“I’m buzzing the doctor. Looks like she’s really waking up this time.”
“Who is that?” Jules asked in confusion, blinking against the lights to look up at Wyatt.
Wyatt winced. “You’re in the hospital, darlin’.”
“What?” Jules frowned, her eyes still fluttering to keep away the light while trying to focus on Wyatt’s face. His eyes were bloodshot, with dark circles beneath them. He had a least three days’ beard growth and looked worse than she’d seen him since Tabitha left. “What happened to you?”
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“Why don’t we focus on you instead,” Wyatt suggested in a soft, soothing voice.
Which in itself would have freaked Jules out. “How ya feeling tonight?”
“My neck hurts.” She reached up to touch it, but Wyatt caught her hand. A pained sob of frustration burst out of her. “Why are you picking on me?”
“I’m not picking on you. Come on, Ju Ju Bean, I want ya to work on really waking up.”
“I’m really awake,” Jules mumbled, though her eyes were closed against the glare.
“Dang light’s too bright.”
“You got a nasty concussion.” Wyatt flipped a light switch somewhere, and the room got considerably darker. “Better?”
“Mmm,” she hummed as she reached up to scratch her neck.
Wyatt caught her hand once more. “Come on, they’re gonna have to tie your hands down if ya keep trying to pull at it. They wanted to do it when you tried to wake up the last time, but I stopped ’em. I know you’d hate that.” Something about that had Jules fighting harder. If she was in a situation where people could tie down her hands, she needed to be more alert than she felt. She wanted to rub her eyes and wipe away the last bit of sleep away, but Wyatt was holding both her hands like a big bully.
“Mrs. Wellings?”
Jules looked to the side, wondering who Mrs. Wellings was. All she found was a nurse with white hair and a friendly face. She was round and looked like she should be baking cookies for her grandkids instead of standing there watching Jules get bullied by her twin brother.
“Mrs. Wellings, I’m Dr. Miller. I’ve been taking care of you. How are you feeling?” Jules swallowed against the dryness in her throat and turned to look at a tall, older man standing next to Wyatt. “Been better.”
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“Okay,” he said in a soft voice as he leaned over and touched her face. “Your color’s improving. Can you look at me, Juliet?”
“She goes by Jules,” Wyatt cut in.
The doctor held up a penlight and instructed, “I want you to follow this with your eyes.”
Jules did as he asked, but hearing her full name had her asking, “Where’s Romeo?”
No one answered, and Jules put up with the doctor doing a series of other mundane tests while an uncomfortable silence hung in the air. She was still fighting to wake up more fully and started taking stock of her other aches and pains. Wyatt finally let go of her hands and knowing touching her neck was off limits, she started messing with the sheets, feeling something uncomfortable around her waist, like a belt against her skin.
“What is this?”
“We’re monitoring the babies.”
“The babies? What?” Jules looked to her brother in confusion.
Wyatt was rubbing a hand against his forehead the way he did when he was extremely stressed out. “She doesn’t—”
“Dr. Carver has been coordinating with me on your treatment. We’ve paged him.
He’ll be here shortly. He’s one of the best ob-gyns in our area. He specializes in high-risk pregnancies.”
“What is going on?” Jules asked Wyatt wildly. “What happened to me?”
“What’s the last thing you remember, Juliet?”
“Don’t ask her that.” Wyatt hissed at that doctor.
Jules became more aware of everything. The hospital room. The doctor. Wyatt, who looked like he was about to come out of his skin from anxiety. Then other
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memories started flashing at her. Running away. Marrying Romeo under the magnolia tree. The guns. The blood.
Jules started to hyperventilate. “Where’s Romeo?” The monitors were beeping faster. She didn’t care as she reached past the doctor for her brother. “Where is he?
Where’d he go? I wanna know where he is!”
“Can you have them call Dr. Carver again?”
Jules started crying. Something in her knew Romeo was not okay. Someone would have told her otherwise if he was. Her voice was soft, broken as she pleaded in a choked voice, “I need to know where he is.”
“Y’all need to take ’bout ten steps back.”