of James, he hadn’t been kidding when he said James had scared
the shit out of him.

“You have shards of glass embedded in your soles,” the nurse
said after cleaning her feet and inspecting her cuts. “What have you been
doing?”

She paid no attention, ticked she was so clumsy that she got
hurt and now she couldn’t be with James. “I need to get back to him. Can we do
this later?”

“No, we can’t. He’s going to be fine, honey. He has a
concussion, several ribs bruised, a sprained knee, a nasty gash in his abdomen,
a dislocated shoulder, cuts and bruises all over, and some road rash. We’ll
keep him here for a couple of days to make sure there is no internal bleeding
or any other complications.” Tate winced as the nurse enumerated James’s
injuries.

“He’s strong,” she added, noticing her distress. “This is
small potatoes for him.”

Tate said nothing. He had been his bossy self back there on
that bed, but he was hurt. And there was no way in hell a car hitting someone
was small potatoes, even if that someone was built like James.

By the time she made it back to James’s room, Aunt Maggie
and Nate, James’s dad, were there. She hugged them both and then moved to
James’s side. He searched for her hand, and she gave it to him right away.

“What happened to your feet?” he whispered.

“Let me get this straight: you are here, all busted, and
you’re asking about my stupid feet?”

“Tate,” he growled.

“Max told me you’d been in an accident, and the glass I was
holding sort of slipped through my fingers. Then, smart me ran over it in my
haste to get out the door. It didn’t hurt, babe. I assure you. Just forget
about it.”

He was going to bitch at her—she could see it from his
frown—but the doctor came, and he got sidetracked. The doctor told them
basically the same as the nurse, excluding the “small potatoes” comment, and
emphasizing the need to monitor him for internal bleeding. James didn’t
appreciate having to be in the hospital for two days. He even talked about
discharging himself, but tough shit; she was going to make sure he stayed put.

For the rest of the day, Tate remained there, tending to
James. Not leaving his side. When Elle arrived, she tried to smile and joke,
but her sister was clearly shaken too. Proof of that was, when Jack appeared,
she didn’t go to him or say anything. He, surprisingly, moved to stand near
her.

Apparently Max had told someone about her shoeless
situation, because she saw a bag with a pair of flats. Didn’t know who had
brought them.

Her mother and Ron came too. Tate had seen them together all
these days, but she hadn’t seen them touching until now. Now her mother had
Ron’s arm in a death grip, probably scared that if she let go, she’d fall on
the floor. Which, by the look on her face, she definitely would. Tate smiled at
them, glad Ron was there.

Every other second, Tate felt someone watching her,
assessing her state, afraid she was going to lose it, but they didn’t have to
worry. She’d feared James had died. There was nothing else on this earth that
could scare her worse.

She’d stopped crying, but she was still trembling all over,
and now that she knew James was in no imminent danger, her adrenaline rush was
crashing. She felt weirdly numb. Sluggish. Like everything around her was
happening in fast-forward and she couldn’t catch up.