Tommy Gabrini 4: Dapper Tom Begin Again by Mallory Monroe

Author:Mallory Monroe [Monroe, Mallory]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Austin Brook Publishing
Published: 2014-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

Except for her heels, which sat beside her chair, she was fully dressed. Even nicely dressed in a bright-white Oscar de la Renta pantsuit with a tucked-in purple blouse. She sat in one of two chairs inside her hospital room. All she needed was the release papers and she was out of there.

She remained slouched in her chair, too drained to even put on her shoes. She looked around the now quiet room. Flowers everywhere. You’d think she was Miss Popularity by the number of flowers alone. But she knew better. They all sent flowers. Even her worse employees sent flowers. And some even dropped by. But none of them stayed.

She attempted to reach down and put on her shoes again, but again her energy just wasn’t there. So many days in these hospitals, from the one in Iraq, to the one on the U.S. Air Force base in Afghanistan, to the hospital here in Chicago, had slowed her considerably. She kept telling them that she had only bumps and bruises and all of their test-taking was unnecessary, but she was forced to endure it anyway. It was U.S. protocol for journalists who were under the auspices of the military when the accident occurred. And the prodding and poking and laying around and waiting for days on end, sapped her strength. And her joy. It had been a tough week.

Then knocks were heard on her hospital door. Assuming it was the nurse with her walking papers, she said come in as loud as she could, and dropped her shoe again. But when the door opened and the nurse didn’t immediately start running her mouth the way she usually did, Liz looked up. When she saw Tommy Gabrini standing there, she could hardly believe her eyes.

“Tommy?” she asked.

Tommy was so pleased by the sight of her that a big grin crossed his handsome face. He expected tubes and machines and all of the sights and sounds usually associated with hospital rooms housing the very ill. But she had no such apparatus around her. She was breathing on her own. She was, in fact, dressed and sitting in a chair. To his eternal relief, she looked fine. Even gorgeous as she sat there. He was truly happy, and made his way toward her. “Thought you’d get rid of me that easily?” he asked her.

Liz smiled too, and played along. “Darn,” she said. “I thought for sure I’d seen the last of you.”

But the closer he got to her, the less he smiled. She had been in a terrible attack in Iraq. From what Jerome had told him, a horrific attack that cost lives. She looked fine physically, but there was an emotional toll in her eyes, a terror still there, that tugged at his heart. “Are you alright?” he asked her.

“Oh sure,” Liz said, smiling that go-to smile of hers that never quite reached her eyes. “I’m just waiting for my get out of jail papers.”

But unlike her, Tommy was not willing to play along.

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