He squatted on the floor beside her. She struggled to lift her swimming head, battling the nausea that rose in her throat.
Jack put his hand on her chest. “Easy does it. Do you remember what happened?”
“Before or after I fell into the table?”
His lips twitched. “So, alertness, okay. How’s your breathing?”
“I didn’t have a panic attack.”
“I almost did.” He reached for his utility belt. “Took ten years off my life when I saw you on the floor.”
“Aw.” A bright light flashed briefly in her eyes. She moved her head restlessly. “Hey.”
“Sorry. Pupils okay. How do you feel?”
“Okay.” She tried again to sit up, and this time he helped her with an arm around her shoulders.
“Let’s get you to the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” she protested.
“You need to get checked out.”
She didn’t want to argue. Her thoughts buzzed, a cloud of gnats in an empty jar. She touched her fingers gingerly to her forehead. “Aidan?”
“With Jane. They’re both fine. Hank’s taking a statement.”
“He really was in the truck, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I’d hate to get pushed around for nothing.”
His lips brushed her hair. “Nobody pushes you around, sweetheart. Jane said you got to the alarm.”
“Thank you for coming.” She turned her face into his shirt. He smelled like clean cotton and warm male. He smelled like safety. She wanted to crawl inside him and wrap him around her like a blanket. “I knew you’d come.”
***
“SOMEBODY NEEDS TOstay with you tonight,” Jack said on the drive back from the hospital. “For observation.”
Lauren turned her head—carefully, because of the ice pack—to smile at him. “Are you volunteering?”
His jaw set so hard, he thought it would crack. “I’m insisting.”
“Protective custody?” she teased.
“Something like that.”
He couldn’t protect her all the time. He hadn’t protected her today. She’d saved herself and six-year-old Aidan. All he’d done was provide backup. In a week or two he would be too far away for even that much. A phone call, a text, an e-mail, all he could do.
But tonight he could be there for her, could keep watch for any lingering effects of concussion.
Or fear. She’d held it together when she had to, for as long as she had something to do. But trauma was tricky. He wouldn’t be surprised if the confrontation with Tillett triggered nightmares tonight.
It was probably a good thing that by the time Jack found Lauren, Tillett was already in cuffs. Because when he saw her lying bleeding on the floor, he’d wanted to kill the son of a bitch.
They’d shaved a tiny patch of her hair in the ER. Lauren, smiling, wincing, bloody, had joked that the two neat staples in her scalp were nothing compared to her other piercings.
