Free Always With You: Part One by M. Leighton

and we’ll get him out to a room. I’ll call you with a CVICU number when we’re ready to transfer him.”
    A relief so profound it nearly buckles my knees washes through me.  I feel the choke of tears clogging my throat despite my earlier sixth sense that everything was going to turn out all right.
    “Thank you.  Thank you so much.”
    “My pleasure.  I’ll be back in touch shortly.”
    I thank her again and hang up, resisting the urge to go find her and hug her until she can’t breathe.  I hold onto the edge of the desk for a few seconds, taking deep, grateful breaths until my legs become solid again.
    “Everything okay?” Ginger asks from behind me.
    “Yes. Very much so.  He’s done.  He made it.  They’re sewing him up now.”
    “I knew it!” she exclaims smugly.  Ginger isn’t really the worrying type.
    Carefully, I make my way back to the couch and flop down beside her.  She slaps her palm down onto my thigh and wiggles my leg back and forth.
    “You know what you need to take the edge off?”
    Evidently, my wound-tight state hasn’t failed to garner her notice.
    “What?” I ask, aware of my silly smile and not caring in the least.
    “A spontaneous romp.”
    I laugh softly, shaking my head. “Is that all you think about?”
    Before she answers me, she closes one eye and looks up toward the ceiling for a few seconds.  She pretends to be deep in thought.  “Yeah.  Pretty much.”
    “I’m glad you didn’t bother trying to deny it.”
    “Eh, why waste a good lie?”  She turns to face me fully.  “But seriously, you can’t tell me that all this talk of sexy sex hasn’t helped take your mind off your troubles. Imagine what the real deal could do!”
    She’s nodding enthusiastically.
    “Sex doesn’t fix everything, Ginger.”
    “The hell you say!  I’d bet you fifty bucks that Mr. Cash Davenport could loosen you up in a hot minute.  I know what you two are like.   Rabbits! A couple of damn rabbits!  Is there a place you two haven’t done it?”
    Cash and I do have an amazing sex life.  We always have.  He makes me feel things no man has ever made me feel.  Part of it is my love for him, but part of it is just because he’s so dang good at what he does!  It’s like he knows my body better than I do and he plays every nerve to the bone, bringing me to peaks I never knew existed.
    “See?  I know that look. Liv, all you need is a good roll in the hay and you’ll be right as rain.  Find that handsome hubby and make a baby, dammit!”
    Although her approach is crass, as usual, I can’t help thinking she might be right. I’m so incredibly relieved that my father is okay, it suddenly seems that anything is possible. Even getting pregnant.  And I need to be close to Cash right now.  As close as I can possibly get.
    I’m aware that Ginger’s still talking, but her words fall into a fog in the back of my mind as my husband creeps to the forefront. I see his glistening black eyes, I hear his gravel-and-satin voice, and I’m carried away to a private place that only the two of us visit.  Within seconds, I’m consumed.  Thoughts of his body gliding into mine, thick and smooth, seem particularly poignant and it isn’t long before my cheeks feel as flushed as they might be if he were near.
    “You know what, Ginger?” I say, forcing myself back to reality.
    “What’s that, doll?”
    “I think you might be right.”
    Her smile is positively brilliant, like she’s brought me over to the dark side and is especially proud of herself.  “Atta girl!”
    I pick up my phone to send Cash a text. 
     
     
     

 
    CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
     
    Cash
     
    I don’t know how time got away from me like it did, but I’m driving like a maniac to get back to the hospital.  I feel like I let Olivia down by not being there when she got the first bit of good news.
    She texted me about an hour ago. She said that the surgery was successful, Darrin was off heart-lung bypass machine and that