“Hey there, sweetheart! You’re awake!” A woman in blue scrubs with kittens all over them comes breezing over toward the bedside. “How are you feeling?” Her expression grows more worried the longer it takes me to respond.
“Throat dry,” I choke out.
“I’ll get water.” Zane turns to leave, and I want to beg him to stay. The moment he’s out of sight, my heart begins to pound again.
What if he doesn’t come back?
What if he does?
“Easy, sweetie. Zane’s not going anywhere.” She smiles softly. “Do you remember me?” She runs her hand over my forehead in a way that brings suppressed memories to the surface with the force of a tidal wave.
Her black hair is threaded with silver, but her soft brown eyes still hold the same kindness as the woman who spent far too many years helping me with broken bones or injuries that required more than a Band-Aid.
“I do. Hi, Nurse Rose.”
She smiles kindly, then finishes checking my vitals. “Hi, sweetie. Listen, we have you checked in under a different name, okay? Zane wasn’t too sure what was going on, so he convinced Leopold to?—”
“Leopold? As in Officer Alan Leopold?” No. This is bad. I try to sit up, but whatever pain medicine they gave me has my vision swimming.
“Honey, relax. You’re safe here.”
“No. I can’t—the cops. If they’re looking for me, they’ll find out?—”
“Who will find out?” Rose asks, her brow furrowing.
Zane breezes in, and I freeze in my bed. He sets a plastic cup on the bedside tray, then shoves both hands into his pockets.
“I’m going to go update your chart,” Rose says. She squeezes my arm gently. “You’re safe here, Tessa. You always have been.” With one final smile, she turns and leaves the room, cracking the door behind her.
“Are you feeling okay?” Zane asks.
“I need to leave.”
His jaw tightens. “You can’t go yet. You haven’t been released yet.”
Our gazes hold, his green eyes having been burned into my memory since the moment I first saw him. I know them better than I know my own. And as usual, his expression nearly strips away every wall I’ve built over the last eighteen years.
I never thought I’d see him again.
I never dared to even hope to see him again.
But here I am, sitting here in a hospital gown, mere feet away from the only man I’ve ever loved.
Chapter 3
Zane
Eighteen years.
It’s been eighteen years since I last laid eyes on Tessa Lane. She hasn’t changed much—her hair has a bit more copper threaded through the dark strands, and there’s a scar on her temple that wasn’t there before. But her eyes—those gorgeous, coffee-colored eyes—are still the same.
Haunted.
Full of fire.
I’ve dreamt of this day. Of seeing her again.
Because, for the last eighteen years, I’ve thought she was dead. The fact that she’s not is barely comprehensible. As much as I want to celebrate the fact that the woman I’ve loved since we were kids is standing here with a pulse, now there’s another question that needs to be answered: Where has she been?
