“I don’t.” Bridget nearly broke. “I don’t want to go with them. I can’t—I can’t be stuck with them. I’ll never get out.”
“Then you’ll come with me. I did lie, though—I don’t have a bedroom on the main floor anymore.”
“What about the small one?”
“It’s my office. You’ll have to crash in the basement with me, but I do have a spare room there. We’ll get you up and down the stairs when you need it until you can manage yourself, okay? But let’s not tell them that, because I don’t think they’ll let you stay with me if that’s the case.”
Bridget nodded. “Thank you, Eli. Thank you so much.”
“I know what kind of people they are.”
She was almost in tears again. Fuck, this had to stop. She needed to bolster up and man up. The wuss she had become was not the person she wanted to be. Her parents didn’t come back into the room, but June did. She had a small smile on her lips as she stepped inside. “They said they’ll come visit you.”
“I’ll only let them in if she wants them in,” Eli stated firmly.
“I think that’d be wise. In all my years being a chaplain, your parents are some of the hardest to get to listen.”
Bridget snickered lightly. “Welcome to my life for the last thirty years.”
“I don’t envy you.”
“No one does,” Eli mumbled, grasping Bridget’s hand. “She’ll come home with me, and I’ll take care of her as long as she needs until she can go home on her own.”
“Thank you,” Bridget whispered. “Really. I’m sure you never thought we’d end up living together this way.”
Eli snorted, her laugh echoing through the room as she wiped the tears of laughter falling from her eyes. “Oh hell, Bridget. No, I thought we’d be married first. Jesus, what would make you say that?”
Bridget shrugged lightly with her good shoulder. “It’s true.”
“Damn straight it is.” Eli was still laughing when she stood up. “Come on, let’s get you in this fucking wheelchair so we can spring you from this place.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Bridget gave a half-salute. She shifted slowly to the edge of the bed, knowing every movement was going to be slow. Nurses came in to help her, but soon enough they shooed Eli out to go get the truck.
She cursed when she thought about that. Getting into the truck in her condition was not going to be fun. The nurses were just about to wheel her out of the room when Jerica showed up at the door, a smile on her lips and her hands folded together in front of her.
“I heard a rumor you were leaving.”
“Finally!” Bridget smiled. “No offense, but I don’t want to stay here any longer.”
“None taken.” Jerica walked with them to the front of the hospital where Eli had been instructed to pull the truck up. “I’m glad you’re doing so well. There are a lot of people worried about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You came in looking pretty rough,” Jerica added. “Your fellow deputies stayed outside in the lobby until you were cleared of surgery. The chief of police from town came too.”
“Really?” Bridget’s brow furrowed. “I hadn’t realized so many people were there.”
“There were a lot.”
Bridget licked her lips, taking the risk to ask the question she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to. “W-were my parents there?”
Jerica’s pitying look was the only answer she needed.
“I suppose they showed up later.”
“They did,” Jerica answered. “They arrived about the time we took you up to ICU.”
“Wonderful,” Bridget muttered.