“My thigh, and while I don’t think it’s that bad, I’m not feeling really well at the moment.” Her head was spinning and everything seemed to be dimming around her. “I hit my head again.”
“Bloody hell,” he muttered.
She looked at the man who had saved her so many times in the last few days, and really…saved her from a lonely life. She cupped his face with one hand and looked into his beautiful blue gaze. The world was dimming around her, but she had to let him know. She had to tell him what was in her heart.
“Hey, Ian.”
“Yeah?” He sounded distracted, but that was probably because he was setting her down on the sofa and looking at her wound.
Another lick of her lips as she tried her best to keep the darkness from taking over.
“I just thought you should know I love you.”
His head shot up and his stunned gaze locked in on her.
“Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to…you know. Just thought you should know.”
Then his face started to dim…no, that was the entire room. It was as if someone was turning out the lights and leaving her in the dark. She opened her mouth to stay something, anything to avoid that pit of darkness. Instead, she blinked once…twice…then her entire world turned to black.
Twenty
Ian paced the waiting area they had set up for TFH at Tripler Army Medical Center. They had moved them out of the hallway because the staff had said they were disrupting things. He wasn’t sure what that meant, because none of them had been disruptive, but they did have a lot of people who seemed to want to check on them.
Of course, there were a lot of people there. Dillon had shown up in full force, including the bosses, Luc and Conner. Junie had shown up a few minutes earlier with refreshments for everyone. TFH was also there. Team Bravo was there—including Maya, who had been given a bone by Junie. How she knew to do that, he would never know, but she always seemed to know what everyone needed. Even Del Delano and Adam Lee had shown up, along with Jin Lee, Adam’s wife. She was one of Lila’s friends.
“Pacing isn’t going to help,” Autumn muttered.
He glanced at his sister but kept pacing. If not, he would start demanding to see Lila again. Autumn had been out of sorts since she’d found out that Lila had been shot. And, granted, it wasn’t all that bad, but the staff was worried about the situation. She’d had a stab wound, a concussion, and she had been drugged in the last few days. Now a shot to the leg and another fucking concussion.
“Let him go,” Seth said. “They’ll kick him out if he starts bugging them again.”
Ian gave his brother-in-law a grateful look as he turned and made his way back down the hallway. They had sectioned them off at the very end of a hallway, a little apart from ICU.
He made another turn and started to stride down that hallway when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned, expecting to see a staff member. Instead, a diminutive elderly woman stood there, a cane in her hand, her gaze looking over the gathering.
“Bloody hell,” his father said rising from his seat. He glanced at his father and saw that he had gone completely white. “Judith?”
As she drew closer, something nudged at his memory. He had met this woman a long time ago, and even if he hadn’t, he would have known who she was to Lila. They had the same eyes.
“Samuel. I need an update.”
He glanced at his father, wondering if he had known about this. The stunned expression told Ian that he had not known.
Ian turned back to Judith Eddington. “Everyone thinks you’re dead.”
“The reports of my death have been somewhat exaggerated.”
She was cracking jokes? Well, at least he knew where Lila got that little idiosyncrasy. “She’s fine. They have her in ICU and we’re waiting to be sent back.”
She studied him for a long time. “You let her get shot.”
“She was shot because she was trying to protect my pregnant sister.”
Judith straightened her spine. “Of course she did. She’s an Eddington.” The quiet arrogance had him grinding his teeth.
“Well, that shite is going to stop right now.”
The woman’s eyes widened, and something that he could not discern in the moment moved over her expression. Before he could figure it out, they were interrupted.
