“Knew what?” Bobbie Jo asked, rubbing her hand on my back.
“Cowboy was…injured,” I said, unsure how to break the disturbing news. “Stabbed, actually…in the neck with a pair of scissors.” They blinked as my words sank in and a few of their mouths dropped open. “We think he might be in surgery, but we’re not really sure what’s going on. No one has told us anything yet.”
Emily looked up at her FBI husband with tears in her questioning eyes. “Jake…?”
“I’m on it,” he said, his grim mouth turning down. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge as he headed for the door. “I’ll be back when I find out something.”
“What happened?” Ox asked, looking as confused as the rest of them. “Why would anyone go after Cowboy?”
My eyes misted over, but I cleared my sore throat and hoped like hell my words didn’t come out as raspy as I thought they might. “It’s my fault. He was protecting me.” Their eyes widened as I started from the beginning and told them the whole story.
The moment I finished, Ox and Judd stepped out to call Cowboy’s parents, who were visiting his grandmother in El Paso. Ned made himself useful by getting everyone coffee, while Bobbie Jo and Emily took turns wearing a hole in the floor with all the pacing they were doing. I, on the other hand, couldn’t do anything but sit there on my hospital bed, feeling numb, waiting for news to arrive.
Another half hour went by before a nurse entered the room, her face weary and bleak. “The FBI agent asked me to give you all an update on your…er, friend,” she said somberly, glancing at me.
Fear pumped through me. “He’s not…”
“No, no, he’s alive. Once we left here, we stabilized him and then he was taken up to the OR to remove the instrument from his neck. The blades missed a major artery by only a fraction of an inch and he’s still in recovery, but he’s awake and going to be just fine. He’s a very lucky young man.”
“Oh, thank God!” I breathed a huge sigh of relief and blinked back the moisture pooling in my eyes. “When can we see him?”
“It will be a little while. Agent Ward is with him right now and then we have to move him to a room. I’m not sure what your friend did, but if the FBI is questioning him, then he must be in a lot of trouble.”
As she left the room, we all grinned. Jake wasn’t on any official business, although he’d obviously led the hospital staff to believe something entirely different.
Everything was going to be okay.
Chapter Twenty
My airways had been singed and the doctor apparently felt like it was too early to give me any solid foods. So when the nurse brought me a small tray with some orange gelatin and some smelly broth, I sent everyone else down to the cafeteria for breakfast. Just because the hospital was starving me didn’t mean they had to suffer the same fate.
But Ned declined.
I found it strange he wanted to stay, but could tell he had something on his mind. Once the others cleared the room, I gazed over at him. He seemed to be calmly mulling something over in his head. Everything had happened so fast after he’d arrived I hadn’t even mentioned anything to him about Chief Swanson. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
He nodded a thank you.
“I met him once…a long time ago. In Houston, where I lived with my mom. He pulled me out of a fire. I was only six at the time.”
Ned grinned at that. “I know. You’re Anna Weber.”
My eyes widened. “Y-yes,” I replied, confusion lighting my voice. “How did you—”
“Ted told me about you years ago. He was a rookie back then, fresh out of training, and you were the first person he’d ever saved. Said it made him feel like a hero.”
“He was a hero.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” He ran a hand over his wry face. “But he was also a jackass.”