Chapter 25

Ophelia managed to keep her tears at bay until she got all the way to her apartment complex.  Then she sat there in her car in the parking lot and the long hours of the night crashed down around her.  At least, she had the presence of mind to grab Lucky from under Ian’s bed before she left.  Otherwise, she didn’t know what she’d do.  So, instead, her head fell forward on the steering wheel as she palmed her coin, but the horn sounded as her forehead hit it, jerking her backward. 

Ian.  She'd turned in the elevator at his loft and there he was, searching for her as the doors slid shut.  The agony in his eyes would haunt her tonight as she tried to sleep away the pain in her own heart.  Never had she been treated this way.  A low-down whore.  Was that how he really saw her?  Or was it the heartache talking?  How could he tell her he loved her and then insinuate something like that?

He said he loved her.  He stood there, totally naked, choking the words out, and that had been the first time since she’d known him that she honestly felt like he was being sincere with her.  And it scared her.  It scared her to death.  Ophelia sat there, staring out her windshield, knowing that she had some serious issues to work out.  She was a mess.  And the people around her weren’t helping the situation.  She’d been hording unusual friends for years, and then trying to stave off her insanity by dating boring men, hoping that a little normalcy would balance the rest of her life.  The only problem with that was the fact that she now didn’t have a clue how to deal with a man who said he loved her.

This was what she wanted, right?

A few days, she promised herself.  I just need a few days to think about it.  Then she could go back to Ian, and they could talk about it together.  Because frankly, she didn’t know what he wanted out of that love.  What plans did he have for her? 

She finally got out of her car and slowly tackled the stairs to her apartment.  The sight inside her living room sent her over the edge.  “Oh, God!  What now?!”

Tiki and Noah jumped up from the couch and rushed toward her.  “Where have you been?” Tiki asked hotly.  “We've been trying to call you all night.”

“I turned my phone off,” she answered and tossed her keys and purse across the room.  “What's going on?”

“As much as I'd love to hear about your night with Ian, it can wait.  It's your father,” Tiki added, her face softening.  “He's been shot.”

Ophelia's blood drained from her face.  She felt lightheaded and in the next second, Noah picked her up off the floor and carried her to the couch.  “Phe-phe, are you alright?  Tiki, get her some water.”

“No, no,” Ophleia waved them off as she fought a rise of nausea.  “I'm fine.  What happened to Daddy?”

“We don't really know.  When the hospital couldn't get a hold of you, they found my number in his cell phone,” Noah said.  “I came over here, thinking you might be downstairs with Tiki.”

“Okay,” she said, sitting up.  “Which hospital?”

“Baptist.  You don't look so good,” Tiki said.  “Are you sure you're up for this?”

Ophelia stood up stubbornly and stumbled.  “Let's go.”

They rushed to the door and as soon as she opened it, her gaze landed on Steve.  “Steve!”

Her ex-boyfriend smiled kindly.  “Good evening, Ophelia.  How are you?”

“What do you want?” she asked, in no mood for pleasantries.

Steve frowned slightly at her rudeness.  “Well...I was hoping we could talk.”  He added a pointed look at her company.  “Alone.”

Ophelia brushed past him, and Tiki and Noah followed with bemused smiles.  “I can't.  My father's been shot.  We're going to the hospital.”

Steve frowned even more.  “Oh, okay.  Then I'll just say it.  I was wrong to leave you.  I love you.  I want us to get back together.”

Ophelia whipped around and slapped him soundly across the cheek.  Tiki and Noah gasped.  “You're an asshole,” Ophelia screeched at him.  Her emotions were stretched thin, so she didn't bother making this nice for him.  “And you don't love me.  I happened to know personally what it's like to be loved by a beautiful, glorious man, and you can't do it.”

“You do?” Steve asked, gingerly rubbing his cheek.  Tiki and Noah grinned.  “You do?” they echoed Steve.

Ophelia stood tall.  “Yes, I do.  He’s wonderful and attentive and he sees me for me, and he a lot better looking, too!  Now go away, Steve.”  With that, she fled down the stairs with her friends right behind her.  Tiki whispered when they got in the car, “Oh, yes...I definitely want to hear about this...but later, okay?”

“I'll give you all the sordid details,” Ophelia promised as she whipped out of the parking lot.  At the hospital, the receptionist gave them directions to the recovery wing, where they had to check in and wait for a nurse or doctor to let them back into the ward.  Ophelia paced in front of a universal hospital waiting room while Tiki followed her with her eyes.

The double doors at the entrance to the ward swished open to let the cleaning staff through, and a barrage of angry shouting and loud voices caused Ophelia to stop.  “That was Daddy,” she whispered.  “Oh, God, what are they doing to him?”

An instant later, a very frazzled doctor shoved the doors open with both hands and a scowl on his face.  “Are you Ophelia Masters?” he barked at Ophelia.

She swallowed noisily.  “Y-yes.”

“Good,” the doctor said and turned back around.  “Come with me.”  Ophelia skipped to catch up with him, her heels skidding a little on linoleum floor.  They passed curtained-off recovery rooms, two nurses stations and a half-dozen closet-sized areas that hinted at storage or break rooms.  In the very back corner of the ward, her father, the impervious Bart Masters, was trying to rip out his I.V. needle and remove the heart monitor pads on his bare chest.  All the while a group of female nurses – some of them bigger than her father – and one male technician tried to hold him down and reason with him.

A white bandage covered his whole right side of his chest, glaringly apparent that he'd been badly hurt, and yet, he still attempted to escape the bed and his prison guards.  “Daddy!” Ophelia yelled over the cacophony around her.  “What are you doing?  Lie back down!”

Bart Masters stopped fighting long enough to look over at her and say, “Ophelia, you're here.  Thank God!  Now tell these people to let me go.”

She rushed to his side.  “Daddy, you were shot.  You can't go anywhere.”

He smiled drunkenly at her and she reared back, wondering just how much medication ran through his system at that moment.  “I got him, Phe-phe.  I got the bastard,” he said proudly.  “The police are holding him for me until I can get back and take him to New York.”

She shook her head.  “You are not going to New York tonight, Daddy.  You have to lie down and get well.”

He sat upright, pushing confining hands off his chest.  “You don't understand,” he pleaded, and that caught her attention.  “If I don't get stake my claim on this guy tonight, another wolf will come along and collect him and the bounty.”

The doctor cleared his throat and stuffed his hands inside his lab coat.  “Ms. Masters, please try to reason with your father.  If he leaves the hospital, he risks opening his wound again and obtaining an infection.  If you wish, we can sedate him.”  He said that last part as he looked over the top of his square-framed glasses at her. 

“Phe...” her father appealed to her.  “You know how much I need this bounty.”

Ophelia chewed on her lip as indecision warred in her mind.  She glanced at the doctor again.  He looked a lot like Steve, she mused.  The same smug look.  Then she looked at her father, and he looked nothing like the man from her childhood memories.  What changed?  Or who changed?  Her or him?

She leaned into her father's ear.  “Did you say anything about the cancer?”

Bart rolled his eyes.  “It's in my medical file.  I'm sure the whole hospital knows about the man in recovery that's dying from breast cancer.”

“You're not dying,” she asserted obstinately.

“I am dying,” he corrected, softening his voice.  “And I'll die a poor man, leaving your mother destitute if you don't tell them to let me go.”

“Daddy,” she said carefully, “you can't even drive.  You're doped up on God knows what.  Surely you can stay here one night.  The bad guy won't go anywhere until morning, right?”

He sighed and slumped back into the bed, looking very weak and so much more diminished than ever in her lifetime.  “I'm sorry,” he said in a harsh whisper.  “For putting you through all this.”

Ophelia grasped his hand and stared at it.  When was the last time she held her daddy's hand?  “How could you know you'd get shot?” she asked with a small laugh.  “I'd hate to see how the other guy looks.”

“Not a scratch on him,” he grunted.  “Damn bounty regulations.  But that wasn't what I meant.  I'm sorry for everything.  I know I wasn't the greatest of fathers...hell, I wasn't the greatest of men.  And you suffered because of it.  Your mother suffered, too.  I didn't want to hurt you or her, but I guess this lifestyle caught me up in a whirlwind at times.”  He coughed, making a grossly liquid sound gurgle up his throat.

“Don't talk,” she said, patting his hand.  “We can talk all about it tomorrow.”

“No,” he affirmed.  “I can't stay.  I have to do this, Phe.  I can't let this pay-out pass me by.  It's my apology of sorts.  It's all I'll be able to leave you and Ann.”

“Daddy,” she tried one more time, but everyone in the room – even the discontented doctor – knew she was only seconds from caving.  “Please...don't make me do this.  If you can't drive, how are ever supposed to contain this guy?  Didn't you say he was a drug runner or something?  Guys like that know how to get away.  And he shot you,” she added.  “So, he'll try to hurt you again and not think twice about it.  If you need the money this badly, I'm sure Noah can lend you some.”

“I don't want a loan, Phe,” he claimed in a tired tone.  “I want a legacy.”

She actually laughed at that.  “Daddy, trust me.  You are without a doubt, a legacy.”

He smiled back at her.  “My antics are legendary.”

“Then you'll stay?”

His smile vanished.  “No...I can't.”

She sighed and perched on the side of his bed.  “So, how – may I ask – are you going to get back to New York with a dangerous criminal when you can barely move?”

“A buddy of mine retired down here to be some kind of nature guide or some crap.  He's a hard-ass and has this old police cruiser with the caged partition, and he said he'd take us to Atlanta,” her father explained, excitement glowing in his eyes.  “There's a security company there that I can rent a transport van from.  I know what I'm doing here, Phe.  I've done this kind of job many times over.  The guy won't get close enough to me to spit in my face.”

Ophelia tried one more time.  “Daddy...”

He looked at her for a long time...and then let out a resigned breath.  Ophelia's chest stiffened with uncertainty.  Finally, she let out her own long breath and turned to the hospital staff.  “Let him go.  I'll take full responsibility.”

The doctor pursed his lips and walked out of the room.  The rest followed, and a few minutes later, someone came back with a release form.  Ten minutes after that, Ophelia escorted her hunched over, grunting-in-severe-pain father out of the recovery wing.

“Jesus!” Tiki exclaimed when she saw them.  Noah stood off to the side, talking on his phone.  He glanced over when Tiki cried out, and Ophelia heard him say, “Mira, I've gotta go.  I'll see you tomorrow.”

Mira?  Great.  As much as Ophelia welcomed Noah's new relationship with the feisty young girl, she feared that Ian's niece would spill the beans to him...and vice versa.  There were just too many incidences tonight that she wished to keep a secret...from everyone.

“Tiki, I need you to drive,” Ophelia said, and they all left the hospital together, piling into her car.  At the police station, her father winced and coughed and groaned as he attempted to get out of her little sedan all by himself.  The “hard-ass” stood over to the side of the entrance, grinning like an idiot.

“Got you good, didn't he?” the man called to Bart.  Ophelia's father grinned back and said, “I've been worse.”

Ophelia wanted to slap them both.  Her palm still tingled from the one she gave Steve.  If Ian had been standing there, she'd get them all on the same swipe.  Energy conservation at its finest.  Instead, she closed her eyes and forced her abusive thoughts away.  Hitting people never solved anything...but gracious, it'd feel really good right now.  As Ophelia slowly became bookworm, stoic Ophelia again, she faced her dad.

“Are you sure you're going to be alright?”

“Don't worry, baby girl,” her father smiled down at her tenderly.  This was definitely a night for firsts.  “Carl, here, will keep me safe.”

Hard-ass Carl tipped a finger to his forehead.  “Ma'am...I'll keep him out of trouble, I swear it.”

She turned to him.  “I hope you do...for your own sake.”  Carl chuckled, and the two men disappeared into the police station.  Ophelia stared after them until Tiki touched her arm.

“Phe?  Come on. Let's go home.  You look exhausted.”

“Okay,” she replied, not moving, but somehow she found herself curled up in her backseat, holding back the tears of another heart-wrenching event from tonight.  Tiki dropped Noah off at the bookstore, and then drove them home.  She tried to help Ophelia up to her apartment, but Ophelia waved her off without saying anything and trudged up those stairs again.

It must be getting close to midnight, she thought as the shadows formed around her.  Sylvia's lights were off, and she'd forgotten to turn on her exterior light next to the entry.  At the top of the stairs, the hours finally caught up with her.  Sobs racked her body, and she couldn't move another step.  Her vision blurred and her brain shut down.  Heartache, rampant emotions and physical exhaustion finally took its toll on her. 

Out of the shadows of the landing, Ian stepped forward, startling her half out of whatever wits she had left.  Ophelia didn’t think about why he was there, only glad that he was.  She collapsed into his arms, crying wordlessly and unable to move beyond the embrace of his solid hold on her.  Somehow, he managed to get her inside, undressed, and tucked into bed – asleep before her head touched the pillow.  At sporadic times in the middle of the night, she still felt him, curled around her body and shushing her back to sleep.  By morning, Ophelia thought it had all been a dream.  She woke alone, but his distinct aroma coated her pillow.