Give Me Grace (29 page)

Please be okay or I’ll fucking lose it.

My lungs began to burn. Travis shifted his grip and grabbed my head in both hands. He dragged my face to his until our foreheads pressed together. “Stay strong, okay? Whatever happens, I’m in this with you. Always.”

I nodded wordlessly.

“Good.” He let go. “Now get up,” he growled.

My body responded to the command.

The next few minutes were a blur. The ambulance bringing Grace arrived. I held my breath when the back doors flew open, the paramedic barely waiting for the vehicle to come to a full stop. He already had the stretcher half out when his partner jumped out to assist him. I ran over at the same time a trauma team rushed out from the emergency exit. The paramedic, a bigger, older version of Luke, started shouting stats. The noise was fuzzy static as I focused solely on Grace. Her smooth skin, usually flushed with laughter or anger, was pale and streaked with blood.

I went to take her hand, but b
efore I could, Henry was there. And Jake. And Cooper. And everyone else.

I let myself get pushed back as Grace was rushed towards the hospital entrance.
The doors whooshed open and they disappeared inside.

Travis glared. “What are you doing? Get in there.”

“I can’t,” I muttered.

I bent over, resting my palms on my knees, fighting for air.

“Casey? Are you okay?”

“
I don’t know. I can’t breathe,” I panted.

Travis started shouting but this time when the world tilted, I let go, letting it rise up to meet my face.

I woke in a hospital bed. Bright, streaming light told me night had given way to morning and loud, angry voices announced an argument in progress. Powerful drugs must have been pulsing through my system because I couldn’t feel a thing. I tensed a leg muscle. Nothing. A bicep. All good. I drew a deep breath and sharp stabbing knives attacked me like a posse of ninjas.

“You need to take lead on this!” Travis thundered across my bed.

I opened my eyes. He was standing on my left, Jared beside him, Tim wedged between the both of them. Coby stood on the other side next to a tense looking Mitch, the apparent target of Travis’s thunder. My brows drew together as I studied the guy standing at the end of the bed. His arms were folded, his eyes pinging back and forth as he followed the argument. He was somehow familiar. Luke, I suddenly remembered. The paramedic.

“
Lead? I work
homicide
, dipshit,” Mitch growled back at Travis. “Clearly Casey is not
dead!” His arm swept over my prone form, introducing my breathing body to support his case.

“
It’s attempted homicide. Close enough,” Jared countered. “That means we need you in on this.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Mitch replied, his expression tired and irritated.
The look came from years of cleaning up the mess of his little brothers. “You’re acting like a bunch of melodramatic egomaniacs.”

“Y
ou weren’t there, Mitch,” Coby informed him. “So you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You weren’t there
either!” Mitch pointed out, frustration making his voice loud and his brows pinch tight.

“That’s why Fox is here,” Tra
vis said. “He was there. He can tell us what he knows.”

Everyone
turned to Luke at the end of the bed. The guy was still in uniform and looked like he hadn’t slept. He shook his head at them all. “I don’t think whoever hit Casey’s car wants him dead.”

Jared
narrowed his eyes on Luke. “Yeah? What the fuck would you know?”

“Enough!” I roared
, wondering if they’d all suddenly lost their minds. Six pairs of eyes swept my way. “Would someone please tell me if Grace is okay?”

“She’s
fine,” Travis said quickly. “She’s in surgery but she’s going to be okay.”

“Surgery?”

“Her arm,” he replied. “She has a wrist fracture but the impact broke the bone in her forearm clean through the skin.”

My stomach rolled. “Jesus.”

“We don’t know much else yet but as soon as we do …”

Tim pushed through both
Travis and Jared and grabbed my hand in his. He began petting me like a zoo animal. “How do you feel?”

“Like a guy wh
o got hit by a car,” I muttered, the aches in my body pulsing now that I was fully conscious. I pushed myself up and bit back a groan. Tim went immediately for the electronic device beside the bed. A whirring noise filled the room and everyone watched patiently, waiting for my bed to raise me to a sitting position. Except it didn’t. The end of my bed began lowering instead. It caused a pull on my stomach muscles that made me want to puke. “Tim, what the hell?”

“Shit. Sorry.” The whirring noise gr
ound to a halt before starting up again, and my legs returned to a horizontal position. He pressed another button and the front end of my bed began dipping down until my eyes encountered the wall behind me.

“Oh, for the love of
… Tim!”

“Give it here,” Travis barked and snatched the device. Tim yanked it
back, clutching it to his chest like it was the last pair of Prada shoes on sale. I knew he loved Prada shoes because he bought me a pair every year for my birthday and they were always, conveniently, three sizes too small, and, naturally, unreturnable. “I got this, okay?”

A whirring noise once again filled the room.
The back of my bed rose until my eyes once again encountered ceiling. There was a loud clunk and the bed kept rising until I could finally see everyone’s face from a less prone position. Lips twitched as my bed continued to whir onwards and upwards. What felt like half an hour later, I reached a seated position. Tim clipped the device back on the side of the bed with a loud
click.
Travis reached over and flicked it sideways out of Tim’s reach.

“
Talk,” I barked.

Everyone turned to Luke. I was anxious to hear his take on the accident
. Lack of skid marks on the road would confirm what I already knew, but I wanted it confirmed nonetheless. He picked up my chart and scanned it. “Splenorrhexis. Grade I. Emergency splenorrhaphy not required. Fractured costal left upper quadrant. Contusion across left clavicle—”

“In English,” Coby clarified.

Luke rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath before he began again. “Your spleen was torn from impact. It was only minor so they gave you a blood transfusion and they’re letting it heal on its own. Fractured ribs. Bruising along the collarbone—”

“Not me
, dammit,” I interrupted. “The accident. Tell us what you know.”

“I know I wanted to cry like a baby when I saw your car.” Luke’s nostrils flared. “Whoever wrecked that beautiful piece of machinery doesn’t deserve to live.” Nods of agreement filled the room and sympathetic looks darted my way. “There were no skid marks on the road. The car that ploughed into the driver’s side of Casey’s car didn’t slow down, suggesting it was deliberate.” Travis arched a brow at Mitch over that piece of information. “But they didn’t want Casey dead,” Luke continued. Mitch arched a brow back at Travis. There was a pause. “They wanted his wife dead.”

“His
wife?
” Tim said faintly and turned accusing eyes my way. Everyone started talking at once.

“I wasn’t driving the car. Grace was.”

Silence fell for a minute.

Travis was the first to speak. “
Grace
was driving your car?”

“There was an altercation at the bar,” Jared began
, and proceeded to fill them in on the events of the night. I gave a few brief facts to complete the missing pieces, which included the whole sorry mess with Morgan, and everyone stood silent for a moment, absorbing the new information.

Travis rubbed at his jaw
and I knew he was trying hard not to say I told you so. I was grateful for that small mercy. After carefully weighing his words, he spoke. “I think Morgan sounds like a deranged bitch.”

Jared nodded his
head in agreement. “I agree. Besides, no one’s cock is that good. Unless it can perform magic tricks. You got a magic dick, Casey?”

I willed myself to stay calm. “I do,” I replied, my tone thick with sarcasm. “
Every time I get a woman in bed I like to perform a little trick I call now you see it, now you don’t.”

Jared snorted.

“Now if we’re finished discussing my cock and the amazing things it can do, can we get back to the matter at hand?”

Coby eyed me speculatively. “You think Morgan had something to do with this?”

“It’s possible,” I conceded. But if
I distanced myself from Grace to keep her safe and it wasn’t Morgan but someone else, then Grace would be left wide open for them to make another move. A more permanent move.

“Are you all forgetting something?
” Mitch interjected with a fold of his arms. “Morgan is a newly appointed detective with the Sydney City Police.”

Travis shrugged. “So what? You think all the coppers who
make the rank of detective are squeaky clean?”

“We need to talk to Morgan and we need to talk to Grace,” I informed the room.

“I agree,” Travis said and pulled out his phone. “I’ll ring Frank, get him to make a start on the background checks.”

“Seth, Travis. Seth,” Tim
reminded him. Frank had finished up his last day of work yesterday. As of today, Seth McKinnon—Frank’s replacement, former agent with the AFP, Travis’s father-in-law
and
recipient of the mean right hook Travis possessed—was now on the clock.

Lips twitched when Travis tucked his phone back in his pocket at the reminder. He turned to his brother beside him. “Jared, you ring Seth, tell him to do the background checks.”

Jared shook his head, green eyes amused. “You’re gonna have to speak to him sooner or later, Travis. He works with us now.”

“Well let’s make it later,” he snapped.

The door to my hospital room flew open. Mac strode through first, followed by Evie, who was followed by Quinn, the latter two both holding strawberry shakes in their hands. Luke, who’d been mostly quiet throughout our exchange, sucked in a sharp breath. Mac glanced his way and stumbled slightly, her eyes widening.

Evie veered off, dumping the remains of her shake in the corner bin. Quinn went to the side of Travis, who wrapped one arm around her and yanked her close. He used the
other to snatch her shake. Recovering quickly, Mac kept going until she stood between Coby and Mitch. “You wankers finished with your little pow wow? Because Grace is just coming out of surgery, and now that we know she’s going to be fine…” Mac looked at me when she said that, her eyes softening slightly and hardening again real quick. “…we have a bitch to take out, so let’s get on it.”

“A bitch?” Jared echoed the question for all of us.

“Morgan.”

Coby’s eyes shot to his hairline.
“How do you know about Morgan?”

She gave him a look that said
bitch, please.
“The things I know would chill your blood.”

“Mac,” I said quietly, my tone warning her to explain.

She huffed. “Remember in the bar when you and Morgan were having your ‘conversation,’” she air-quoted. “You stepped back and stumbled into someone behind you. Well that someone happened to be me.”

“Of course it was you,” I mumbled as
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, determined to be there when Grace woke up. The effort forced a sweat to break out across my brow.

“Where’s Henry?” I
sucked in a deep breath at the stabbing pain in my ribs.

“He’
s out in the waiting room and Nate is on his way,” Quinn told me.

“Who’
s Nate?” I asked.

Quinn cocked her head, her lips pressed together in a look of heart-felt sympathy. “Grace’s dad.”

I closed my eyes and cursed.

Fucking
awesome.