Sunset Tryst (14 page)

He pulled her into his arms again, and this time she stayed
there. This time, she clung to him for dear life, digging her fingers into the
tight muscles along his upper back until she was certain she was leaving
fingernail marks.

She turned her head sideways, squishing her cheek against
Garrett’s chest as the EMTs assessed Evan. Light slaps on his cheeks did the
trick and he came to, but only for a few seconds before he drifted back into
unconsciousness again.

“I’m sorry,” Garrett whispered into her hair, stroking the
strands over and over. “I’m so sorry, Rie. I never intended to get pulled in,
or for Evan to go in after me. I never intended for anything like that to
happen.”

No, of course he hadn’t. She
knew
that. But it still
didn’t make her feel any better.

“Sir,” one of the EMTs said before she could think to respond,
“We need to take a look at your leg.”

She pulled away from Garrett’s hold to find fresh rivers of
red oozing down his calf. The sight of blood had never once made her squeamish
before, but all of this was too much for her to take. Her stomach flipped, her
head swam a little. She didn’t want to lose it. She
couldn’t
lose it.
Not now. Not yet.

“Go with him.” She lifted her hand when he started to
protest. “No arguments. You need to have that looked at.
Go
. I’ll take
care of this.”

And she needed a second to just,
shit
, catch her
breath. But as she watched the crew load Evan onto the stretcher and cover him
with a silver Mylar blanket, her first attempt got stuck somewhere in her
throat. And when they lifted him from the boat deck and started to make their
way down the dock, she wasn’t sure she had enough room in her lungs for even
the slightest sip of air.

Garrett reluctantly followed after him, flanked on his right
by an EMT. The heartbreak, the guilt—heaven above, the
love
—in his eyes
when he looked back at her from over his shoulder as he trudged up the wooden
planks to where the ambulances were waiting set her completely off balance.
God, she was so furious with him. With
them
. But her steadfast love for
Garrett and the blossoming love she was beginning to feel for Evan went a long
way toward crowding out every bit of her anger. Fear slipped in then—fear of
how close she’d come to losing them both, and the fear of knowing that at the
end of the week, Evan was going to turn around and leave her anyway.

She closed her eyes and spun away from Garrett’s stare,
hating the dread and hollowness expanding inside her. She hated how it tossed
her right back into her childhood, hated how it reminded her of the ache left
in her heart whenever she started to like one of her “uncles”, only for her mom
to pull some sort of stunt and ruin everything. Some of those men in their
lives had been good. They’d been trustworthy and kind. They’d been more like a
dad to her and Char than their own biological father had been, so when they
left, it hadn’t just been her mom they were leaving. It had been Riley, too.

That very ache was the reason she never wanted to fall in
love. This all-too-real fear of being left alone now was, ironically, exactly
what she’d tried so desperately to avoid for years.

But she hadn’t avoided anything. She’d fallen in love—and
she’d done it hard, fast and deep. And lord help her, she was doing it again
with Evan.

She had to fight for him. She had to make him see that he
didn’t
have
to leave them. He belonged with her and Garrett, wherever
that may be. In Chicago? In his hometown in Texas? Here in Florida? The
location didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that the three of them stay together.

“Ma’am, would you like to ride along with them?”

Her eyes flew open at the concerned tone in the remaining EMT’s
voice. “Oh, um…” The carnage left behind on the boat deck rendered her
speechless, but she had to push past that. If she gave in to it now, if she
froze…

No. Goddamn it, no.

“We have our rental here, in the lot. The keys…” Jesus,
where were the keys? In her bag, in the cabin. “I’ll get them. I’ll follow—”

“No, don’t follow us. We’re gonna make tracks all the way to
the hospital and we don’t need to deal with someone trying to keep up and then
getting into an accident when they can’t.” He handed her a small card. “This is
the address of the hospital. We’re going to take good care of them, I swear.
Just arrive when you can, safely.”

Fresh tears sprang up at his vow. Even so, all she could do
was nod and clutch the card in her fist. As he leapt off the boat and raced up
the docks to join the rest of his crew, one of the officers came up beside her.
“Mind if we ask you a few questions?”

She couldn’t take her eyes off the commotion surrounding the
ambulances. They had Evan inside one, Garrett in the other, but she didn’t know
what they were doing to them. She knew Garrett was okay, his injury was minor,
but Evan’s…

Oh God, what if he wasn’t all right? He’d lost a lot of
blood and had been so pale. And with the way the paramedics were scrambling,
with how hard the driver slammed the back doors before running to get in behind
the wheel and lighting the ambulance up like a Christmas tree… Hell, she didn’t
have to work in the medical field to know why they were in such a damn hurry.

When a spray of rocks shot out from under the tires as the
paramedic tore out of the gravel parking lot, she knew she couldn’t do this.
She had to go, she had to be with her men. Fuck trying to breathe. Fuck being
apart from them, even for a few minutes. She turned to the cop. “Can it wait?”

“It’d be best not to. We need to know—”

She pointed to the Coast Guard ship that was making its way
toward them. “They know the details. We called it in. The coordinates of where
we were fishing. The rod jammed and my husband was pulled into the water. Evan
rescued him, but he wasn’t fast enough. A shark… She was there. She came up out
of the water and…and…”
Get a grip, Rie. Get a goddamn grip.
“She bit
him.” Nausea rose from her stomach to tickle the back of her throat. “
That’s
what happened.”

She was panting by the time she blurted all of that out.
Thankfully, the only other information the officer wanted to know was how to
contact her. After she rattled off her name, her cell number, Garrett’s cell
number and where they were staying in Inlet Beach, she was free to go.

She grabbed her bag out of the cabin and took off like a
blue streak for the parking lot. It took forever before she could grip the key
fob the right way and find the unlock button. It took even longer to move the
driver’s seat up far enough to accommodate her shorter legs. The precious
thirty seconds she spent inputting the hospital’s address into the SUV’s GPS
seemed as if it lasted a hundred times longer.

Finally
she was on her way. The hospital was only a
few miles out, but for her, it might as well have been on the moon. She
couldn’t find the flashing lights of the ambulance further ahead on the road,
but she forced herself to take what the EMT had said to heart. Slowing down was
one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but the last thing she needed was to
crash and hurt herself—or worse, hurt someone else.

By the time she arrived at the medical center and parked,
the ambulances had already been unloaded. Despite her legs feeling as if they
were filled with lead, she still managed a full-out run toward the ER doors.

She burst through the entrance. “The two men who were just
brought in?” she shouted, practically bashing into the front of the reception
desk and performing the Heimlich maneuver on herself on the high-top counter.

“Ma’am, easy. Are you related to them?”

God, she didn’t need this right now. Fucking HIPAA.

“Garrett’s my husband. Where
is
he?” When Riley
started around the desk, the woman sprang out of her chair as if something had
bitten her. She held out her arms, and met Riley at the corner to keep her from
going any further.

“They’re in triage right now. You’re related to them both?
To the other man as well?”

“He’s…” What was she going to say? He was her and Garrett’s
lover?

Fuck it, yes she was.

“I’m with him, too. Please. You
have
to let me see
them.”

Surprise flashed across the woman’s face, but the shock
didn’t stick. “Ma’am—”

“Don’t
ma’am
me. Take me to my husband!”

A woman in dark-green scrubs stuck her head out of the door
leading to the rear exam rooms. “It’s okay, Sue. Let her back. He’s asking for
her.”

Riley didn’t give Sue the chance to back off before she
sidewinded around her and sprinted through the door the other woman held open.
“
Who’s
asking for me?”

Was Evan awake?

“Mr. Watson. Garrett? He’s in here,” she said, leading her
through a set of automatic double-doors and into a treatment room.

Garrett sat propped up on the stretcher. He had a white
blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his thick hair was still damp, but was
here, and he truly was okay. She’d never seen such a beautiful sight. “Oh
Garrett…”

The blanket fell away as he held his arms open for her. She
sank into his hold, doing her best to wind her arms around him too. “I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry I yelled at you.”

“No, no, no. Don’t be.” The breath from his hushed words
brushed across her ear. “It was a fluke, Rie. A crazy fluke that none of us had
prepared for.”

“I don’t know what I would have done…” A sob effectively
ended that horrid train of thought. She couldn’t let her mind go there. Not
ever.

“Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay. I’ve got you, and I’m never
letting you go.”

“Please don’t,” she said, squishing her face into the crook
of his neck. “I’d die if something happened to you. I love you. So, so much.”

“Ah, babe. You know I love you more than anything.”

They were quiet for a long moment, just squeezing the
bejeezus out of each other. Then Garrett kissed the top of her head and said,
“Where’s Evan? Did they tell you anything?”

She shook her head, snuffling back her tears as she stepped
out of his arms. “No, the nurse brought me straight in here. She didn’t say a
word about him.”

Two nurses came into the room then, both going straight for
the supplies sitting on the short sink counter at the side of the room. They
were silent as they each yanked and snapped a pair of the blue rubber gloves
on—so closed off and stoic that it made Riley’s stomach lurch.

“The other man who was brought in…” Riley started.

The nurses looked at each other but didn’t say anything or
even look her way. That wasn’t good.

“Where is he?”

“They’re working on him now,” the tall, skinny nurse said.
Riley couldn’t believe she got even that much out of her, not with the
clammed-up way they were both acting.

At any other time, Riley would appreciate the staff’s discretion,
but this definitely wasn’t one of those times. She knew the laws, the ones
regarding patient privacy. Hell, she defended them every day. But right now,
those laws could go straight to hell.

She needed to find Evan.

She met Garrett’s stare. When he simply nodded, tiny
fireworks inside her heart went off. “Go,” he whispered. “Find him.”

She didn’t wait even a second before she turned tail and
bolted for the door. One of the nurses ran after her, shouting, “Ma’am, you
can’t—”

“Oh yes, I can. And I will.” Out in the hallway, she jerked
to the left, peeking into each room as she searched for the one holding Evan,
all while the nurse frantically scurried behind her.

She came to the door three down from Garrett’s, and froze.

There were at least five or six people in the room
surrounding the stretcher. All Riley could see was the crown of Evan’s head.
His short, sandy-blond hair had dried before Garrett’s longer and thicker locks
had, and she couldn’t help but notice the red streaks of blood running through
the strands. Some sections stuck up on end, as if he’d gripped the shit out of
them in an attempt to battle the pain.

That meant he’d come to, right?

“Evan?” She tried to run into the room—for the love of all
that was good in the world, she needed to be with him—but the nurse who’d come
after her held her back just as a man in a gray coat calmly peered over his
shoulder at her.

“You should wait outside.”

Oh, she didn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit. “No! Let
me go.
Please
.”

“Let them do their jobs,” the nurse said just as evenly.

They could. They could absolutely do their jobs—as long as
she was in there too.

Evan let out a gut-wrenching cry then that curled Riley’s
toes. Yes, yes,
yes
, he was awake, but the pain he had to be in…

All hell broke loose at that point. The nurses scrambled.
The doctors yelled. But Evan didn’t make another sound. It wasn’t long before
she knew why.

One skin-on-skin slap cracked though the uproar. Then
another. And then a third. “Evan,” the doctor shouted. “Come on back. Evan!”

Riley clutched the metal edge of the treatment room’s
sliding glass doorway.
I’m losing him
, she thought.

It couldn’t happen this way. Please, please not this way.

It was then she made a pact with herself.

Let him be okay and I’ll give him what he wants.

Let him be okay and I won’t fight for him.

Let him be okay and I’ll let him go.

“Come on back. Evan!”

The muffled shout swam in Evan’s ears, along with a whole
lot of incessant bell-ringing. For a moment, he didn’t have a fricking clue
where in the hell he was. He blinked repeatedly, but shadows kept crowding the
corners of his vision. Jesus, why was someone slapping him? He turned to his
side to curl into himself in a lame attempt to fend off whomever was whaling on
him. Searing pain ripped through his foot when he moved, and everything came
rushing back to him all at once.

Holy.
Shit
.

“We’ve got him.” The man’s voice wasn’t as muted as before,
and whoa, the ringing in his ears ramped up in intensity as well. “Evan? Hey,
hold still for us, okay?”

The hospital. He had to be in the hospital. Because he’d
been attacked by a
shark
.

Oh fuck.

“Riley,” he croaked. “Garrett?” Where were they?

“I’m here!”

Riley’s sweet, sweet voice soothed him like an elixir to his
soul. But she sounded so far away. He couldn’t see her. He couldn’t feel her.
He reached out, fighting to sit up, fighting to get to her.

“Hold on. Plenty of time for that.” The man—the
doctor?—wrestled his arm back down on the stretcher. “Let us take care of you
first. Open that IV all the way,” he said. “Let’s push those fluids. Type and
cross him too. Just in case.”

Oh hell. Had he lost that much blood?

Just as that thought speared his brain, the doctor came into
his field of vision. “Bear with us, Evan. It looks as if she missed the foot’s
main blood supply, but I need to make sure there’s no debris in there and that
she didn’t crush anything. We’re going to numb you first and then get this
stapled up. You’re going to feel every bit of the needle when we do that, but I
promise it’ll be better afterward.”

Yes, yes, holy hell,
yes
. Anything had to be better
than the pain slicing through his foot right now.

“X-ray’s here,” one of the nurses announced.

The room cleared out, except for the mobile X-ray tech
rolling in the machine. Evan clenched his teeth and hissed when the tech
jostled the table as she set him up for the X-ray, but she was apologetic—quick
and efficient, too—and at that point nothing else mattered to him.

Except seeing Riley.

After the X-ray, with fewer people clogging the room, he
finally caught sight of her by the door. Their stares collided and his heart
nearly stopped. She’d been so mad at him on the boat, but all he saw in her
eyes now was fear—and, God help him, a healthy dose of L-O-V-E.

She was wringing the shit out of her hands and holding her
breath as tears slid down her cheeks. The doctor returned, looking from him to
Riley and back again before motioning toward her. He had to have seen the
terror in her eyes, because all he said was a quiet, “Come on in.”

She rushed for Evan, cupping his cheeks and kissing him,
over and over, all across his face. “Oh my God, I was so worried. Are you okay?
You are. You’re okay.”

Was she trying to convince him or herself?

He didn’t get to say anything before she started kissing him
again. This time, though, instead of hopping around from spot to spot on his
face, she went for his mouth. And damn, he was so on board with that. Her lips
were the perfect distraction, her frantic kiss the ultimate pain medication.

When she pulled away, Garrett came hobbling through the
door. His knee had been wrapped from mid-thigh to mid-calf, but he didn’t look
any worse for the wear. He fell in beside Riley, sliding his arm around her
shoulders as he gripped Evan’s hand in his own. He held on tightly, his smile
tense and forced.

“You had us worried.”

Yeah, he’d had himself a bit concerned, too. “They stitched
you up?”

As Riley dropped her head against Garrett’s chest, he said,
“Nah, I didn’t need any. The cut was mostly superficial, I’m guessing from the
fishing line when I got caught up in it after she dragged me in.”

The doctor picked that exact moment to poke at the edge of
his gash—a gruesome, eight-inch fleshy tear that went from his ankle bone down
to his little toe. Evan reflexively squeezed Garrett’s hand and tried like hell
to breathe through the pain. Garrett squeezed back and Evan couldn’t have been
more grateful that they were both there with him.

“Okay, give us just a few more minutes,” the doctor said,
stepping back. “Let me go check the X-ray. There’s no sense in closing this up
if there’s internal damage. We’d just have to turn around and go in to repair
it if there is.”

Evan let out a long breath as the pain from the doc digging
around abated some. “Yeah, sure. That makes sense.”

“I’ll be right back.”

As the doctor hurried out of the exam room, Evan eased up on
the grip he had on Garrett’s hand, but he didn’t let it go.

“I can’t believe this,” Evan started.

Garrett shook his head before Evan even finished speaking.
“No. Don’t fucking do that. You and I both know that accidents happen all the
time. Neither one of us did anything wrong or did anything to cause this.”

Evan stared him down for a moment, knowing in his heart
Garrett was right. But damn…

Riley leaned in closer, sliding her cheek next to his while
cupping his other in her shaky hand. She didn’t say anything, she simply kissed
his earlobe and held him gently. They stayed like that for long moments, with
Riley’s cheek warming his and his hand clutched firmly within Garrett’s.

When the doctor returned the second time, Riley let him go,
but only long enough for her to settle her palm over the top of his and
Garrett’s entwined hands.

“Good news.” The doctor tapped the pedal on the floor in
front of the sink with his Croc-covered foot. He soaped up and disinfected each
finger individually as he glanced over at Evan. “The X-rays are clear. You, my
friend, are one incredibly lucky man.”

Evan knew he was, and that luck showed itself in more ways
than one. Coming away from a shark attack without losing his entire leg and
bleeding to death was clear evidence of that.

Garrett and Riley working their way deep into his heart was
too.

As if thinking that was its cue, Evan’s pulse ratcheted
higher. Sure, he could blame the acceleration on the pain. He could blame it on
the adrenaline that kept loopty-looping through his bloodstream. Or he could
come clean with himself and realize that his sky-rocketing heart rate was
because, right here, right now, he knew he’d fallen in love with them.

Dear God…

The now gloved-up doctor hovered over his foot at the far
end of the stretcher. “Ready?” he asked, holding a big-ass syringe in his hand.

As far as distractions went, Evan wholeheartedly preferred
Riley’s kisses. But there was no avoiding this—or his hot-off-the-presses
feelings—so he nodded, then turned his head and covered his eyes with his arm.
He’d heard before how painful needles in the foot were, but,
motherfucker
,
nothing could prepare him for the reality of it. Riley grabbed onto his
shoulder, digging her fingers in as he clutched Garrett’s hand harder.

She closed in on him once more, her lips brushing his ear.
“Breathe,” she whispered to him. “Please breathe. Or you’ll black out again.”

He was trying. Lord have mercy, he was trying. The last thing
he wanted to do was puss out, but
Jesus
.

“You’re doing great, just a couple more,” the doctor said.

Evan uncovered his eyes at that point and latched onto
Riley’s anxious stare. He needed an anchor,
something
to hold on to.

“That’s it,” she said. “We’re here. We’re not going…”

Anywhere
was what he expected her to say. But she
didn’t. Instead, she let the statement hang, and he couldn’t help but wonder
why.

“Done,” the doctor announced. “Great job. We’ll let it sit
for a few minutes. I’ve ordered some Dilaudid for you too. Then we’ll get this
flushed out and staple you up.”

Evan’s breaths rasped in and out of his lungs from the pain.
“Can I go after that?” Fuck, he sounded like a whiny little kid afraid of the
doctor. Screw it, though. He didn’t give a shit how he sounded. He just wanted
to get the hell out of here.

When the doctor hesitated, Riley spoke up. “I’m a
physician’s assistant in Chicago.” She dug through the bag hanging from her
shoulder and presented the doctor with a laminated card. Her hospital ID. “I
can keep a very good eye on him.”

“Normally we’d admit him at least overnight for observation
because he lost consciousness.” After a long moment, however, the doctor
acquiesced. “Under the circumstances, and because his pressure is up and his color
is good, I’ll let him leave—but only because the X-rays showed that nothing is
broken or crushed. You know the drill, though. Bring him back if the bleeding
starts up again or he shows any sign of distress or infection.”

“Yes, absolutely. We will.”

Halle-flipping-lujah. And wow, double hallelujah when the
nurse injected the pain medication into his IV. His head instantly lightened
while the rest of his body felt as if it weighed at least a thousand pounds—but
in a totally good way. The pain seemingly floated out of his body, replaced by
a warm, drowsy, mind-numbing sensation.

“Whoa. Whoever invented this shhhtuff should bottle it.”

The most stunning smile he’d ever seen brightened Riley’s
face. Hellfire, she was so beautiful. And Garrett was so handsome. And they
were so sexy. And interesting. And kind. And…and…

“I’m sure the manufacturers never thought of doing that,”
she said, clearly teasing him. “Feeling good?”

Wait, what? Oh, yeah… “Mm hmm. Verrrrry good.”

He hadn’t even realized the doctor had left until he came
sauntering back in the treatment room. “All right, let’s do this.”

Okie dokie. That was fine by him. “Yesshhh. Yesshhh, let’s
do thisssss.”

The doctor gave him a quick smile. “I see the Dilaudid has
kicked in.”

Evan let his eyes drift shut on another breathy “Mm hmm.”

And thank God for those killer meds, because whoo hoo, they
went a long way toward making the injury flush, the dozen or more internal
stitches and the twenty surface staples afterward, along with the overkill
wrap-up of his foot, go by in a flash. He drifted along that billowy in-and-out
stage as they waited a little while longer for his discharge information, his
antibiotic and pain med prescriptions, and a pair of crutches and a stylish
medical boot to be brought in before he was given a perfunctory heave-ho.

He fought to stay awake as a nurse steered him in a
wheelchair toward the ER exit, but it was only a matter of time before he was
going to give up that particular ghost altogether. Christ, he was so sleepy.
And so worn out. He’d never experienced anything as crazy-assed as what
happened out there on that boat, and he never—
ever
—wanted to again.

But,
yes
, the night—and all its madness—was
officially coming to an end. The sun was just beginning to peek over the
horizon as Riley parked their rental in front of the ER doors. She came around
from the driver’s side to help out, settling Garrett on the passenger seat
first, then helping Evan crawl his way into the rear seat to flop flat on his
back. He threw his arm over his eyes again, and
wha-la
, before he knew
what was what, before Riley had the chance to slip in behind the wheel and
drive them away, oblivion rose from the depths of his mind and swallowed him
whole.

Two days seemed like an eternity for Evan to be
so…unproductive—vacation or not.
Hurt
or not. And it wasn’t just the
lazing around that was starting to get to him. It was the fact that—because all
he was able to do was lounge on a chaise either on the deck or the beach, or
stretch out on the couch in front of the TV—he was single-handedly ruining the
rest of Garrett and Riley’s vacation. Sure, they’d told him over and over that
wasn’t the case, but he knew better, simply because he was itching to get away
from the house for a little while too.

But that wasn’t quite feasible just yet.

He’d stopped taking the pain meds for the most part, but he
couldn’t hobble very far without the crutches before his foot would end up
aching like a bitch again. He was absolutely fine in every other way if he
stayed off it—which was what the doctor, and Riley, had ordered him to do
anyway—so here he sat, squarely on his ass on the lower level’s shaded deck,
like some sort of goddamn invalid.

Physically he was doing great, current circumstances
notwithstanding. Mentally, though… Not so much.

A lot about that last hour in the hospital churned through
his mind in a fuzzy blur, but not the moment before the drugs hit him when he
realized he loved these two. He hated how the realization created a new
helplessness inside him, one that paralleled the disquiet already running
through him. The combination froze him, preventing him from confessing his love
for them. It’d be too cruel to lay it all out there, then turn around and leave
anyway. He just couldn’t do it.

On a frustrated sigh, he tossed the book he’d been trying to
read onto the end table beside him. He couldn’t concentrate, had barely been
able to since the shark attack and hospital treatment—and he didn’t want to sit
here and look too closely at all the reasons why his attention span was
skirting around the short end of things.

Sitting across from him, Riley bent the corner of the
magazine she’d been reading and peered at him from over the pages. “Uh oh.”

“What?” Garrett had been working a crossword puzzle in the
chair next to her while he and Riley had been reading, and
Christ
,
weren’t they just the most exciting trio anybody would hope to find along The
Emerald Coast?

Riley didn’t answer Garrett, but instead set her magazine in
her lap and met Evan’s stare. “You’re antsy.”