Page 112 of Lucky Shot

“Call me if you need me,” she says backing away, smile bright and mischief more than apparent in her eyes.

What the hell is happening right now?

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Hardy

I expect her anger when it comes.

Even as she’s wincing in pain from the jolts in the road—and it feels like I hit every goddamn bump—I anticipate it.

I’m not sure why I know it will be there, but I am.

“I didn’t need you to pay my hospital bill for me,” she says quietly.

Hmm. Assumed I had a bit more time before she figured that out.

“Who said I did?” I lie.

“I’m not a charity case like the newspapers painted me out to be. I don’t want your pity.”

But I saw where you live. I know that only Suri and Martin visited you. I know how hard you work and how little you take for yourself.

Sue me for wanting to take care of it for her.

“No one said you were,” I respond. “And I sure as shit didn’t offer any.”

“And yet you felt the need to overstep your authority and pay when—”

“You’re alive, aren’t you? Would you have rather I didn’t worry when you didn’t show up for work and left you in your place dying from a ruptured appendix because you were too goddamn stubborn to tell me how much pain you were in that night? Or to call 9-1-1 yourself because you were afraid of the cost?”

I don’t know where my own anger comes from, but it’s there and it’s real and I just keep picturing her delirious on her floor. What would have happened had I not come along?

“I’m a lot of things, Whitney—a lot—but when it comes down to it, I’m a good guy. I know you’ve been through a hell of a lot but so have I. You scared the bloody hell out of me, and the reason you know that is because I haven’t stepped foot inside a hospital since my father died. But I did this week. I did for you.”

I pound a fist on the steering wheel, hating that my voice just broke. Fucking hell. What is it with this woman and the emotion she evokes in me?

We drive for a few miles, silence eating up the space in my car.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

“I don’t want your thanks. I just . . . it’s going to take a long damn time to erase the visual of how I found you. If ever.” I grip the steering wheel with both hands and fight the urge to yank the wheel over to the curb so I can haul her against me and feel with my own hands that she’s okay. I don’t, but I fucking want to. “I care, dammit. I care about you whether you like it or not, so stop apologizing and thinking you aren’t worth it or deserve it or whatever the hell is going through your head because you do. You just fucking do.”

She glances my way and holds my gaze for a split second before I look back to the road. But the look in her eyes and the slight nod tells me she gets it. She understands me.

It’s either that or she’s high on pain meds and won’t remember shit about this conversation.

Maybe that would be better. Who the fuck knows?

We drive a bit more, but I can’t hold back the question I’ve had circling in my head for a few days. It’s inappropriate, it’s uncalled for, but I ask it anyway. “How much money do you take in salary, Whitney?”

“None of your business.”

“How much?” I demand.

“Enough to get by,” she says, barely audible.

“So you pour your heart and soul into the academy and you take nothing in return? Is that right?”