He sighed as if I was exhausting him. “Knew I should have sent Alexa,” he grumbled. Then, with an irritated glance, he pointed to the bedroom where Franny was sleeping. “Your daughter needs your neighbor to stay with her. I need to take you to the fucking hospital, because Captain had some bad shit go down tonight. When he wakes his ass up, he’s gonna want to see his woman. Now, would you please do as I tell you, and stop asking me a million damn questions?”
Two things I never wanted to hear in my life were “Captain” and “hospital” together in one sentence. Maybe it was stupidity, or maybe it was fear for Captain . . . or maybe I just couldn’t imagine that someone who wanted to harm me would talk to me like a disobedient child, but I pulled out my phone, keeping my eyes on the large man the whole time, and dialed Mrs. Baylor’s number.
“Better be your neighbor you’re calling,” he muttered.
Diana answered on the second ring. “Rose, you OK?”
“Yes, Mrs. Baylor, I’m fine. But I need to visit a friend who has been put in the hospital. Could you please come stay here with Franny? She’s already sleeping.”
I could see the relief on the man’s face as he nodded and walked back into the darkness to a black truck that I almost couldn’t see, even in the moonlight.
“Oh, my goodness. I hope everything is OK. I’ll be right there.”
“Thank you,” I replied before hanging up. I walked out onto the porch. “How do you know Captain?” I asked the man.
“Worked together.”
I couldn’t picture this man working in a restaurant of any kind, but then, Captain didn’t really fit into the industry himself, either. “At the restaurant here?” I asked, knowing that if he said yes, he was lying.
What sounded like a muffled chuckle came first. “Fuck no” was the only response I got before he climbed back into his truck.
Mrs. Baylor hurried across the yard and patted my back when she got up the porch steps. “I got her. You go see about your friend.”
I thanked her again with a hug and hurried down the steps to the truck—and a stranger I was choosing to trust completely.
? ? ?
Once I was in the truck, I buckled and turned to study the man already pulling out onto the road.
“Just because she looks harmless, that doesn’t mean she’s not a smart woman. Don’t think she didn’t take in the make and model of this truck and look at your license plate before we drove off. If I don’t come back, she’ll report you to the police.”
A very small, almost elusive smirk touched the corner of his mouth. “Good” was his only reply, before his face went back to complete neutrality. As odd as he was, that response was comforting.
“Could you tell me your name, please?” I asked.
He scowled. “Cope.”
Cope? Was that a name? “Cope like Copeland?” I asked.
“Cope like Cope” was his reply.
Well, OK, then. “Nice to meet you, Cope. I’m—”
“Addison Turner. You lived in River Kipling’s home as a foster child for four years. His mother was batshit crazy and abused you. I know everything about you, so save it.”
My mouth dropped open as I listened to this man sum up my whole past with River in four sentences. How did he know this? Was he really that close to River? “So Captain is really in the hospital? This is true?”
He nodded and kept scowling.
“He’s going to be OK, though?” I asked, my heart starting to beat faster and my fear clawing its way to the top. Although I had gotten into this truck, I wasn’t so sure he was being honest with me.
“Fuck yeah. Cap’s survived more than a flyaway bullet to the leg. He’ll be fine, but he’s gonna want you.”
Flyaway . . . “What?” I asked, grabbing the handle of the door as the word “bullet” sank in. Someone had shot him? How? Why? He was at work tonight.
“Reckon ain’t my shit to share with you. Cap will have to do that. But yeah, he’s gonna be fine. He’ll even get to keep his leg. Clean shot through.”
Keep his leg . . . clean shot through. Oh, dear God.
I didn’t say much more as I watched him drive in the direction of the hospital. A very large part of me was thinking I’d rather he had come to abduct me than escort me to the hospital where Captain was lying, shot up half to death.
When he pulled into the parking lot, I almost jumped out of the moving truck.
“Whoa, woman. Seriously, chill the fuck out. I’ll get you up there quick,” he barked at me when I started to open the door.
“I need to get to him,” I snapped back.
“And I’ll get you there. Jesus,” he grumbled, as he opened his truck door and I jumped down from my seat.
This guy had better hurry, or I was leaving him here and heading straight for the information desk. I didn’t have time for him to take his time.
“Room 345. Go on. I need coffee,” he said, as if he could read my mind.
I didn’t even turn back and look at him before I broke into a run.
Captain