Hot Mess 5 (The Stormy Glenn ManLove Collection) Read online

“Then the judge can arrest me,” I snapped. “Turn this fucking car around now!”

  Clarke tightened his hand on the steering wheel and flipped a U-turn right there in the middle of the street. I held on to the dashboard as tires screeched all around us. Horns honked.

  “Use the siren.”

  Clarke shot me a look before hitting the siren. “Do you think something happened to Lany or the girls?”

  I held my cell phone up. “No reply from Lany. No answer on the penthouse phone. Ambulance.”

  I really didn’t need to say more. Clarke’s eyes rounded right before I felt a sudden acceleration and the car shot forward.

  We were back at the penthouse in under five minutes. When I saw the ambulance parked by the front door, I didn’t even wait for Clarke’s car to come to a complete stop before I jumped out and headed for the building.

  Gilbert barely had time to open the door before I was barreling through it. Jenson was standing by the elevator doors. He hit the button before I reached him, and held his hand on the doors when they slid open, keeping them open.

  I nodded to the guy as I raced onto the elevator and pushed in the key to get to the penthouse. Jenson pulled his arm free and the doors slid closed. A million agony-filled years passed before the elevator came to a stop on the top floor and the doors slid open.

  The scene that met me when I walked into the penthouse was relatively calm, which surprised me. Jenna stood by the doorway to the twin’s room. I could hear their chatter from inside and knew she was doing her best to keep them out of the way and occupied.

  Which also told me who was injured.

  Lany.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “Bathroom, sir.”

  Before I could reach the bedroom door, it opened and Marcus came out ahead of a gurney and two paramedics.

  “What happened?” I asked as I raced to my husband’s side. He was just lying there, not moving.

  “We think he slipped in the shower and hit his head,” Marcus said. “He was able to hit the panic button before he passed out.”

  Passed out?

  Fuck!

  I grabbed Lany’s hand. “Lany, caro. Can you hear me?” I did not like the pallor of his skin or the bruising around his closed eyes. The bloodied wrap around his head dropped my heart into my toes. “Why is he strapped down?”

  “Until we can get a CT scan,” the paramedic explained to me, “we don’t want him moving his head. He’s got quite the large bump on the back of his head. We need to make sure there is no brain damage.”

  I gulped. Hard. “Brain damage?”

  The paramedic nodded. “Sir, we need to go.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Sir—” the other paramedic started.

  I narrowed my eyes and tried not to growl at the nice paramedic. “He’s my husband, and if you think you’re taking him anywhere without me, you’re out of your mind.”

  The one I had been speaking to nodded again. “You’ll have to stay out of the way, sir.”

  “I will.” But I was going. I glanced at Marcus as the gurney started moving. “I want you to stay with the girls. Call Lancaster and let him know what’s going on. We’re going to—” I looked at the paramedic.

  “City General.”

  “We’re going to City General,” I said as I turned back to Marcus. “Have Lancaster meet us there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I was lucky the elevator was a large one or I was pretty sure the paramedics would have made me wait or take the stairs. The trip down went a lot faster than the trip up had gone. Jenson was waiting at the door for us.

  “Is Mr. Delvecchio going to be okay, sir?” Jenson asked.

  “We won’t know until they run some tests. It looks like he hit his head in the shower.”

  Jenson nodded. “As soon as I heard the panic button I called Marcus, sir, and then an ambulance.”

  I was in no way surprised he hadn’t waited to find out what happened before calling an ambulance. If the panic button had been hit, something had happened. Lany would never hit it unless there was an emergency.

  “Thank you, Jenson. You did the right thing.” I patted the guy in the shoulder as I passed him. “I expect Mrs. Harris will be showing up at some point to sit with the girls.”

  The woman hated hospitals and would only go into one if it was life or death. I prayed this wasn’t one of those times.

  “I’ll see that she is shown right up, sir.”

  “Thank you, Jenson.”

  Clarke was just coming in when we reached the main door. “How is he?”

  “We don’t know yet. We think he fell in the shower. He hit his head and he’s unconscious.” I was kicking myself now. I shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to get to court. I should have stayed until Lany was safely out of the shower.

  Man, if I could wrap him up in bubble wrap, I would be so happy.

  “Which hospital?” Clarke asked.

  “City General.”

  Clarke lifted an eyebrow. “Police escort?”

  I blinked at the man before nodding. “Yes.”

  That could only get us there faster.

  “You got it.” Clarke hurried off to get in his car, hitting the lights and siren again.

  As they loaded the gurney into the back of the ambulance, I pointed to Clarke’s car. “Follow that car. He’ll get you there faster.”

  The driver’s eyes were a little round as he nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said before hurrying to the driver’s side door.

  I climbed in after the other paramedic and closed the doors behind me before finding a seat, which I hoped kept me out of the way long enough for the man to work on Lany. I did scoot up enough that I could grab Lany’s hand in mine and brush the hair back from his face with the other one.

  “Apri gli occhi, caro.” God, I so needed him to open his eyes. “Per favore, tesoro.”

  “Is your husband on any medications?”

  I lifted my head, not happy with the interruption, but knowing the paramedic needed this information. “No, not currently.”

  “Any allergies?”

  “Just to driving.”

  “Sir?” The man sounded totally confused, but if he knew Lany, he wouldn’t be.

  His uncle had a standing order to arrest Lany if he was ever caught behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle. Lany was a menace behind the wheel. He’d been through twelve cars before I met him.

  I shook my head. “No, Lany isn’t allergic to anything.”

  The man frowned as he looked at his chart. “Lany?”

  “His name is Lancaster Delvecchio. He goes by Lany.”

  “Oh. Okay.” The man set the chart down and went back to checking Lany over. “Is he currently under the care of a doctor?”

  “No, but you might want to call in Dr. Seamore Jones. He’s worked on Lany before.”

  The man gave me a critical look. “Does Mr. Delvecchio have accidents like this often?”

  From the cautious look the paramedic was giving me, I could tell where this was going.

  “Lany is the most wonderful person ever put on this planet, but yes, he is accident prone.” And then some. If anyone needed a keeper, it was Lany. Luckily, I got to be that keeper. “We’ve been together four years and I know Skip Jones by first name.”

  “Skip…oh, you mean Dr. Jones.”

  “Yes. We have panic buttons all over our apartment. How do you think Lany alerted everyone he was hurt before he passed out? There’s practically one in every room just for situations like this. He also has a fulltime bodyguard to keep him from getting into trouble.”

  “Trouble, sir?” The paramedic looked down at my angel as if he couldn’t believe Lany could do more than buff his nails.

  Oh, if only he knew.

  “Do you remember that robbery last year at the Thai Rose, the one where a couple of guys got shot?” It had been all over the news. He had to have heard about it.

  “Yeah.”

&
nbsp; “Lany was one of the hostages.”

  The guy’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

  “That huge scandal that went down a couple of years ago with the dirty cops on the police force? Yeah, Lany was in the middle of that one, too.” I had been even more involved in that one. It had almost cost us both our lives.

  “Last year, we had a run-in with some crazy idiot out for revenge. We ended up tangling with the head of the Castellano crime family.” I didn’t bother elaborating and telling the guy we were now friends with Vinnie Castellano, and in had in fact adopted his twin girls. That bit of information was private. “A few years before that, Lany ran his car into a circus tent. An enraged elephant crushed his car with him in it. They had to—”

  “Use the jaws of life to cut him out.” The paramedics eyes were huge now. “They still talk about that incident at work. It’s like legendary.”

  “That’s my Lany, legendary.”

  Chapter Four

  Lany

  My head was going to explode. It was the only thing that explained the heavy throbbing. It was like a countdown or something to final detonation. I drew in a slow, unsteady breath, and the pain eased. I did it again and again, until I could open my eyes without the bomb in my head going off.

  Okay, where was I?

  I didn’t try to lift my head because every time I did, the throbbing grew worse. But my eyes were working perfectly. I could see pale blue walls, and an IV stand, with tubing leading to my arm.

  Not good.

  There was also a steady, but constant beep in the background.

  That was annoying.

  Okay, what was next?

  Time. What time was it? The clock on the wall read one o’clock. A glance toward the window told me that was one o’clock in the morning. Except for the city lights, it was pitch black outside. I didn’t even see the moon.

  So, okay, I was in a hospital obviously and it was nighttime.

  Next question…why was I in the hospital?

  I wiggled my toes. Those worked. I lifted one hand and then the other, wiggling my fingers. Those worked too. I could lift my legs so I wasn’t paralyzed, and there were no casts so nothing was broken. That left my head, and with the throbbing in my skull, I was going with head injury.

  I lifted my hand up to my head and felt around. I could feel a tender bump in the back of my head. Okay then. I had obviously hit my head in some manner. I felt I should be surprised by that, except that I wasn’t.

  I glanced toward the door when I heard it open. A woman with dark hair came in and went directly to the IV tube. She started to change out the bag of clear liquid when she glanced down at me.

  Her gasp made me wince.

  “Mr. Delvecchio, you’re awake.”

  “I—” Oh man, my throat was so dry. “Wa-water.”

  “Of course.” She grabbed a plastic glass off the stand next to the bed and held the bendy straw up to my lips.

  Oh my god! Had water ever tasted so good? I drank until the woman pulled the cup away. I whimpered because I wanted more.

  “I don’t want to give you too much until the doctor takes a look at you.”

  “Okay.”

  She was smiling so brightly, it made my eyes hurt. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay.”

  She hurried out of the room as if running a marathon. Seconds must have ticked by before the door opened again, but only a few. A dark-haired man in a long white coat came rushing in, the nurse mere steps behind him.

  “Hello, Mr. Delvecchio. I’m Dr. Cruz. How are you feeling?”

  “My head hurts.”

  “Yes, I imagine so. You had quite the bump on it when you came in.”

  “How—”

  “You fell in the bathroom and hit your head.”

  Oh, yeah, that would do it.

  “Let me just check you over, and then I can answer any questions you have.”

  Sounded reasonable.

  I winced and blinked rapidly when the doctor flashed a light in my eyes. He listened to my heart, checked my ears, looked down my throat, took my blood pressure, and checked my pulse. He also had me turn to my side so he could look at the bump at the back of his head. By the time he was all done, I felt as if I had been given a thorough checkup.

  “Well, you look pretty good for a man who hit his head. I’d still like to run an MRI on you just to be sure.”

  “Okay.”

  “The nurse has called your husband and he’s on his way here now. He knows more about what happened to you than I do. Are there any questions I can answer for you in the meantime?”

  I really only had one.

  “Who am I?”

  It had been more than a few hours. The sun had come up ages ago, and the city was coming to life outside my window. It was weird, like seeing it all for the first time, yet knowing I already knew it.

  I knew what the sun looked like. I just didn’t remember ever seeing it before. I knew what the city looked like and that traffic was bad between three and five o’clock. I knew that the best coffee places were down by the fresh market on Fifth Street. I don’t remember ever getting coffee there. I knew all of these things, but I didn’t know what to do with them.

  After my little question, the doctor had run a zillion tests, everything from an MRI to flash cards. I’d had so many vials of blood drawn, I was surprised I had any left.

  At one point a very large muscular man with dark mocha-colored skin had shown up. He said his name was Marcus and he was there to ensure I was safe.

  Made me wonder where he had been when I had hit my head.

  Some doctor named Skip Jones had dropped by and apologized for not being there when I was checked in. A physical therapist had come by after that to check my motor skills a couple of hours ago. I could do everything I had apparently been able to do before I hit my head.

  I just didn’t remember what those things were.

  Retrograde amnesia.

  Memory loss due to head trauma, or post-traumatic amnesia as they kept calling it. The doctor said I might get my memories back or I might not. And if I did, it wasn’t guaranteed that I would get them all back. Memory loss was such a tricky thing. No one was absolutely sure how it worked.

  I glanced away from the window when I heard the door open. People had been coming and going from my room all morning, and then about an hour ago, it all stopped. I was almost grateful. A little silence felt good after the whirl of activity that had occurred.

  “Junior,” said the pretty woman who stepped inside the room.

  “Lany,” I corrected her.

  I think I was right.

  “You were born Lancaster Harris III, named after your father, Lancaster Harris II, which is why we call you Junior,” she said. “And I am your mother, Cynthia Harris.”

  “Oh.”

  I had a mom.

  “Hello.” I made no move to go to her even when I saw the tears hanging on her long eyelashes. “I’m sorry.”

  I don’t think I liked seeing her cry.

  “There is nothing for you to be sorry for, Junior.” The woman came farther into the room, letting the door close behind. “I imagine you are pretty confused right about now.”

  I thought I should have been, except I wasn’t. I was still trying to process everything. Figure out what I knew versus what I didn’t know. None of this really felt real.

  “No.”

  One of her perfectly manicured eyebrows rose. “No?”

  I licked my lips as I tried to think how to put everything into words that didn’t make me sound insane. “Not yet.”

  “Not yet?”

  “I don’t think I’m to the confused point yet.”

  Cynthia nodded as if she understood. I seriously doubted that she did.

  I certainly didn’t.

  “Are there any questions I can answer for you?”

  “You’re my mom?”

  “I am.” When she smiled, it lit up her entire face. That’s what a mother’s smil
e should look like.

  “Are we close?”

  “We are very close, although I do tend to smother you on occasions. Your father and I can be a tad over-protective.”

  “Why?”

  “You were a very sickly child. The doctors never expected you to live through infancy.” Cynthia swallowed hard. “The day you graduated from college was one of the proudest days of my life.”

  “I graduated from college?”

  Cynthia smiled again. “You did.”

  “In what?”

  “Business administration.”

  Okay.

  “You’re the personal assistant to the police commissioner, your Uncle Jerry.”

  “My uncle is the police commissioner?”

  “He is.”

  Cool.

  “He’s currently on a leave of absence, but he should be back in a couple of weeks.”

  “Is he sick?”

  “No, son.” Cynthia glanced down at her clasped hands for a minute. “His wife, your Aunt Sally, was killed in a car accident not long ago. Jerry is taking some time off to deal with that.”

  My heart hurt for the man even if I didn’t remember him. No one should ever have to go through losing someone like that. “Would you tell him how sorry I am?”

  Cynthia smiled again, but it didn’t quite reach her tear-filled eyes. “You already did, Junior.”

  “Okay, good.”

  The silence that fell between us was heavy and uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say to her and I didn’t think she knew what to say to me. So, we both just kind of stood there.

  “Well,” Cynthia said after a minute or two had passed. “The doctor wants you to rest so I’m going to go.”

  “Okay.”

  What else was I supposed to say?

  “Junior, you—”

  “I’d really like to see you again if I can,” I said, not sure I wanted to hear what she had to say. There was too much pain in her voice, and I knew it had to do with me.

  “Of course.” Cynthia smiled tightly before heading toward the door.

  “Hey, Mom?”

  She turned.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  This time, her smile reached her eyes. “You’re welcome, Junior.”

  I sighed when the door closed behind her and went back to watching out the window. It felt weird to be in a room with someone I had known my entire life and not remember a thing about them. What was worse was that I could see her pain that I didn’t remember her and there was nothing I could do about it.