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.Sucking in a shallow breath, hetried to keep his questions to a single utterance. Where are Devon, Michael& and Andy?Sam frowned darkly at him. Don t talk idiot.Yougot stabbed twice in the chest by that freaking lunatic.Adrien shook his head as fiercely as he couldmanage, pulling at his mask.Sam pushed his hands backdown. No fell.A snort sounded to his left.Sam looked up, astartled and exasperated expression on his face. Oh, crap,that really could be what happened.My brother is seriouslythe clumsiest guy on the planet.Adrien reached for his mask again.Sam smacked athis hands, but Adrien fended him off. Andy? Devon?Michael?Sam grabbed both his hands, shoving the oxygenmask completely back onto his face. They are all fine,idiot.It s you we re worried about.Something pinched at Adrien s elbow, and heglanced down to find a light-skinned black paramedic withstartling blue-grey eyes attaching a bag of fluid to the endof the tubing he d just stuck in Adrien s arm.Adrien smiled. Thanks.150Worth a Thousand Words Cherie NoelThe guy blinked, and then a tiny smile crept acrosshis face. You re welcome.Now, for the love of god, listento your brother and please be quiet.I ve got a bet on withthe guys in the other rig that I can go two straight monthswithout losing a patient, and I d hate for you to break mywinning streak.Adrien started to laugh, and then coughed painfullyinstead.He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to breatheshallowly through the white-hot pain.The gurney jolted, and Adrien s vision went white. Oh fuck.Sam turned shocked eyes on him, but before Adriencould think up an appropriately snarky thing to say, theambulance rocked to a stop.The rear doors were yankedopen and Adrien s gurney pulled quickly out.Theshockwave of pain through his body plunged Adrien rightback down into another white-out of the world.Adrien svision came back online when they were rolling his gurneyrapidly along inside the hospital.They paused just outside aset of double doors.One man moved to hold Sam back,while another came from the other side of the doors to aidin moving Adrien s gurney rapidly along.He heardsnatches of conversation.151Worth a Thousand Words Cherie NoelA man with a long face, kind brown eyes andglasses leaned over him. Son, we need to operate on yourlung.We re gonna put you under, and you won t wake upuntil sometime tomorrow, probably.Adrien pulled his mask off. Accident.Tell-p-police.A-ac-a-accident.The doctor s eyes widened.He gestured behind himas he spoke. I ll do that son.You rest easy.There was another face above him then, lookingdown at him chocolate brown skin, eyes like liquid blacklicorice and snowy white hair.She smiled at him, attachinga syringe to his I.V.tubing.Something cool and sleepy slidinto his veins.Everything turned sideways, and Adrien slast thought was to wonder where Devon was.152Chapter ThirteenChapter ThirteenChapter ThirteenChapter ThirteenDevon woke, woozy and nauseated, to find himselfin a bed with thick plastic rails at the sides, and CarlosJimenez Adrien s stepdad seated at his bedside.Heeyed the man warily as he tried to make sense of where hewas.Lying in an uncomfortable bed with side-rails andbreathing in a faintly antiseptic smell which barely coveredthe pervasive scent of illness ah he could only be in ahospital.Carlos Jimenez, unless Devon badly missed hisguess, was probably only a few years older than him.Theman just sat there staring at him and Devon was damned ifhe felt up to making small-talk at the moment.He triedtwice to lift his arm to depress the call button he knew hadto be somewhere on the rail.He needed someone to tell himwhat was going on, and a nurse, any medical personnel infact was a better bet than Adrien s step-father.Even if hewasn t going by the slightly sour look on the guy s faceright now, Devon had gotten a strong sense of disapprovalfrom the man the very first time they laid eyes on oneanother.153Worth a Thousand Words Cherie NoelCarlos regarded Devon s attempts to find and usehis call light steadily.He did not speak.Devon tried toquirk an eyebrow at the other man sarcastically, but hisface felt rubbery.In fact, his whole body felt slow torespond, and just wrong [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]