“What did you lie about? Did you break the law? Do I need to get a lawyer? I can get a lawyer now. Simon, call me a lawyer. Whatever it is I’ll fix it.”
“Colorado,” Simon warned from the door.
“Hush, Simon, this is important. I just want him to know—”
Simon talked right over him. “You can’t go on offering help when you don’t—"
“I’ll do what I damn well want.”
“Colorado—”
“Simon—"
“Stop it, both of you,” I whispered with enough force to stop them. “I lied when they asked if me, Natalie, and Emma had a place to live. I told them your address.”
Simon let out a sigh of relief.
“As you should,” Colorado murmured and hugged me closer. For a second it felt as if the four of us—him, me, Emma, and Maddie—were this joined circle of family, and then I wanted Natalie here, and I wanted to cry at the thought of losing my sister. “That’s not a lie,” Colorado said with defiance.
I closed my eyes and soaked in the warmth of him, and the care and safety I felt with Colorado and Simon in the room, and the fact that Emma was sleeping in my arms.
“I told them that… I’m sorry… and I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t needed to. They were looking to get me a place to stay, not just me, but Emma and Natalie, and I said we would be moving in with you.”
Colorado pressed a quick kiss to the top of my head and hummed something random. “I thought Natalie might like the blue room, it has the best views of the garden, and its own bathroom, and a side room for a nurse if she needs one, or maybe for Emma, although I think Emma might like the pink room across the hall, unless you think she’ll be scared on her own?”
I opened my eyes and looked up at him, but he wasn’t joking, he was talking as if he’d spent a while thinking about this.
“Huh?” My thought processes were frazzled and ragged but it sounded as if he was offering my entire family a place to stay.
“And Simon has already arranged to have a representative at the remains of your—shit—at your house as security and to collect what can be salvaged. It’s not much, I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t speak, the emotions inside me, the panic and fear that had brought me this far spilled out in angry, miserable tears, and Colorado held me. “I could have lost everything,” I said between sobs, and was never more shocked than when Simon sat on the seat the other side of me and patted my knee.
“Everything will be okay, kid. You have us now. Promise.”
No doctors or nurses came to see me until four a.m., and then it was Natalie’s surgeon to tell me that surgery on her leg had been successful and she was sleeping peacefully.
Doctor Ellis, a tall slim woman with short, spiky pink hair was the one delivering the news I needed to hear, and I’m sure she explained it as simply as she could. The injuries were nothing but words—compartment syndrome, smoke inhalation, blood loss—a list that seemed never-ending. By the end of it all I could think was that I wanted to see Natalie.
“I’m Colorado Penn, goalie for the Raptors,” Colorado announced grandly into the sudden silence when she’d finished, with a wave of his arm and a toss of his long hair. “Money isn’t an issue, and I can get the best surgeons in here, from the team. Simon, call the team, and get management out here.”
She wasn’t shocked, I could tell, and I knew that Colorado was looking out for me, but she’d just gone in and fixed my sister so in my eyes there couldn’t be a better surgeon.
“I can assure you, Mr. Penn, that Mrs. Owens is in her private room with the extra nursing care you have requested, and that surgery went well. This hospital has a fine reputation for—”
“What about a second opinion?” Colorado insisted.
I was still stuck on the fact that my boss had organized a private room and additional private nursing care, how the hell was I going to pay him back for that? I’d be providing childcare services for free until Maddie turned eighteen.
The surgeon inclined her head. “You are, of course, entitled to a second opinion—”
“No,” I pressed a hand to Colorado’s chest, right next to where Maddie’s head lay. “Thank you, Doctor Ellis, I don’t know how I can ever say thank you enough. When can I see my sister?”
“If you like I can take you up now.”
I stood so fast that the blood rushed to my head and I swayed, Colorado bracing me, Simon standing immediately, but I stepped away from them.
“Do you want to leave Emma with us?” Colorado asked.
“No. Sorry, but if Emma wakes up, I want it to be me she sees,” I murmured, and gently lifted my precious cargo, so she sat more on my hip. “I’ll be okay. Go home.” The surgeon guided me out and as the door shut I thought to add more. “Colorado, we can talk tomorrow about what I owe you, and how my job—”
The door shut between us, and I never got to finish my sentence, but it wasn’t important. Colorado had to know I would pay him back, and that I would work for him as long as he needed me to, and that whatever attraction had been bubbling between us wasn’t anything more than forced proximity. I could work past anything, even my stupid heart, to focus on fixing things for Emma and Natalie. Maybe I’d get a full-time packing job, work my way up to manager, there was good money in the retail sector. Then if I earned enough, and with the insurance money, maybe we could move out of the city. I stopped dead outside her room. My feet refused
