She smoothed the baby hairs along my hairline. “I have a story. So, after my first firefight when I was initially deployed as a Marine, I yacked up every bit of dinner and cried silently into my pillow. First time I’d ever really been shot at, and I was so damn scared. I…”
A knock interrupted Brynn’s attempt to make me feel better.
Another visitor. Yay.
Then I glanced over and saw who was in the doorway, and the shock hit me full force.
Oh my God.What?
Dean. Dean Reynolds was standing in my doorway.
“Keira,” Dean murmured, taking a step into the room. “Hey.”
His hair was longer, pulled back with light-brown strandsslipping out around his face. He looked tired, but that didn’t take away from his handsomeness. The sharp line of his jaw or the soft plumpness of his lower lip that I used to imagine kissing. His usual smile was missing, but the rest of him was so familiar. A vision straight out of my memories.
“How are you here?” I croaked.
Brynn glanced sharply at me, then at Dean as he walked toward my bed. He held a vase of flowers. Gardenias, my favorite. “I came as soon as I could. Sorry it took me so long.”
For a moment, I wasn’t in the hospital, immobilized and in pain. I was on that dance floor again. My chest caving in from a different kind of pain.
Two years. Two years, and he’d just walked in like it was normal. Like it was nothing. Like he was still my friend.
“Brought these for you,” he said, holding up the vase.
I didn’t take the flowers. I mean, I couldn’t lift them.Hello. There wasn’t any spare real estate on the table either. Dean set them on the floor, then clasped his hands in front of him, fidgeting slightly. Maybe waiting for me to say something.
But I couldn’t even get my head around the fact that he was here.Here, at Hart County General. Where I was lying in a smelly hospital gown. My hair was a horror show, and I had no makeup on.
Wasn’t this just flippinggreat?
Two years, and he showed up now?
“There were delays from a storm on the east coast, and sometimes I forget how far Hartley is from, well, everywhere.” Dean’s dimple flashed, and it was a punch to my sternum. “How are you?” he asked.
Brynn crossed her arms over her pristine white shirt. “Dean, maybe this isn’t the best time.”
I finally found my voice again.
“You seriously think you can just show up here like two years haven’t passed? What thefuck?”
Dean froze, while Brynn’s mouth twitched with a smile.
Yeah, I was pretty surprised at myself too.
“I know it’s been a while,” Dean said smoothly. He stuck his hands in his jeans pockets, the only hint that this was uncomfortable for him. “I texted that I was on my way, but I had no idea if you’d be able to get the messages. Keira…”
I pulled my blanket higher. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“What else could I have done after I heard from Owen? What they did to you, how you were hurt, I…” Dean pulled his hand from his pocket and flexed his fingers. His knuckles were bandaged. My first instinct was to ask how he’d gotten hurt. Tocareabout him, as if we meant something to each other.
“I had to be here for you,” he finished.
“You don’t care about me.”
“Of course I do.”
Fury lit me up with a terrible fire. Like it might burn me alive and leave nothing but smoldering ashes.
