Joe had no idea what to make of it.

“Nothing like your night, though,” she said, putting her head on his arm.

He’d told her what had happened when they talked on the phone as he drove to Billings. Her immediate concern was for him and the bullet wound and for Olivia Brannan’s mental health. She was also worried that Joe might get investigated for running over Dallas.

He’d said, “I’d do it again.”

She’d sighed and said, “I’m sure you would, too.”

—

MARYBETH SLID OFF the bed when the door handle turned, but instead of the nurse they were expecting for Joe’s stitches, it was one of the neurosurgeons she knew from the fifth floor.

“There you are,” he said to Marybeth. He nodded a greeting to Joe and said, “We think she’s coming out of it. She’s not conscious yet, but there’s a marked increase in eye movement.”

Marybeth clutched Joe’s arm. “That’s a good sign,” she told him. “Come up as soon as you get that bandage put on.”

“To hell with that,” Joe said, sliding off the bed.

“Okay, I’ll dress it,” the neurosurgeon said. He taped a bandage on and they followed the surgeon down the hall and into the elevator. Joe felt Marybeth find his hand and squeeze it.

The doctor wouldn’t look at either of them in the elevator. Joe figured he was trying not to give anything away, not to signal whether he was optimistic or pessimistic.

Joe squeezed back.

—

SHERIDAN AND LUCY had just arrived when Joe and Marybeth entered April’s room. Both looked groggy from being awakened. Joe gave Sheridan a quick hug and kissed Lucy on the top of her head.

When he realized she was staring at him with a grimace, he said, “I had an accident.”

“He got shot,” Sheridan said. She’d obviously talked with her mother since Joe’s call.

“Are you all right?” Lucy asked him.

“Dandy.”

“Girls,” Marybeth said. There was both dread and excitement in the way she said the word, and they all turned toward April in her bed. The neurosurgeon stayed in the room with his arms crossed over his chest.

Joe didn’t know what to say or what to think. He wasn’t as versed as his wife in the Glasgow Coma Scale, only that Marybeth seemed pleased there was rapid eye movement.

He thought it seemed voyeuristic in a way to watch April’s eyes move underneath her closed lids. He couldn’t help but think of Daisy and Tube when they “chased rabbits” while sleeping. What was she seeing? What was she dreaming?

“April,” Sheridan said softly. “Wake up now. We’re all here.”

April’s expression froze. Joe felt his heart start to break.

Then she opened her eyes. They were glassy and unfocused, and they reminded Joe of the first look that newborn Sheridan had given him in the delivery room twenty-one years ago. She had looked in his direction, but he hadn’t been sure she was really seeing him.

“Mom, Dad,” April said. “How long have I been here?”

Her voice was weak, unpracticed. But lucid.

Lucy said, “Yes,” and grasped her sister’s hand.

“Eleven days,” Marybeth said through tears. “You’ve been here eleven days.”

“Jesus,” April said in a croak. “Where is ‘here’?”

“Billings,” Marybeth said through a crooked smile as she fought back tears. “You’re at the hospital in Billings. You’ve been in a coma so your brain could heal.”

“A coma?”

“Yes.”

“Like the movies,” April said.

Joe heard the doctor chuckle behind him.

“We’re so glad you’re okay, that you’re right here with us,” Marybeth said. “You’ve got some injuries, but you’re healing up. It was always the head injury we were worried about.”

“You’ve been here the whole time?” April said, as if she couldn’t comprehend it.

“Most of it. For moral support, if nothing else. Everyone was praying for you.”

“Well,” April said, “I guess it worked.”

“Do you remember what happened to you?” Marybeth asked.

The doctor stepped forward and placed a hand on Marybeth’s arm. He said, “You might want to give her a chance to get her bearings first.”

“No, I’m okay,” April said. “I remember.”

The doctor stepped back.

April paused for a minute and searched the ceiling. Then her face darkened and she said, “Dallas was driving. We were coming back from the Houston Rodeo and we fought the whole way because I found out the son of a bitch cheated on me. I wanted to come straight home and Dallas wanted to go to his house first. I told him to let me out of the truck then, and he backhanded me.”

Joe jerked back as if he’d been backhanded.

“I got mad and slapped him across the face and told him to stop the truck right there. I was so mad at him I couldn’t see straight. He’d hit me before and he swore it would never happen again, and I’d told him, ‘You’re goddamned right it won’t.’”

April’s filter for cursing hadn’t come out of the coma yet, Joe thought.

Before Marybeth could prompt her to go on, she did: “I got out and started walking. Dallas tried to coax me back into the truck, but I wasn’t having any of that—or him.”

She tried to swallow, and said, “Can I have a drink of water, please?”

Sheridan practically knocked Lucy over to find a water bottle, and she held it to her sister’s mouth while she drank.

“Thanks, Sherry,” April said. “It’s good to see you . . . and even Lucy.”

Lucy smiled through tears at that.

“April, what happened next?” Marybeth asked.

“I walked for a while, but it was getting cold,” she said. “I would have called you guys, but my phone was dead. Then this old crazy asshole pulled up and said he’d give me a ride.”

Joe and Marybeth exchanged looks.

“I wasn’t going to go with him,” April said. “He drove this big Humvee thing that had stickers all over it. I thought he was a creep, but he said he knew you guys really well and he could get me home in ten minutes. I know, Mom, I shouldn’t have gotten in.”

Marybeth could barely speak. She said, “No, you shouldn’t have.”

“I know. But I just wanted to get home, you know?”

“What did he do to you?”

“All I can remember is that when I shut the door, he started asking me what I thought about Obama and Bush and 9/11. I told him to shut up, and out of the blue he slugged me on the side of my head. I remember my head hitting the passenger-side window. And I guess he slugged me again after that. I don’t really remember what happened next. He hit me a lot harder than Dallas ever had.”

April indicated to Sheridan she needed another drink of water, and Sheridan gave it to her. When some spilled down the side of her mouth, Sheridan used the edge of the bedsheet to wipe it off.

April turned to Marybeth and said, “I can’t remember anything else. Did he rape me?”

“No. He beat you and dumped you on a county road. You weren’t found until the next day. You could have died of exposure out there.”

April looked to Joe. “Why did he do it?”

“We’ll never know,” he said. “He was crazy. His name was Tilden Cudmore and he hanged himself in his cell.”

Her eyes got wide, then narrowed. “I’m glad he’s dead,” she said.

Lucy looked up as if to say, She’s back, all right.

Joe said, “You’re sure about all of this? That it wasn’t Dallas who beat you and dumped you?”

“He punched me for sure,” she said. “And I slapped him a good one and told him to stop the truck. But he went home, I guess, so he could be with his wonderful mama.”

Everyone stood in stunned silence.

Finally, April reached out for Marybeth and they grasped hands.

April said, “I’m never running off with another dumb-ass cowboy for the rest of my life.”

To Lucy, she said, “And don’t you do it, either, girlie.”

Lucy seemed insulted and said, “I’d never do that.”

—

“I HATE TO BREAK THIS UP, I really do,” the doctor said, approaching the bed. “But we’ve got to run a whole bunch of tests right now to make sure everything really is as good as it seems to be.”