We All Sleep Alone (Finley Creek #11) - Calle J. Brookes Page 0,50

back to speed for a few days—and Nikkie Jean couldn’t go four hours without being ill.

That was if Caine would ever sign off on the idea.

Hell, there was no way that was going to happen. “I’ll take her someplace myself as soon as we get a cast on the left arm. The right will need a splint for at least a week. I’m the last person anyone would expect to drive off into the night with her.”

He had no idea what he was going to do next, but Allen knew one thing.

It had been clear from the moment his fist had first connected with those sons of bitches in the parking lot.

No one was going to hurt Izzie again. If her uncle wouldn’t step up and keep her safe from his work with the TSP, then Allen damned well would.

52

Her head was going to explode. Izzie was pretty certain of it. They’d wheeled her out of orthopedics with a nifty white cast wrapped around her left arm. She vaguely put together Rafe and Allen discussing the results of the X-rays with her.

Someone—she thought it had been Rafe—had said most likely a mild intracranial injury. No kidding.

Her intracranial felt pretty darned injured at the moment. No mild about it.

She couldn’t remember the woman’s. Izzie didn’t care. Izzie dozed off in the wheelchair, vaguely aware of Nikkie Jean with a wet wipe patting the blood away from her face and busted lip.

When she tuned back in for a moment, Nikkie Jean was arguing with someone. It looked like Caine. But it wasn’t. The distinctive dragon tattoo was missing.

Rafe, then. It was Rafe. Man, her brain felt like crud. They’d given her something—a sedative. She’d discussed that with Rafe, too. Before they’d fixed her arm. She’d always been so reactive to sedatives—usually with drowsiness. Of course…it could be the concussion.

Drowsiness was a symptom of that, too.

Izzie was too tired to figure it out.

It was hard to focus on what was going on around her at the moment.

“It’ll work,” Rafe said quietly. Izzie tried to listen. “She can’t go home with you this time, Nikkie Jean. You have three kids and Henry to think about. Same with Annie. Hell, I’d take her home with me and Jillian if I thought it would be the safest option. Allen’s right. He can get her out of town the quickest, knows what signs to look for in case of postconcussion complications. No one even knows he’s here with her now. Hell, just the simple fact that he can actually lift her makes a difference, and you know it. The first place someone would look for Izzie is with you or Annie or Fin. Then Jillian, Lacy, Wanda, or Cherise. Everyone knows that.”

She forced herself to focus for a moment.

Something in her gut told her what they were talking about was probably important. And it had to do with her life.

Not a word of what they were saying made any sense. Izzie didn’t care. Nikkie Jean had covered her with a blanket. Izzie was finally warm. She was going to stay right where she was for a while.

Next thing she knew, she had a baseball cap on her head, and Rafe was wheeling her back down the long hallway that led to the rear exit, Nikkie Jean at his side.

She couldn’t focus in at the moment.

Allen was there, too.

She listened as the two men spoke about something. Rafe’s voice was slightly deeper.

Allen’s was smoother. More cultured.

She’d made a promise to herself to stop being such a witch to him at work. He didn’t deserve that, after all. She closed her eyes again and listened to him.

He was far easier to listen to, really. He had a good voice. Not as gravelly as Rafe.

As she dozed off a bit, she decided she’d stay right where she was and listen to Allen talk as long as she could.

She might as well.

He always seems to be around lately.

53

Reggie was going to face an uphill battle. Determination that only a mother could understand flooded her.

Jennifer’s mind ran over all she’d have to do to get the house ready for her son’s return. He wasn’t staying in that damned hospital where his father had ruined their lives even a moment longer than he had to. Not with that bitch there.

All of those bitches. Darla Carrington’s daughter, that slut of Wallace’s, that nurse that Dennis Lee had tried to kill—all of them were there. She’d seen Carrington’s daughter next to a teenager riding in