Free Play to Win by Tiffany Snow Page A

before dialing again.
    “Hi, Mom. It’s me,” I said when she answered.
    “Goodness, Sage, what are you doing calling at this hour? Is everything all right? Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine,” I reassured her. “It…it’s Dad.” Best to make this quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “He’s been shot and they have him in surgery. They think he’ll be fine, but they won’t know more until later.”
    I could feel the shock in my mom’s silence and tears stung my eyes again. I blinked them back.
    “Thank God you’re okay,” she said at last. “What hospital?”
    I told her, then added, “Shultz is on his way to pick you up. He should be there soon.”
    “Good. Do you need anything?”
    Just my mom. But I didn’t say that. “No. I’m okay. I’ll see you when you get here.”
    I had to take a couple of minutes to regroup after that phone call before I made the next one.
    “Hi, Mrs. Anderson? This is Sage Reese—”
    “Parker’s secretary?” she interrupted.
    I bit back the automatic “Executive Administrative Assistant” that wanted to pop out. “Yes, ma’am.”
    “How can I help you?”
    As gently as I could, I explained that Parker had been wounded in a drive-by shooting downtown. “But he’s doing all right,” I hastened to tell her. “He’s stable and they’re keeping him comfortable. He should recover fully without any problems.”
    There was silence on the other end, long enough that I checked to make sure the call hadn’t dropped on my phone. Finally, she spoke.
    “I see. I will let his father know. Thank you for calling, Sage.”
    The line went dead.
    I stared at my phone, nonplussed. I knew Parker wasn’t particularly close to his parents—hence the fact that I, not them, was his in-case-of-emergency person—but he’d been shot , for crying out loud. Surely that merited a bit more concern than what his mother had just shown?
    I didn’t have time to dwell on it; I had more calls to make, but it bothered me. I couldn’t imagine having a child and then seeming to care so little about what happened to them. It wasn’t any of my business, of course, but I felt angry and slighted on Parker’s behalf.
    Next I phoned Parker’s office—my old one—leaving a voice mail for his new assistant and giving her detailed instructions on what had to be done for Parker since he would be out for several days. No doubt Rosemary would wonder how I knew all that, but I didn’t take time to explain, just leaving my cell number in case she had questions.
    I felt more in control when I got off the phone, having hit the big lines on the To Do list. I glanced at the clock, wondering how long my dad would be in surgery. I wanted to see Parker, but had one last call to make.
    “Ryker, it’s me. Sage.”
    “I’m surprised to hear from you,” he said. “You seemed pretty pissed earlier.”
    Gee, I wonder why? “I didn’t call to talk about that,” I said, biting back the retort hovering on the end of my tongue. “I called to tell you that there’s been a shooting. Parker was shot and so was my dad. We’re at Cook County.”
    “A shooting? What kind of shooting?”
    I told him about the car and the slow drive-by.
    “Were you hurt?”
    “No. Parker covered me, which is why he was the one hurt.” The lump in my throat grew at that, but I swallowed it down. No time to fall apart right now. I’d lose my shit later in the privacy of my apartment.
    “I thought you might want to know—”
    I stopped talking then because I could hear another voice on Ryker’s end. A woman’s. Natalie. He covered the mouthpiece and it muffled his words, but I imagined him relaying to her what I had told him.
    “We’ll be right down.” He hung up.
    We? Oh shit…
    They let me in to see Parker and I thought I’d been keeping it together pretty damn well…until I saw him.
    He was shirtless, with bandages stained slightly with blood that had seeped from the wound, machines quietly monitoring his vitals, an