“You secure?”
“I think so.”
“Copy that. Help’s on the way.”
I scoop her up, carrying her out of the gully to open ground where the chopper can land. All the while I continue to pray with everything I have that she lives to see another day, because I’m positive I won’t be able to if she doesn’t.
Chapter Thirteen
Emerson
The constant beep is akin to a pickaxe to my brain with each excruciating blip. This has got to be the worst migraine I’ve ever had. What in the world is making that damn noise? I groan as I attempt to peel my eyes open.
Breathing through the pain, the sterile antiseptic scent of a hospital fills my nostrils, and I realize the noise must be from a heart monitor. All things I became intimately familiar with after my mom’s stroke.
My eyelids flutter as my eyes adjust to the light in the room. It’s been dimmed, but with this headache I’m super sensitive to it.
A toilet flushing draws my attention to the door across the room. Several seconds later, the door opens, and Clancy appears. The look of utter devastation on his face has me sucking in a breath and my chest clenching.
His eyes shoot to me at the sound. “Oh thank fuck. You’re awake.” He rushes to my side, taking my hand in his. “How’re you feeling?”
I close my eyes for a moment, taking stock. Except for the headache, I don’t detect pain anywhere else. My eyes meet his, staring at me intently. “Other than the killer headache, I don’t feel so bad. What happened?”
He sinks into the chair next to the bed, his head bowed. After several deep breaths, his gaze comes to mine. “Two men were shooting at us. Best as I can figure, you got hit with debris, or a ricocheting stray bullet from their horrible shooting. I took them both out, and then when I went to find you, you were out cold.” He closes his eyes as he shudders. His voice is so soft I can barely hear him when he says, “There was so much blood.”
The agony on his face as he remembers sends chills down my body. I hate that I’m the cause of his pain. He’s been through far too much of it as it is. Hopefully, this doesn’t cause him to lose it completely.
They open after a deep breath. “I called Gray for a medivac. It was the longest thirty minutes of my life. I’ve never felt so completely helpless. At least when my team got taken out, I was the unconscious one. This time was unbearable.” He shakes his head. “When we got to the hospital, all they could find wrong with you was the gash on your temple. Head wounds are notorious for the amount of blood loss they cause. You must’ve got hit just right, and it knocked you out.”
My hand tentatively brushes the bandage on my forehead. “How long was I unconscious?” I ask, hoping I haven’t been causing him so much worry for too long and that Terra and my sister aren’t rushing to see me.
This gets me a smile from him. “Thankfully, it’s only been just over two hours. Still too damn long, but the best-case scenario. I haven’t even called anyone besides Lone Star yet. We werewaiting a little while before we called in reinforcements. You’re lucky. I was about to break down and call Terra. I figured if anyone could wake someone up, it would be her.”
A chuckle falls from me, but it quickly turns to a groan, and I put a hand on my head. “Don’t make me laugh.”
He winces. “Sorry.” His thumb sweeps over the back of my left hand he hasn’t let go of since sitting down. “But seriously, please don’t ever do this to me again. It literally took several years off of my already truncated life, and for the first time in longer than I can remember I actually want those extra years.”
My brows pinch. “Why’s that, and why would it matter to you what happens to me? You made it pretty clear what we had was all we’d ever be.”
“Yeah, well, I thought I was protecting myself by keeping my distance from everyone. But as it turns out, you’ve already entrenched yourself deep inside me. You snuck right through my defenses before I even had a chance to stop you. This experience only goes to show how far gone I already am for you. It doesn’t matter when I lose you, it’s going to fucking hurt worse than anything I’ve ever been through, and that’s saying a lot. At this point, we might as well enjoy what time we have together because it’s going to be far shorter than I want it to be. Because even the rest of eternity with you wouldn’t be enough for me.”
The beeping from the heart monitor increases the more he speaks. My mouth hangs open as shock washes over me from his heartfelt words. I wonder if I’m hallucinating after the hit to the head.
His free hand rubs across his strong jaw. “I still think you deserve so much more than someone who’s as messed up as I am, and I still don’t know that I’m worthy of what’s happening between us, but like I said before, I’m a selfish bastard. There’s no way I’m going to be able to let you go. So I beg of you, pleaseput me out of my misery and tell me you’ve lost your mind and want me too.”
Tears prick my eyes. I have to blink rapidly to keep them at bay. If it weren’t for the pain in my head, I’d be positive I’m dreaming, but the steady pounding assures me I’m awake and this protective, wounded man has just flayed his chest open for me to see his heart is beating steady just for me.
Hearing him admit all this has me throwing caution to the wind. There are still so many obstacles in our way, but I can’t walk away knowing he’s willing to take a chance after everything he’s been through. Whatever we need to do to make this work, we will figure it out.
I give him a watery smile. “I don’t think I’ve lost my mind, but I have found my heart. After all these years, I was starting to think love wasn’t in the cards for me, but really I was just waiting to find you. This is not at all what I expected when I came down here for this job, but I couldn’t imagine it any other way now. I’ve been attracted to you from the very beginning, but after getting to know you and the lengths you’ll go to protect me, there’s no way I could walk away, especially when you ask me not to like that.”
His grin, which started to grow the second I started talking, is now so wide it’s splitting his handsome face in two. He lifts my hand, dipping his head to kiss my knuckles. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that.”
I cup his jaw, brushing my thumb along his whiskers. “I imagine about as happy as I am to hear what you said. Now are you going to kiss me?”
His brows pinch. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I smile. “Honey, a kiss from you could never hurt and will only ever have healing powers.”
