“He’s going into surgery.” The nurse tossed a chin toward the waiting room. “Have a seat.”

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

He was five again, and had knocked a glass of milk over. He stood there quivering in his own skin staring up into his father’s menacing face.

“Got to teach you a lesson, boy.”

Joe knew the drill and bit his lip to keep his mouth shut because he wouldn’t cry. But his father was all hands. Huge, hard, cruel hands—

“There, that’ll help the pain. Joe? Joe, come on now, open your eyes.”

Joe cracked open one eye and found himself surrounded by white and metal and a bright light that made him shut his eye again. His tongue felt swollen and his brain hazy.

“Do you remember what happened?” a female voice asked.

His nose was assaulted with a metallic scent, and a warm hand settled on his arm. Fixing an IV he realized, and his eyes flew open again.

The nurse smiled at him. “Hi there. Welcome back.”

He remembered being in the convenience store, remembered the shouts, the punk lifting a gun, pointing it at an officer. He remembered thinking it was just a kid, a stupid kid, then the explosion of the gun near his ear and the fiery agony as the bullet had torn through his boot.

He’d been shot in the damn foot by a kid.

Jesus, he was getting old if he’d let that happen, and that sucked too. He lifted his head and stared down at his foot, which was bandaged up like a mummy. “It’s still there,” he said with some relief, and lay back again.

“It most definitely is,” the nurse said. “You have a nice hole in it though, and you won’t be using it any time in the near future, but it’s there. Your wife has been pacing the hallways waiting for you to wake up. Should I send her in?”

“My wife?” He lifted a hand to his head. No bandages.

“What’s the matter?” the nurse asked.

“Did I hit my head?”

“No.” The nurse frowned. “Does it hurt?”

The drugs had kicked in now, and things were nice and fuzzy. “I’m not sure.” In the opened doorway he locked on to a set of jade green eyes, red rimmed with a smudge of mascara under each. They belonged to the one face that could both stop his heart and kick-start it with one look.

Summer sent him a tremulous smile. “Hi honey, I’m home.”

“I just loaded him with morphine,” the nurse warned her with a little pat on Joe’s arm. “He’ll be quite loopy, and it’s possible he won’t remember this at all.”

“Christ, I hope I do,” he murmured. “It’s not every day I get to lay eyes on my wife.”

Summer’s cheeks glowed red but she moved to his bedside. “You okay?”