Page 75 of Midnight Hunter
Chuckling, she stepped back toward the doorway. “I’ll let your friend know to pull up out front.”
“Thank you.”
She left, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed and reached for my stack of clothing on the chair.
It took a little creativity to get my pants on without getting up, but I was soon back in my clothes and ready to go. The nurse reappeared with a wheelchair shortly after I finished getting dressed and wheeled me outside.
Lana leaned against the passenger door of her dusty-blue Subaru, arms crossed, sunglasses pushed up into her blonde hair. She straightened when she saw me, and something in my chest did a slow, traitorous roll that had nothing to do with the anesthesia.
“Hey.” She pushed off the car and opened the door. “Your chariot.”
I frowned, pushing up from the chair. “Where’s Walker?” Annoyance at my friend made my voice gruff.
“Something came up.” She said it lightly, but I could hear a bit of strain in her voice. “He called this morning and asked if I could pick you up. Said he had a charter he couldn’t get out of.” I let her take my crutches and put them into the back as I maneuvered myself into her passenger seat.
That was complete bullshit. Walker didn’t have a charter.
I knew from this morning he’d kept his schedule light to take me to this appointment and pick me up. So, unless some VIP showed up, he didn’t have a charter.
The son of a bitch had set this up.
I sank back against the headrest as Lana shut my door and rounded the hood. He’d planted that seed about the “L” word on Saturday and then engineered an hour car ride back to my cabin to make sure it took root. His plan was about as subtle as a brick through a window.
Lana slid into the driver’s seat, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she checked her mirrors.
I should be angry.
And I was. At being duped. But watching her, I found I couldn’t quite get there over his motivations.
“You okay?” She glanced over. “You’re staring.”
“Drugs,” I said, glad to have a convenient excuse.
“Mm-hmm.” From the lift to her eyebrows, I could tell she didn’t entirely believe me. But she put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb without pushing it, and I was grateful for that.
For about thirty seconds, anyway. Until I remembered we had an hour drive ahead of us and I was at her mercy since it was her car.
I looked out the window, jaw flexing.
Damn you, Walker.
Chapter 28
Lana
He was quiet for the first twenty minutes.
That wasn’t unusual. Toren was quiet a lot of the time, I’d noticed. But this was a different kind of quiet. It wasn’t fatigue or a lack of anything to say keeping him silent. I could practically hear the gears turning, even doped up like he was. Whatever they’d given him had loosened something in him, though. His shoulders weren’t up around his ears the way they usually were when he was trying to put up a wall between us. His head rested against the seat, and he watched the trees blur past the window with heavy-lidded eyes.
I kept my own eyes on the road and tried not to think about how much I’d missed looking at him over the last two days.
Two days. That was all it had been since I’d dropped him at his cabin and driven away with my heart cracking down the middle. Two days of throwing myself into vendor calls and venue logistics and pretending my brain wasn’t running a constant background loop of his hands and his mouth and the way he’d talked about his dead wife in the dark.
I was pathetic. I knew I was pathetic.
“He didn’t have a charter.”
I blinked, then looked at him. “What?”
