Cieron scrubbed both hands down his face. No new track marks along the insides of his arms. He was clean as far as she could tell, his eyes clear. “You kept our deal, Maeve. You found her.”
The hospital room door opened, putting Callen directly on its threshold. His shoulders broader on a deep breath as he studied her from head to toe and a burn that had nothing to do with the room’s temperature following his gaze’s path.
“That’s my cue.” Cieron extracted himself from the chair and headed for the door without so much as stopping to acknowledge his brother. “Don’t die, Maeve. You’re the only one in this family who doesn’t make me want to bang my head against the wall.”
Callen waited until the door had closed behind his brother before approaching the bed. “You’re awake.”
A flood of familiarity washed through her, deep and intoxicating. That voice had kept her sane more times than she wanted to admit, and hearing it now reminded her they’d survived whatever game the shooter had put into play. Maeve settled back against the pillows, her eyes heavier than they’d been a couple minutes ago. “Dying isn’t for the weak. Zero out of ten. Don’t recommend it.”
A smile cracked at one corner of Callen’s mouth as he took a seat, but it didn’t reach his eyes. The tightness around his mouth told her his concern had gotten the best of him. She wasn’tout of the woods yet. With a wound like hers, any number of things could go wrong, and with her luck, they just might. “You hungry?”
“I’m…” She didn’t know what she was. Hungry? Tired? Stressed? Relieved? All the above? The pain was still there, ebbing and thrashing in the background with each inhale, but it was manageable. “I don’t know.”
“The doctor said your appetite might take a couple of days to recover, and you won’t be able to eat as much as you did before.” The near-monotone way he recited those words hurt her heart. He was taking this personally, claiming responsibility for her ending up in this hospital.
And she couldn’t have that. Callen had suffered enough. First losing Lauren, then taking the sole weight of trying to be everything for everyone in his family. Not to mention almost drowning. “You mean I can’t eat an entire pizza by myself in the dark anymore? There go my plans for Friday night.”
The laugh that choked out of him filled the room and ticked the pulse on the monitor higher. Real. That one was real. She’d always loved the sound of his laugh, rumbling and smooth and deep. The perfect combination to light up any horrific day. Because as long as Callen could laugh, life couldn’t be bad. He took Cieron’s seat like he’d come onto a shift. “I’m sure whatever lucky guy you’ve got waiting for you in Vegas can help with that when you get back.”
Back.The case that’d brought her to Zion was over, if the shooter had told Callen the truth. Lauren was dead, her remains currently spread across a stainless steel examination table in the basement of a funeral home, but Iliana Meyer? She was still out there. She could still be alive, and while Maeve was sure Springdale PD was doing its job, she could help. No, she wasn’t going back. “There isn’t anyone waiting for me. There isn’t…anything left for me in Vegas.”
Surprise widened Callen’s eyes. “I find that hard to believe.”
She couldn’t contain the humorless laugh charging free from her chest. It tugged on the surgical dressing taped beneath the ugly gown she’d been shoved into and antagonized whatever closures—staples or sutures—below her sternum. “How can I possibly have anyone waiting for me, Callen, when all I’ve been able to think about over the past year is you?”
Chapter Nineteen
She hadn’t meant that.
Callen couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. His skin suddenly felt too hot. He fisted both hands against the chair’s arms, igniting a flare of pain in his lacerated wrists. If he’d been hooked up to the heart rate monitor currently pounding through his brain, she’d know. She’d know how much her words affected him, how much he wanted them to be true. Because he’d been lying to himself all this time. Since the day he’d found her engagement ring on the nightstand and her belongings moved out, something inside him had become unfixable. Like she’d broken off a piece of his soul and taken it with her to Vegas. His anger toward her—his blame—had distracted him enough for him to focus on the job in front of him and dig deeper into Lauren’s investigation, but he’d just been lying to himself. Hadn’t the past few days proved it? The cracks in the wall he’d built between him and the rest of the world—especially her—weren’t just slivers anymore. They’d grown.
Her staying in touch with his parents.
Her risking her career to privately work Lauren’s case.
Her pulling him from the truck.
Her taking the bullet meant for him.
Each crack had fissured into gaping holes now puncturing his defenses, and Maeve was at the center of it all. His ex-fiancée, a woman who should hate him with every fiber of her being, had sacrificed everything to put him and his family first. And he’d cut her out of his life as though she’d meant nothing.
He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as her. He’d done nothing but try to tear her apart piece by piece since he’d confronted her on that trail, and now she was telling him she hadn’t moved on with someone new since they’d broken up? That she still thought about him?
Clearing his throat, Callen leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees. Every muscle in his body ached from being inside that damn truck when it’d gone into the river, but he’d take the sensation over the numbness he’d allowed himself to slip into since coming to Zion. It was only in the past few days that he’d felt anything. Because of her. “You’ve been through a lot the past few days—”
“Don’t.” The sharpness in her voice silenced the part of him that wanted to deny her claim. “Don’t do that. Don’t twist my words until they fit whatever narrative you’ve told yourself since we broke up.”
His heart nearly jerked to a full stop. “I hurt you.”
“Yeah. You did. But it doesn’t change the fact I never stopped caring about you.” The color had come back into her face over the last four days, but it would take much longer for him to stop seeing the blood bubble out of that gunshot wound, to stop feeling it coat his hands. “How could I not, Callen? You were there after my dad died. You stayed with me at the police station so I didn’t have to be alone, and you…you found the man responsible. Lauren was my best friend, but you? You were the one who put me back together.”
Callen didn’t know what to say to that, what to think. Everything she’d just said settled like a rock in his stomach. He wanted to deny it all, tell her he was nothing compared to the courage and determination and protectiveness she’d displayed just since she’d come back into his life. “You weren’t broken.”
“Yes, I was. I just didn’t know it until I fell in love with you. You were there when the nightmares got to be too much. Youmade me feel wanted when you proposed and went out of your way to make sure I felt included in your family, made me feel like I was loved.” Her voice wavered, and suddenly Callen couldn’t help but feel too far away. That he should be touching her, telling her it was okay. That she didn’t owe him anything. “And you supported me when I applied to be a field agent and iced all my bruises and scrapes from training.”
His laugh surprised him. “There were a lot.”
“I remember.” Her answering smile hitched his next breath. She didn’t do that often enough, even before Lauren had gone missing, and Callen tucked this one away in his mind so he’d never forget it. “My point is, you gifted me with something far more valuable than an engagement ring or a place to live or nights I didn’t have to spend wrapped up in my own head alone. You were my light in a world of darkness. You showed me how to feel safe again. How could I ever expect to find that in someone else?”
