Chapter Twenty-Three

There was no one on duty at the infirmary.

"How can no one be on duty at the infirmary?" an outraged Twyla demanded of any god who happened to be listening, but Fern at the weapons counter down the hall overheard her.

"Hiring freeze," she hollered.

"And Maguire can't get permission to fill the opening, and there aren't enough doctors on staff to cover all the hours, and we'll have to go to the hospital in Herington or wait until tomorrow morning. Yeah, yeah," Twyla finished for her.

Fern sucked her teeth so hard, Twyla could hear it from the infirmary door. "Then why are you asking me?"

"I'm fine," Frank told Twyla.

She went on tiptoe to examine the top of his head, where Hermia's pistol crossbow arrow had cut a shallow groove through his hair. "You're bleeding."

"I was bleeding. Now I'm not."

"Get in the infirmary, Ellis." She opened the door and gestured for him to go inside.

"Well now, I know I'm in trouble when you start throwing around the surname." He went into the infirmary and obediently sat on the exam table.

"We need to stop almost dying on each other," Twyla said as she plundered the cabinets for bandages and iodine. "Shirt off."

"Agreed, and why?"

She wet a clean towel at the sink. "Why do we need to stop almost dying on each other? Isn't that what they call a rhetorical question?"

"No, I mean, why do I need to take my shirt off?"

Twyla set the damp cloth beside him on the table and put her fists on her hips. "You're going to be shy about this now?"

He hesitated. Given the fact that they had made love the night before and argued this morning, she couldn't blame him. She wondered if this was how Frank had felt when their positions were reversed, when she was the one sitting on the exam table, feeling vulnerable, while he was the one who simply wanted to make sure she was all right.

She softened. "I watched that goon punch you in the stomach, and I don't know what they did to you before I got there."

He sighed his reluctance, but he took off his shirt. She made quick work of checking him for broken ribs and peering at the bruise on his stomach. There was nothing sexy about it, but there was intimacy in her touch. There was tenderness.

"They mostly got my face," Frank said, his voice hushed in the already quiet room.

"They're lucky I didn't get their faces."

That earned Twyla a gruff laugh. She motioned for him to put his shirt on, and she set about washing away the blood and dirt from his face and hands.

"At least this comes off more easily than dragon spit."

"I guess, but I prefer dragon spit over getting the shit kicked out of me."

"That makes two of us."

Twyla tossed the towel into the laundry hamper and fetched an ice pack from the icebox. She gently pressed the cold compress to the left side of his face. "Hold this so I can have a look at the cut on your head."

"What do you think? Does it add to my air of mystery and danger?" he asked while Twyla doused a cotton swab in iodine.

"Definitely, although you might want to part your hair on the other side of your head for a few weeks. Hold still."

She dabbed at the cut with the swab, making Frank hiss.

"Sorry," said Twyla.

"No worries."

She worked carefully, doing her best to clean the wound without causing Frank any more pain than was necessary. It brought her comfort to take care of him, especially since she had felt so powerless to do much of anything when she'd seen him bound up and beaten in that shepherd's hut. Now that he was safe, the two of them could figure out what being Twyla and Frank should look like moving forward. Because they were still Twyla and Frank, Frank and Twyla, two people who were meant to be together, one way or another. If she could ride a dragon, she could work things out with her best friend.

Whom she was also in love with.

And who might be in love with her.

She was tossing the swab into the garbage can when Frank started laughing, and he laughed harder when she gave him a quizzical look.

"What?"

"I can't believe you flew to the rescue on a dragon," he wheezed. "Twyla Banneker: the God of Justice."

"More like Twyla Banneker: the Human Trying Not to Lose the Doughnut and Chocolate Malt Balls She Had for Breakfast."

"Gods, you're a gem." He wiped away tears of hilarity with the back of his hand and gazed at her with shining eyes. "Thank you for saving me, darlin'."

"Of course. That's what we do for each other." She put a sterile pad on the cut and wound gauze around his head to hold it in place. "You might need a few stitches up here. Come on. I'll take you to the hospital."

Frank grunted.

"You're retired. What else do you have going on?"

"About that…" He set aside the ice pack and took her hand, the one that wasn't holding a roll of gauze.

Twyla blushed. "It's all right."

"It isn't all right. I should have told you about the retirement thing. I shouldn't have put in for retirement in the first place."

"Why did you?"

"Because…" He licked his lips, wincing as his tongue swiped the cut on the left side of his mouth. "I need to get something off my chest, and I'd appreciate it if you let me get through it before you say anything, okay?"

"Okay." She squeezed his hand to let him know she wasn't going anywhere.

"Here's the thing: I love you. I mean, I'm in love with you, not just in the friend way, but in the gooey, romantic, soulmate way. Fuck, I said that out loud."

He let go of her to grip the edge of the exam table, while Twyla's heart ballooned in her rib cage.

"Frank, I—"

He held up a hand. "I'm not done yet."

"But—"

"Twy."

She clamped her lips shut, even though she badly wanted to tell him how she felt.

His shoulders relaxed, as if a heavy weight had been taken off them. "I love you. I love you, body and soul. I've loved you for years, but I knew—or I thought I knew—that I couldn't compete with a man who died thirteen years ago. And you know what? I was fine with it. I had already messed up my own marriage; I wasn't going to risk what we had—what we have—for the slim possibility of something more. Because what we have is good, better than good. I kept my mouth shut, because I had you in my life, and I had you in my future, and that was enough for me. But then you started dating that continental toff in short-shorts and knee socks, and I realized, oh, wait, it isn't that you don't want anyone; it's that you don't want me."

"Frank—"

"Let me finish. Please."

Twyla's entire body protested, but she kept her mouth shut.

"The night of the wedding when we… You said it was a mistake. And if that's what you thought, then that's what it was, no matter how much I wanted it to be otherwise. Well, I can't stick around to be your mistake, Twyla. Maybe this Quill fella isn't the one for you, but eventually, a good man will come along who is, and I can't watch you falling for someone else. So I went to Maguire that night and told her I was done with the marshals, which I should not have done, not under those circumstances. And I should have told you that I put in for retirement immediately thereafter. I owed you that much. So, yeah. I'm sorry."

"Apology unnecessary but accepted. Can I talk now?"

"Hold on."

Twyla clawed the air with frustration.

"Please?"

If the man ever let her speak, she might end up screaming instead of saying I love you. She nodded and gestured for him to continue.

"This morning, I got up before you, because I knew that you'd be upset to wake up in my arms, and I couldn't stand the sight of your regret. But I need you to know that as far as I'm concerned, making love to you could never be a mistake. I'm not sorry, and I don't regret it."

Twyla slapped her hands together, as if in prayer. "Can I please, for the love of the Mother of Sorrows, say something?"

"Yes. No. Wait, can I say one more thing?"

"Ugh!"

"You've never been a chair to me, and you never will be."

All of Twyla's impatience melted away, and she clutched the roll of gauze affectionately. "That's the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me."

"Well now, that's a sad statement."

"Can I talk now?"

Frank blew out a long breath and nodded.

Twyla kissed him, a soft, sweet kiss on the unhurt corner of his mouth, followed by another and another. His hands came up to hold her face, and she loved that he touched her face when he kissed her. He flinched in pain when she accidentally hit a sore spot, despite her best efforts. She pulled away and stroked his cheek.

"If that's your idea of talking, you can talk to me anytime it strikes your fancy," said Frank.

"Here's my idea of talking." Twyla pressed her hand over his heart. "You are not my mistake. You're the best friend I've ever had or will ever have, and I love you, not just in the friend way, but in the gooey, romantic, soulmate way. I'm sorry it took me so long to figure out what I wanted. It turns out that what I've wanted all along is you."

"Apology unnecessary but accepted." He put his hand over hers and leaned in until their foreheads touched, and Twyla let herself bask in the wonderful newness of what they had become together and what they would be for years to come, if Grandfather Bones and the Warden and the Salt Sea saw fit to leave them on earth for a while longer.

"I've got an idea," said Frank. He slid off the exam table and patted the surface. "You sit here."

"Why?"

"Trust me."

Twyla trusted him, so she sat on the exam table… and watched in dismay as he got down on one knee with a middle-aged grunt.

"What are you doing?"

"Twyla Banneker," he began, taking her hands in his.

"Get up!"

"Will you promise to never marry me?"

It took a couple of seconds for the words to sink in, but when they did, Twyla snorted with amusement, the least romantic sound she had ever made in her life.

Frank continued his proposal with an ornery grin on his face, made more wolfish by his purpling eye and swollen lips. "Will you live next door to me and spend time with me when you feel like it and go home when you need to have your own space? Will you let me love you however you see fit for the rest of our lives?"

"Just when I thought I could not possibly love you more." Twyla's smile threatened to split her face in two. "Yes, Frank Ellis, I promise to never marry you."

He got to his feet with an "Oof" and kissed her, far less gently than she had kissed him.

"Doesn't that hurt?" she asked against his lips.

"I'd say the benefits outweigh the disadvantages here, darlin'."

"I love it when you call me darlin'."

"That's good, because you're going to hear it for as long as I have breath in my body."

She pressed her ear to his chest. "Say it again."

"Darlin'," he drawled, drawing out the word long and low for her so that she could hear it deep inside his chest, right where he kept his heart.