Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 03 - Of Dark and Bright (22 page)

Evan looked across and saw Chris sitting next to Dan. They’d all been taking turns in that seat, all waiting for another flash of lucidness. The doctors weren’t worried. They said Dan’s body was taking advantage of the drugs, giving him time to rest. They said that when he started fighting the narcotics, that would be time to dial them back. Evan had smiled and said that when Dan started fighting, that would be time to clear the damn room, because he wouldn’t quit until he’d won. That had earned him a smile from Tat.

A nurse came into the room, and Evan caught her eye. He’d arranged for several of them to bring him regular reports from the maternity ward, but there’d been no change yet. Evan hadn’t realized that labor didn’t automatically start when a woman’s water broke, but apparently Krista’s body knew it perfectly well, and it was holding on for a while. She was in shackles, on the judge’s orders, but was otherwise comfortable. Evan had paid for a private room for her. She was Dan’s sister, and she had saved Tat’s life. But she’d also been involved in the kidnapping in the first place, and he hadn’t even considered inviting her into their family ward. There were no shackles in the world strong enough to make him feel safe with her that close to Tat.

There was a sound from Dan’s bed, and Chris’s head snapped up. Tat and Robyn straightened as well, and Evan hadn’t even realized he was moving until his bare feet hit the cold hospital tile.

“Danny?” Chris said. “You in there, buddy?”

Evan skidded to a halt and leaned over the other side of the hospital bed. Dan’s eyes were moving under his lids, frantic, almost violent shifts from side to side and up and down. If the rest of his body had been moving too, Evan would have said it was a seizure. As it was, though…. “Nightmare?”

Chris frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe.” He reached a gentle hand up to Dan’s face. “Hey, Danielle, you little girl, you’re okay. Nothing to be afraid of. Everything’s good.”

Evan gripped Dan’s hand on his side and added his own voice to Chris’s. “You’re okay. You’re safe. We’re all here, and we’re all looking after you.”

“Everything’s good, Tex,” Jeff rumbled, his hand a familiar weight on the back of Evan’s neck. Evan hadn’t realized Jeff was there; when he turned to acknowledge him, he saw that Jeff wasn’t the only one to join their circle.

“You’re okay, Dan,” Tat said from the foot of the bed, and she gripped one of Dan’s feet.

 

Robyn was beside her and had the other foot, massaging it gently. “Everything’s good, Danny.”

 

“You’re going to be fine,” Anna said, and she found a spot on Chris’s side of the bed.

Dan’s eyes finally opened, and he looked from face to face as if he recognized them, but wasn’t quite sure what they were all doing there. He muttered something Evan couldn’t understand, and then said it again, more clearly. “Did I burn the turkey?” he asked.

Well, that was a bit anticlimactic. After all that buildup, all that support, the guy was still delirious. A step in the right direction, sure, but… but why was Jeff smiling so warmly?

“The turkey’s good, Danny,” Jeff said. “And we’re all here. It’s a good Thanksgiving.”

Dan looked like he would have liked to have nodded, if his head wasn’t so sore. Instead, he moved just his eyes and looked over at Chris. “Justin?” he asked.

Chris looked startled for a moment, but it quickly faded to sadness. “No, buddy. We’ll catch up with him sometime, but not yet.”

It seemed to take a while for that to sink in, and Evan waited patiently. He wasn’t jealous of Justin, and he knew Jeff wasn’t either. Dan loved Justin. Just because Justin was dead didn’t mean the emotion was gone. But Dan could love more than one person at a time. And now Dan looked over at Evan, then Jeff, then back to Evan. “Did you tell him?” Dan asked. His voice was still slurred, but Evan liked to think that was just his Texas sleep-drawl coming through.

And he was pretty sure he understood the question anyway. “I told him. But I didn’t have to. He already knew.”

This time, Dan did manage a nod, a tiny shift in his head. “Yeah,” he said quietly, and they all stood and watched as he drifted back to a peaceful sleep.
J
EFFwasn’t sure how he felt about the team-heal approach Evan had come up with. It was really the only way Evan could function, the only way he could give his support to both of his lovers
and
his traumatized sister, so Jeff would never have thought of objecting. And it
was
nice to have everyone close by, where Jeff could keep an eye on them; he just wasn’t so enthusiastic about all of them being able to keep their eyes on him.

Evan was, predictably, the worst. Jeff was pretty sure that if he allowed it, Evan would be hand-feeding Jeff every meal like he was a toddler. Every trip to the bathroom was made under Evan’s watchful eye, and if Jeff spent more than a couple minutes in the blessed privacy of the tiled room, Evan would be rapping on the door, making sure everything was okay. But that was Evan. Jeff had been braced for that.

It was Chris that surprised him. There wasn’t the same level of careful monitoring, but there were a lot of… opportunities, Jeff supposed. Times when it just seemed natural for Jeff and Chris to have private conversations, conversations that were almost invariably guided toward Jeff’s frailties, and the ways in which Jeff’s compulsive need to take care of others could be addressed. At first, Jeff really hadn’t realized how he was being steered and manipulated, and once he became aware, he still wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.

But when he found himself awake in the middle of the night and turned on his small light so he’d be able to read, he was only a little surprised to see Chris shuffle over a few moments later. Chris was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, so technically he could claim that he was dressed for sleep, but his eyes were alert, without a trace of weariness, and his smile was as relaxed as if they were just having a couple beers together after work. Jeff was beginning to wonder whether Chris was partly mechanical. Some sort of therapy robot, maybe.

“Hey, man,” Chris said. “You can’t sleep either? It’s like day and night gets turned around in here, huh?”

“Something like that,” Jeff agreed warily. He set his book by his side on the bed. “You thinking of going back in to the office tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, champ.” Chris glanced over toward Dan’s bed. “If everything’s smooth here, I’ll go in for a bit on Monday. I think Evan’s taking an indefinite leave, so, you know… here’s my chance to slide into his office and start my inevitable drive for mastery of the company.”

“You might want to try just
asking
for the job. I don’t think company mastery has quite the same appeal for him that it used to.” Chris nodded as if thinking that over, but then said, “I don’t really see the fun in being
given
control. I’m more about the seizing.” “A man needs a challenge,” Jeff said.

“How ’bout you?” Chris sounded carefully casual, and that was all it took for Jeff to know that he was in for another round of whatever the hell Chris was up to. “You seeing any challenges in the near future?”

“Look around you, Chris. We’ve had to set up base camp in a damned hospital. I think I’ve got all the challenges I need, for now.” “Yeah,” Chris said. “And the boys will probably be on their best behavior for a while, right? No real worries there.”

There was something in Chris’s tone that made Jeff careful with his answer. “There’s work to be done. The two of them, but also the three of us together. But we’ll make it.”

“’Course you will,” Chris agreed. “And you’ve got a plan for doing it without tearing yourself apart anymore. It’ll all be good. But….” Chris leaned forward conspiratorially. “I’m in need of a plan for myself. For making sure I don’t get turned into the rope of their tug-of-war anymore. So if you could fill me in on what you’re going to do, that might be kinda useful.”

“Does this generally work for you? Do people usually respond to this level of manipulation?” Jeff wasn’t sure whether to laugh it off or be insulted. “I’m not seven years old, you know.”

Chris leaned back in mock surprise. He raised his hands in a pacifying gesture and said, “Okay, slow down, don’t get all worked up. I never said you were seven. I just thought we could exchange ideas, be mutually supportive, all that good stuff. But, hey, if you’re not into it….”

“And now you’re trying to guilt-trip me? Come on, Chris.”

“Yeah. Okay. You’re right. You’re a savvy old fox. I can’t fool you.” Chris grinned suddenly. “So what do you think it means that both of them can? What do you make of the way they’ve got you wrapped around their little fingers?”

Jeff smiled contentedly. He’d been thinking about this, and he knew he had the answer. He looked at Chris and said, “They’ve got me wrapped around their little fingers because I’m in love with them. Crazy, stupid, head-over-fucking-heels in love. I know it’s tough, sometimes, but the reason I get in the middle of their fights is because that’s right where I want to be. No matter what they’re doing, no matter how fucking immature and infuriating they are, I want to be with them. In the middle of it all. Always.”

Chris had looked a little surprised at the start of Jeff’s speech, but by the end, he was smiling peacefully. “So I’m on my own in trying to get loose from them?”

“You’re on your own. But I’ll tell you what… I bet when you give it a try, you’ll end up changing
your
mind too. They’re Evan and Danny, man. Where else would you rather be?”

Jeff lay back against his pillows and watched as Chris thought it all over. He saw the slow, regretful smile growing on Chris’s face, and he was ready with a smile of his own when Chris looked at him. “So that’s it? We just… we just keep going the same way?”

Jeff shrugged. “There’s fine-tuning to be done, I think. But for me, yeah. I’m going to keep going the same way. And I’m probably going to come bitch to you about it on a fairly regular basis, so keep your bar stocked.”

Chris nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay. And it does make it better, knowing that there’s someone else dealing with their stupidity.” Chris frowned. “Although, you’re getting sex out of the deal. What the hell is in it for me?”

“I’d guess it might be a useful tool in your quest for corporate control.”

 

Chris leaned back in his chair. “You know, you’re right. It absolutely is.”

Jeff relaxed into his pillows and smiled. He’d been telling the truth when he said there was nowhere he’d rather be than stuck between Evan and Dan, but he couldn’t deny that the position could be exhausting. He looked at Chris and fought the urge to lean over and ruffle his hair. It was good to have an ally. Even if the ally was a possible therapy robot.

Chapter 18
“
T
HEY’RE surprised she hasn’t gone into labor,” Evan said.

“Apparently it usually starts within a couple days of the water breaking, but they said it doesn’t always. They’re monitoring for infection, but otherwise, they want to keep the baby in there for a little longer, to give it time to finish baking.”

“Baking?” Dan said, and Evan nodded.

“Yeah. Cooking its lungs, or whatever. Raw lungs are gross. But they’re keeping her in the hospital, just in case. But first sign that some bacteria or whatever has snuck in there—
bam
—they induce.”

“
Bam
?” Dan said, and Evan nodded again.

“That’s the sound of labor being induced. Not a lot of people know that, but I’ve been paying close attention. Did a little reading, and asked around. You know. My typical research techniques.” Evan stopped pushing Dan’s chair and scooted around to crouch down next to him. Dan wished he wouldn’t. He’d seen his face in the mirror that morning, and he really didn’t see how Evan could stand to be close to it. Dan’s nose was broken, the rest of his face was purple and swollen; he looked like a monster. But Evan didn’t seem to care.

“You’re sure you want to do this, Danny? I mean, you’re still recovering. You don’t have to push yourself.”

 

“Once she has the baby, she’s going to be gone. And you said it yourself, labor could start up any time. Bam, remember?”

“Bam is for induction. Regular labor is more… splooosh!” “Her water’s already broken, dude. What’s left to splooosh?” “I haven’t learned that yet. Give me time.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dan agreed. It was fun to talk to Evan like this. Just their general level of idiocy, nothing special, but Dan never wanted to let himself take it for granted. He never wanted to forget how grateful he was to still be around to enjoy it all.

“What are you going to say to her?” Evan asked, and Dan pulled himself back to the conversation.

“I don’t really know. I mean… at all. I definitely feel like I should be going in there, but when I think it through… once I’m in, it’s all a blank.”

Evan nodded, then carefully said, “She
did
save Tat’s life. If she hadn’t called us, we never would have found them.” Dan didn’t like to think about that possibility, and he could tell Evan was having trouble with it too.

“If Krista hadn’t helped them get her, Tat never would have been at risk in the first place.” Dan needed to remember that.

“Maybe not,” Evan objected. Dan let himself hope, just for a moment, that Evan had some excellent argument to make Krista’s actions seem better. This was the first chance they’d had to talk, away from Tat’s ears, and Dan realized that he was missing some serious details about the situation. He nodded his head in a “go on” gesture, and Evan said, “The cops found logs of their conversations—they were sending messages over the fucking Xbox. They said Krista only agreed after the men had decided to go ahead with it. They said she was at least partly motivated by trying to make it tidy. Safe for Tat.”

“Bullshit.” Dan wanted to see his sister in the best possible light, but he wasn’t going to let himself believe things that didn’t make sense. “If she’d cared about Tat’s safety, she could have made one phone call and had the cops there to pick the guys up. She went along with it because she wanted the money. Ten million—even split three ways—would have been enough to get a nice start somewhere new.
Without
having to go through the damn jail time.”