“This feels like war. Everything hurts. They want to check for internal injuries and X-ray the arm to see how bad the break is.”
“I’ll take care of everything,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be with Zoe and handle Mrs. Ford and call your boss.”
“Work,” she breathed. “I forgot about work.”
“They’ll understand. Just rest. Have they given you something for the pain?”
But she didn’t answer. She had faded into unconsciousness.
He called for one of the nurses to come check on her, and was quickly pushed out of the room.
Even as he told himself she was going to be fine, he felt the stiff chill of panic. It was just a beating, he thought, refusing to give in to the need to burst back into the room and take over. It’s not as if he knew anything about making her better.
But he’d seen plenty of guys after fights and she was going to be fine, right? It wasn’t as if Neil had taken the baseball bat to any other part of her body, had he?
A familiar cry of his name sucked him into the next room, where he found Zoe in tears as a nurse put a bandage on the cut by her eye.
“She’s been really brave,” the young woman told him, “but she needs a little comforting.”
Without thinking, Walker moved to the side of the bed and held open his arms. Zoe dived into them and held on as if she would never let go.
“Where’s Mommy?” she asked.
“Getting looked at by the doctor,” the nurse said before he could answer. “They want to take pictures of her arm and then she’s going to get a cast.” The nurse smiled. “I’ll bet she’ll let you be the first one to sign it. Maybe you can even draw some pictures on it or put on stickers. Stickers make it look really nice.”
Zoe sniffed and raised her head, but she didn’t let go of him. “We have stickers at home.”
“Then we’ll use those,” Walker promised, hoping Elissa’s recovery was all going to be as simple as a cast.
The nurse patted Zoe’s back. “You need to stay here, honey, until the doctor releases you, but other than that, you’re good to go. The bast—” The nurse cleared her throat. “That man only hit her a couple of times. She’s okay.”
Thank God.
Walker didn’t know if he said the words or only thought them. Either way the relief was instant and powerful. He carried Zoe to the chair and settled her on his lap where he kissed the top of her head and held her securely in his arms.
“Was that man really my daddy?” Zoe asked quietly.
Walker swore under his breath. Not on my watch, he thought desperately. He couldn’t answer these kind of questions. Not now, not after what she’d just been through. He was the wrong person to help her deal with all this crap.
But there wasn’t anyone else, so he cleared his throat and prayed for divine guidance.
“It takes a man and a woman to make a baby,” he said, then wondered if he’d just dug the hole bigger. “But making a baby doesn’t mean a man is a daddy. Being a daddy is different. It’s a name a man has to earn. He has to prove himself by doing the right thing and being there and…” And what else, he thought desperately.
“And loving his little girl,” Zoe whispered as she began to cry.
“Right. He has to know her and because he knows her, he loves her. Because she’s a very special little girl.”
Zoe raised her head and stared into his soul. “So you’re my daddy.”
From the moment he’d found out Charlotte was dying and had realized he was going to walk out on her, he’d carried around a weight in his chest. It was as if that action had somehow locked his heart in a small box that was both heavy and painful.
Zoe’s innocent, trusting, scary-as-hell words had just opened the box—and for the first time in over a decade, it didn’t hurt to breathe.
“Yes, Zoe. I’m your daddy.”
ELISSA RESURFACED in a hospital room where a brisk, efficient nurse explained she would be kept overnight for observation.
“The doctor will be by later to discuss your injuries,” the woman said. “Basically you’ve got a broken arm and some internal bruising. Nothing’s seriously damaged, though. You got lucky.”
Lucky was an interesting word for what happened.
“My daughter,” Elissa said. “Where’s Zoe?”
“I met your little girl. She’s a sweetheart. That big handsome man of yours said to tell you he was taking her home to a Mrs. Ford and he would be back later tonight.”
Elissa closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of thanks. Zoe must be all right or she wouldn’t have been let out of the hospital. Thank God.
“You can have more pain medication now,” the nurse told her. “But as it seems to knock you on your butt, you might want to wait until you’ve seen everyone. Unless you don’t want to see them.”
Elissa still felt fuzzy. The details of Neil’s rampage were still completely clear in her mind, but she was less certain about what had happened after that.
“Everyone?” she asked, shifting, then wincing as waves of pain shot up her arm. She glanced down and stared at the cast covering her left arm from just below her wrist to above her elbow. “I slept through getting a cast?”
The nurse grinned. “Honey, you slept through more than that. Are you up to seeing the herd?”
She had a herd? “Sure.”
A few minutes after the nurse left, her parents entered, followed by Bobby. Her mother and father rushed to her side.
“Are you all right?” her mother asked. “I couldn’t believe it when Walker called us. Oh, baby, your face.”
Elissa touched her swollen lips and had a feeling she looked even worse than she felt. “I’m all right, Mom. Zoe and I survived,
