I went to the bed, and I crouched to take my shoes off. “I’m going to sleep in the chair,” I said very softly. “You go back to sleep.”

“Climb in with me, on my good side.”

“Are you sure that’ll be comfortable for you? That bed’s mighty small.”

“I’m sure. I’d rather be crowded with you than have lots of room without you.”

I felt tears begin to trickle down my cheeks, and I suppressed the sobbing sound that went with them.

“What’s wrong?” He put his good arm around me after I’d crawled into the bed. I lay on my side to give him enough room.

“Nothing we need to talk about now,” I said. “Sleep now. I just didn’t want to be by myself.”

“I didn’t either,” he said. And he fell back to sleep. After a few minutes, so did I.

The nurse who came in at five thirty in the morning was fairly surprised to find me there, in bed with Tolliver. Once she saw that we were both clothed and she could assume that Tolliver hadn’t done anything to hurt his mending shoulder, she relaxed.

Tolliver looked a lot better in the morning light. Being with him had done me good, too. I felt a lot more confident. After he’d been bathed and shaved and he’d eaten breakfast, I told him the story of the night before.

He said instantly, “I have to get out of here,” and actually began to sit up to get out of the bed.

“No, you aren’t,” I said sharply. “You’re going to stay right here, where no one can get at you, until the doctor says you can go.”

Tolliver said, “You’re in danger, baby. We’ve got to find somewhere to put you, somewhere safe.” He’d abandoned the idea of leaving, I was relieved to see, mostly because the movement had been enough to make him cold and sweaty.

“That sounds good,” I said. “But I just don’t know where that would be.”

“You could leave,” he said, a little wildly. “You could go up to St. Louis, to the apartment.”

“And leave you here by yourself? Not too likely.”

“You could leave the country.”

“Oh, hush. I’m not going to spend the money to fly to Europe or whatever, just because someone shot at guys while I was around.”

“You got a death threat,” Tolliver said, as if I was mentally slow or hard of hearing.