Making It Right (Most Likely To #3)

With a dry mouth, she moaned.

The hand in hers squeezed.

“Talk to me.”

“Gill?”

“Oh, baby.”

Jo looked down to see Gill, his forehead rested on their clasped hands. She tried to move, something on her left side stabbed her in the chest.

“What the hell . . .”

“Don’t move, sweetness. Let me get the nurse.”

Every breath was painful. Jo looked around the room. It was small, private. Someone she didn’t know in a uniform stood beyond the door.

Everything flooded back. The call, the brakes . . . the trip in the bumpy ambulance. Even the bouts of nothing. “Mel, Zoe . . . Zoe?” They were there. She knew they were close.

“Sheriff?”

“Yeah?” Jo opened her eyes, barely realized they had closed.

In zoomed a nurse. The stethoscope and caring smile clued her in. “I’m Cathy. How are you feeling?”

“Like I got ran over.”

Cathy laughed. “Not quite. You were in an accident.”

“I figured that out.” Jo tried to move again, felt the stabbing pain in her left side. She looked down. “What’s that?”

“A chest tube.” Cathy punched buttons on the monitor above Jo’s head, spoke on autopilot. The woman had done this many times before. “You arrived to the ER with a collapsed lung. Side impact on the car. I was told a few feet in any direction and you wouldn’t be with us.”

Chest tube? That couldn’t be good. That explained the crazy pain in her side. “It hurts.”

The nurse laid a hand on Jo’s shoulder—even that hurt—and offered a smile. “I’ll get you pain medication.”

Much as Jo wanted to deny the need, the pain in her entire left side stopped her.

Cathy left the room, leaving Gill standing in the doorway.

“Hey.”

He crossed and took her right hand in his. “What time is it?”

“Ten.”

“At night?” Jesus, she’d been out for hours. How was that possible?

“Jo?” Mel and Zoe stood at the door.

“I’m fine.”

She wasn’t, she felt like shit, but she wouldn’t concede to her pain with her friend looking down at her.

“You’re such a dork,” Mel said.

“You looked better the night after Mike’s graduation party,” Zoe reminded her.

Jo closed her eyes. “That was an epic night.” Followed by a wicked hangover.

Closing her eyes helped the pain.

She felt a hand on her leg, looked up to see Mel attempting to smile.

“That bad?” Jo asked.

“You don’t want to look in the mirror,” Zoe told her.

Cathy returned with medicine, and Jo closed her eyes. When she woke again, it was late in the night, and Gill was at her side, asleep . . . his hand in hers.



Gill joined Jo’s friends in the waiting room while the nurses cleaned Jo up for the day.

“Is that coffee?” he asked, eyeing the box they’d brought in from a local Starbucks.

“Go for it.”

He’d hardly slept, and when he did manage a few winks, one of the staff in the ICU stepped in the room. When he was awake, he watched Jo breathing. The bag hanging at the side of her bed that was connected to her lung glared at him. Without any details of the accident, and only the worry over Jo’s recovery to keep him occupied, he’d aged a year overnight.

“You’re looking a little shot, Gill.” Luke patted him on the back.

“I’m not the one lying in a hospital bed.”

Mel’s hand shook when she reached for the coffee after Gill was finished. “She’s really lucky. Did you see the car?”

“No.”

Mel removed her phone from her purse and opened the pictures.

Gill’s insides froze. The space where Jo had been sitting was smashed into the center of the car. No wonder her lungs didn’t take the impact without protesting. She was lucky to have escaped with a broken clavicle, two ribs, and a dozen stitches in various parts of her body.

“According to Karl, the car was in for a recall on the brakes. It’s safe to say the recall came a little late.” Wyatt removed the coffee from Mel’s hand and encouraged her to sit. Worry clouded this group of friends, even though Jo was officially out of the medical woods; Gill could see the distressed lips, the tight fists.

“Did Jo say the brakes were slipping?” Gill asked any one of them with an answer.

“No. When she told me of the recall, I took a quick look. I didn’t see anything to warrant a tow to Waterville for the fix. Obviously I was wrong.” Zoe placed an arm over Luke’s shoulders. The man blamed himself.

“Recalls are usually bogus. A problem affecting a small percentage of cars. Chances are the issue isn’t something that can be determined until it fails.” Even as Gill said the words, he questioned them. He wanted more details. “Jo’s a hell of a defensive driver. She passed her training at Quantico like a champ.”

“According to the rescue team, she’d aimed for the side of the hill, bounced, and went over.”

It was the second time he’d heard that report.

Jo’s day nurse found them in the lobby. “Two at a time, please. We’re working on a private room to accommodate Miss Ward outside the ICU.”

“Is she stable enough to leave the unit?” Zoe asked.

“She is.”

Zoe and Mel took the first turn, disappeared behind the doors.

Gill sat on the uncomfortable couch, the coffee had yet to penetrate his brain. He needed a change of clothes and a shower. And as soon as he was convinced that Jo was on recovery road, he wanted to set his eyes on her car himself.

He smoothed the sides of his beard before running a hand over his head.

“How are you holding up?” Wyatt asked.

Gill offered a nervous shake of his head. “I hate feeling helpless.”

“Amen to that,” Luke said. “Good thing Jo is durable. She’ll be barking to get out of here before long.”

“Not with that tube in her chest.”

“It won’t slow her down long.”

Gill gulped his lukewarm coffee and couldn’t sit still. Shauna could bring him clothes. She had a key to his place. “I’ll be right back.” He stepped out of the waiting room, aware the other men watched his exit, and made a call.



“Wow, you look like shit.”

Jo didn’t want to laugh. It hurt. “Always telling the truth, Zoe. Lie to me, will ya?”

“Can’t do it.” Zoe sat at the foot of Jo’s bed.

“The track team wants to visit. We told them to wait,” Mel told her.

“Tell them to run instead.”

“Kids with a cause. Keeping them away won’t happen, we’ll just have to deflect until you don’t look like you had a one-on-one with a grizzly.”

Jo lifted her right hand. Even with the IV sticking out of it, it hurt far less than her left one. “Give me a mirror. It can’t be that bad.”

Zoe produced a pocket mirror from her purse.

“Damn.” She did look like crap. Crude stitches stuck out of her hairline on the left side of her face, bruises around both eyes were spreading out. Her neck was red and her lips were swollen. “I’m guessing the airbag went off.”

“The car was trashed,” Zoe told her.