He had been about to tell her something. She could feel it in her bones. And whatever he had been working himself up to say would have tied everything together.
But now he was in surgery. And he might never get the chance.
When she spoke to the detectives, one had told her that if she hadn’t dropped to the ground when she did, the second bullet likely would’ve hit Calvin in the head instead of grazing her. Apparently, the angle of her body had intercepted the bullet’s trajectory. In other words, she had saved his life or delayed his death.
The detectives told her they were already pulling camera footage from businesses and traffic cams along the street inhopes of getting a shot of a figure on a rooftop, a muzzle flash in the distance, or a car speeding away. Basically, anything that could help them catch the person who had done this.
She closed her eyes for a moment and leaned her head back. She needed to call her aunt and uncle. They were down in Palm Springs visiting friends and enjoying themselves, totally unaware that Charley was currently sitting in a hospital wearing light blue scrubs that some sweet nurse had found for her because her shirt had been cut off and her pants had been ruined by blood. They were going to lose their ever-loving-mind when she called them.
Her mind drifted back to Calvin. She knew it probably sounded crazy, but she wasn’t going to leave this hospital until he got out of surgery. She had made him a promise, and promises mattered especially when they were made to a bleeding man who had looked at her like she might be his last safe choice in the world.
The nurse who had brought the envelope in to her had told her that things didn’t look good for him, that his condition was very critical. They had lost him twice in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
That alone had left a heavy knot sitting in the middle of her chest.
What if he died before he could explain any of this? What if he had spent all this time trying to reach her, trying to warn her, and now she was left holding scraps of paper instead of answers?
Emotion swelled in Charley’s chest, hot and unexpected. She suddenly felt like maybe she had reached the point where her mind simply couldn’t take on one more thing.
She slammed her eyes shut. She refused to cry. Not here, and not now. She didn’t deserve tears when the man who had been shot in front of her was upstairs, clinging to life. If she started crying, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.
She heard the door to her room open. She opened her eyes and lifted her head, expecting to see a nurse or maybe Seth. But instead, she locked gazes with those brown eyes she had been desperately waiting to see.
Pierce’s large body filled the doorway. His facial expression was a mix of worry and anger. His eyes found her instantly, and she saw the exact moment he took in the whole picture—the IV, the bandage on her arm, the scrubs, and her disheveled appearance sitting in the hospital bed.
“Charley…”
That one word alone caused something inside of her to crack.
Pierce crossed the room in three long strides and pulled her into his arms without another word.
Pain flared in her arm as she clung to him, but she didn’t care. Her fingers fisted the back of his shirt like she was afraid he’d disappear if she didn’t hold on tight.
The second she felt his warmth, his solidity, the last of the numbness shattered.
The tears she’d been ruthlessly holding at bay broke free. She didn’t just sniffle. No. She sobbed. Big, shuddering, broken sobs that she couldn’t control. Her entire body shook against him as everything that had happened in the last few hours crashed into her all at once.
???
Three hours later, Pierce sat in a hard plastic chair in the waiting room with Charley tucked close at his side and tried not to think about how easily the night could have ended very differently.
The emergency room had thinned somewhat since the earlier chaos, but not by much. The place still smelled like antisepticand stale coffee, with the occasional shrill chirp of a monitor or distant squeak of shoes on polished tile carrying down the hall.
Charley had been discharged a while ago. Right now, she sat beside him in the waiting room wearing those hospital-issued scrubs, one arm bandaged from the bicep down, her purse on the floor by her feet, and her shoulder pressed lightly to his.
Jessica sat across from them, quiet for once, her hands wrapped around a cup of vending machine coffee she had barely touched. Seth leaned against the far wall with Alyvia beside him, the two of them keeping their voices low whenever they spoke. Cole and Zane had shown up not long after Pierce did. Now they were posted near the windows like extra muscle no one had asked for, but everyone appreciated anyway.
Ray had stepped out a while ago to make some calls.
Pierce hadn’t asked for details. He trusted Ray to do what Ray always did.
He dragged a hand over his jaw and looked down at Charley.
She looked tired and worn down in a way that made something protective and furious tighten inside his chest all over again. Her hair was a little messy from where she’d clearly run her fingers through it too many times, and every now and then her expression went distant, like her mind was slipping back to the bus stop whether she wanted it to or not.
The image of her in that exam room rose up in his head again.
He had held her while she cried. Relief had come first, so strong it had nearly taken his legs out from under him. She was alive. She was breathing. She was right there in his arms. After that came the anger. Not at her, though. His anger was directed at the faceless bastard who’d fired into an open street in broad daylight.
