Wyatt walked into the room and growled, “Y’all are letting her watch this crap?”
“She’s eating now, ain’t she?” Clay countered. “Those pills and the concussion are making her sick. She needed a distraction.”
“This is the distraction you chose?”
“Shhh!” Jules waved her fork at Wyatt when the media coverage changed to a man standing outside an emergency room. “They’re at the hospital now. They’re gonna tell us what’s going on.”
“It’s suspected that Juliet Wellings will make a full recovery, but we’re waiting for word on Romeo Wellings, who is still listed in critical condition. We know he had emergency surgery shortly after he was airlifted to St. Francis, but have very few details on his situation. His family has been very private in regards to his injuries. ” 350
“What?” Jules barked at the television before she turned to Wyatt, feeling the sadness and fear well into a surge of injustice. “I wanna know what he had surgery for!
He’s my husband. That means—”
“You were in a shoot out. He got shot, Jules.” Wyatt sounded as if he was letting out poison, and it spilled out of him quickly. “He had surgery to remove two bullets.
One was in his chest. The other got him in the back.” Jules sucked in a sharp gasp, terrified of the answers she’d been asking for. “Is he gonna be okay?”
“Yes.” Wyatt breathed a sigh of relief as if only now believing it himself. “I just walked over and saw him. He’s still sleeping, but they say he’s gonna be fine.” Jules took another shuddering breath. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” Wyatt rested against the side of Jules’s bed and gave her a wan smile. “I didn’t wanna say anything till I was sure.”
“You promise?” Jules asked, her bottom lip quivering. “He’s not gonna leave me?”
“When have I ever lied to you? You told me not to pacify you, and I’m not.” Wyatt brushed at the fine wisps of hair on her forehead. “It ain’t gonna be a walk in the park.
He lost a kidney. I’m sure his recovery will be challenging, but he’s tough. I think he’ll be fine.”
Jules dropped her fork and reached out to him. She hugged Wyatt tightly. Her entire body shook as great racking sobs of relief burst out of her. She let all the fear, pain, and stress that had been building since she’d woken up flow out of her, and she didn’t care when the nurses came in, because Wyatt kept them away. He knew she needed the emotional cleansing. She could rise out of the ashes once it was over. Now she had hope Romeo would fight past the ruins with her, two phoenixes that had overcome the tragic ending written a long time ago, proving that history doesn’t always repeat itself.
351
It took her a long time to calm down. Her face felt swollen, and her headache throbbed worse than ever. It was mentally healing, but her body didn’t necessarily agree.
Her food forgotten, she fell back against the pillow. She turned her head to the side to ease the pain in her neck. She noticed they were alone in the room. Clay and Melody had left at some point, and it occurred to Jules that she had cried for a really long time.
“I wanna see him,” she finally whispered. “I’m his wife. I should be able to see him.”
“He’s sleeping, Ju Ju.” Wyatt grasped Jules’s good hand, being careful of the IV.
“But as soon as he wakes up, we’ll get you in there. Come hell or high water, I promise, you’ll get to see him.”
“Okay.” Jules squeezed Wyatt’s hand back, believing him. She fought the heaviness of sleep that called simply because staying awake was too painful. She studied her brother’s face, seeing how tired he looked. He still hadn’t shaved. His eyes were more bloodshot than ever, with shadowy circles under them that kept getting darker. “You need sleep.”
“Probably,” Wyatt agreed.
“I’ll take a power nap. You take one too.” Jules closed her eyes. “Find a bed. Come back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed later.”
Jules fell asleep before Wyatt could agree, but something in her dreams still felt him leave, and it was more than just physically stepping out of the room. For the first time since she was born, Jules felt an emotional separation too. They were finally doing what twins were supposed to do when they grew up and moved past the instinctive need to walk the same path simply because of the nine months spent together in the womb.
Jules started living her own life.
352
* * * *
In the early morning on the first day of her new life, Jules woke to the low whispering of Italian, and she instinctively fought to open her eyes. She hurt worse than before she’d gone to sleep. The ibuprofen had long since worn off, but she ignored it.