Page 82 of Captive

“They already do,” I say. “That’s what scares me. I’ll read it tomorrow.”

By five-thirty, I’ve decided she isn’t coming.

It makes sense. She’s got nineteen cattle under a state hold and five of them poisoned and a license she just got back. She told me on the phone she was coming, but people say that. I’ve said it. I’ve said it to women whose husbands owed Russell money, standing on their porches, knowing I wasn’t coming back for anything good.

I lie there in the hospital bed and tell myself I’ll be fine with it. That she doesn’t owe me a visit. That the radio was the radio and whatever she says or doesn’t say about it is hers.

I’m not fine with it. I’m trying to be. That’s new too.

* * *

Sofia comes in at five thirty-four.

She has the blue grease pencil in her shirt pocket and an ice pack wrapped against her arm. Her eyes are red. She greets the investigator first, confirms the animal handoff, and takes the chair by the window instead of the one by my bed.

She tells the room her insurance will cover the clinic repairs. Barbed Crown pays only for damage the evidence traces back to Barbed Crown. The break-in stays open until they know who did it.

Garrett asks if he can invite her practice to bid on the ranch herd work once her clinic is stable.

“Invite it,” she says. “Don’t award it because I got hurt here. And don’t assume I’ll bid.”

“Agreed.”

They leave one at a time. My lawyer takes both folders unsigned. Nobody asks Sofia to stay. She tells the discharge nurse she will, and that she has the clinical training to watch me overnight, and the nurse writes it down.

The door closes. She puts the ice pack on the tray table and looks at me.

“Your shoulder isn’t my fault,” she says. “Vale’s people brought guns. One of them fired. You chose to be out there under written limits, and the county chose how to box him in.”

“That’s half the answer.”

“I know.”

She gets up from the window chair. She comes and sits on the edge of the bed on my good side, careful of the lines and the sling, and she takes my left hand in both of hers.

“I came because I want you,” she says. “And because leaving you alone tonight would violate the discharge plan. Those can both be true.”

“They can.”

“And I came because you said something on a state radio channel last night and I told you to go to the hospital.” Her voice catches. She doesn’t stop. “I’ve known for two days. I knew standing in the yard office door watching you tell the investigator what Russell offered you, before you ever told me. I knew it on my porch before that, looking at your number. I knew it in my kitchen with the mockingbird. I think maybe I knew it sitting on the floor against that bedroom door at two in the morning, and I hated myself for it.”

My heart is doing something the monitor probably doesn’t like.

“I didn’t say it,” she says, “because I didn’t want you to ever think I said it to pay you back for anything. For the truth. For the keys. For stepping in front of that trailer. I wanted to say it somewhere it was only mine to give.”

She holds my hand tighter.

“I love you, Cole.”

I can’t say anything.

I try. Nothing comes. I just look at her, and she looks back with her red eyes and her ice pack bruise and her blue pencil, and something that’s been locked in me since I was nineteen years old turns over and opens.

“Say something,” she says. “You’re making me nervous, and I’m a trained professional.”

“I love you,” I manage. “I already said it. I’ll keep saying it.”

“On recorded channels?”