Trouble in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #1)(78)

“Hank!” Maryse stared at him in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing?”

Her wayward husband grimaced and touched a growing red spot on his shirt, just below the chest. “I’m getting shot and beat to a pulp, that’s what.”

“Holy shit! We have to get you to the hospital.”

Before she could move, Hank grabbed her arm. “Are you stupid? Someone is shooting at you.”

Maryse’s jaw dropped, and she stared at her husband, then laughed. Hank calling her stupid was a real eye-opener.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mildred said. “I’ve already called 911.” She shot Hank a dirty look. “And the coroner, just in case I get lucky.” She motioned them to the office. “Get off my rug before you bleed on it,” she said, then stalked into her office and began yanking first-aid supplies out of a storage cabinet.

Maryse had to hand it to her—for someone who had professed the burning desire to saw Hank Henry’s balls off with a dull butter knife, Mildred showed a remarkable amount of restraint and concern. Grabbing a clean towel from the cabinet, she instructed Hank to lie on the couch. Kneeling beside him, she gently pulled his shirt away from his chest. Hank moaned in agony. Mildred placed the towel against his side to soak up the excess blood, then lifted it to assess the damage.

Maryse leaned over, almost afraid to look when Mildred sighed with obvious relief. “It’s only a surface wound,” Maryse said.

“Only?” Hank stared at them in disbelief. “Well, it hurts like death.”

Mildred folded the towel over to a clean side and pressed it back against the wound. “It’s going to hurt,” she said. “That’s a tender part of the body, and it bleeds a lot.”

“Try to calm down,” Maryse instructed. “Deep breaths. It will help slow the blood flow.”

Hank looked up at her, still not convinced he wasn’t going to die right there on the couch, but he nodded and took a couple of deep breaths. A minute later, the paramedics and the cops came storming into the hotel. The paramedics carted Hank off to the hospital, one officer riding along, and the rest of the Mudbug police department took a stance in Mildred’s office and began firing questions like a semi-automatic weapon.

When they were done, Maryse ran some water in the sink and placed the stained towel in there to soak. She didn’t know why. The towel was most certainly ruined, but the activity kept her from thinking about Hank and about how she felt finally coming face to face with him. She thought she’d hate him. She thought the sight of him would either disgust her to the point of illness or madden her to the point of homicide.

And then he’d gone and taken a bullet that was meant for her.

Shit.

Chapter Seventeen

It was almost two hours later before one of the cops could provide Maryse with an armed escort to the hospital. Mildred had voted against it, but Sabine, who had run into the hotel shortly after the police, understood why she needed to go. Or maybe not why, exactly, but just that it was something Maryse had to do. Besides, a bullet wound and restraint in a hospital bed might be the only way she could have a face to face with Hank Henry.

As Maryse walked down the hospital corridor toward Hank’s room, she wondered for the millionth time what she was going to say. She’d had two years to rehearse this moment, and now that it was here, she couldn’t think of a damn thing to say to the man who’d saved her life.

Her husband.

That last thought stopped her dead in her tracks. She leaned against the wall outside Hank’s door and caught her breath. What in the world could convey the range of emotions that Hank brought out in her? She didn’t think words existed to describe what she felt, even if she was certain of what that was.

She had just built the courage to enter the room when Helena stepped into the hall and put one finger to her lips. “Not now,” she whispered, and Maryse wondered what possibly could have made Helena Henry go quiet. She motioned to Maryse’s pocket where she kept her cell phone. “Does that thing have a recorder?”

Maryse pulled her cell phone from her pocket and nodded.

“Then turn it on. We might be able to use this.”

Maryse had no idea what Helena was up to, but she pressed a button and hoped it was the record. Otherwise, she’d just taken a picture of her own crotch. She leaned in closer to the door, and placed her phone as close as she could to the opening.

And that’s when she was able to make out Harold’s voice. A very unhappy Harold.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Harold raged. “You could have been killed and that damned land would have reverted back to that worthless piece of ass you married!”

Maryse clenched her jaw. Harold Henry had the nerve to call her worthless?

“Maryse is not worthless,” Hank said.

Maryse frowned. Now Hank was defending her? Things were definitely weird.

“Besides,” Hank continued, “that attorney said she drew up papers to transfer the land, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Harold said. “As long as she stays of that mindset for the next couple of days, there’s no problem at all. But it’s not like her death would exactly be a bad thing. At least then we’d know she couldn’t change her mind.”

“You’re the one who tried to kill her,” Hank accused.