The Bad Daughter(50)

“Who are you?” Cassidy asked Blake.

“This is my fiancé, Blake.”

“Nice to meet you, Cassidy,” he said. “You’re looking amazingly well.”

“Isn’t she?” Kara enthused.

“They took out my IV this morning,” Cassidy said.

“I’m Kara,” the girl said to Blake.

Am I imagining things or did she just stick out her chest?

“And I’m Skylar.”

Skylar with the round little bottom sticking out from under her very short shorts.

“Nice to meet you, girls.”

“He’s really good-looking,” Cassidy whispered to Robin.

Robin saw Kenny Stapleton’s back stiffen as he looked over at Blake.

“The doctor says I might be able to leave the hospital in a few days.”

“That’s great, sweetheart.”

“Well, I guess we should be going,” Kara said, staring at Blake as she wrapped a strand of long brown hair around her finger and twirled it.

Way to go, Lolita.

“It was nice meeting you, girls,” Robin said.

“You, too,” Kara said to Blake, glancing only briefly at Robin.

“Hope we see you again,” Skylar echoed. “You—get better,” she said to Cassidy on her way out, an obvious afterthought.

“That was nice of them to stop by,” Robin said when they were gone.

“Yeah,” Cassidy agreed. “I was so surprised. I didn’t even think they knew who I was. When did you get here, Blake?”

“Drove in yesterday,” he said.

“Are you staying at the house?”

“I have been.”

“Then we’ll all be together,” Cassidy said.

So much for moving to a motel, Robin thought. Who’s going to be the lucky one to tell Melanie? “We have some news,” she said.

The girl looked warily from Robin to Blake and back. “Is it about Daddy?”

“The doctors think he might be regaining consciousness.”

“He’s awake?” Kenny asked.

Robin spun in his direction. She’d forgotten he was there. “No, he isn’t awake,” she said to Cassidy, whose eyes were bright and big as saucers. “But he’s making sounds, and the nurse said there were some indications…”

“That he’s coming around?” Cassidy said, completing the sentence.

“That he might.”

“So, he’s going to be all right?”

“You can’t get your hopes up.”

“But you just said…”

“I said that he might regain consciousness. ‘Might’ is a really big word.”

“But it’s a really good word,” Cassidy protested. “Can I see him?”

“We should check with the doctor.”

“The doctor said I could see him once my IV was out.”

“Well, then, I guess it’s all right. If you think you’re strong enough…”

Cassidy pushed her covers aside and swung her legs off the bed. Kenny was immediately at her side. “No, it’s okay,” Cassidy told him. “I can manage. You’ve been here all morning. You should go home. Blake can help me. Can’t you, Blake?”

“Absolutely.” Blake came forward to offer his arm.

Kenny stepped back as Cassidy took Blake’s hand, leaning against his side as his arm reached around her waist to support her.

“Maybe I should get a wheelchair,” Robin suggested.

“No,” Cassidy said. “The doctor said that I should try to get as much exercise as I can. You really think there’s a chance that Daddy’s going to be all right?”

“Please don’t get too excited,” Robin told her, putting her arm around Cassidy, her hand folding inside Blake’s as they led her from the room.

“See you later, Cassidy,” Kenny called after them.

Only Robin acknowledged him with a goodbye wave.





CHAPTER NINETEEN


“Wow. Look at you!” Melanie exclaimed as Robin and Blake escorted Cassidy into Greg Davis’s hospital room. “Should you be out of bed?”

“Is he awake?” Cassidy asked, ignoring the question as she moved closer to her stepfather.

“No. Nothing’s changed.”

“He’s so…still,” Cassidy said, her voice trembling as her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve never seen him so still.”

Robin felt her own eyes well up. “Still” was the last word she would ever have expected to hear to describe the man who, for as long as she could remember, always seemed to be moving. A local journalist had once described him as “someone who never walks when he can march, who never whispers when he can shout, whose effortless authority vibrates through even the simplest of gestures.” It occurred to Robin that up until the shooting, she’d never seen her father asleep, never so much as caught him napping.

“Can he hear us?” Cassidy asked.

“We don’t know,” Robin said.

“Is he in pain? Are you in pain, Daddy?”

“He’s not in pain,” Melanie told her. “How are you doing?”