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“Three days,” both the doctor and Cole say.
I scowl. “That’s a long time.”
“It gave you time for your lung to heal,” the doctor explains. He lifts my other hand and checks the IV. When he’s satisfied, he gently sets it back down. “You’re a lucky girl, Ms. Adams.”
“How lucky?” I ask, swiveling my gaze between Cole and the doctor.
“You were dead.” Cole’s voice cracks on the last word.
Dead?I turn my attention to the doctor with wide eyes. “For how long?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He waves me off. “They got your heart beating again in the ambulance and made quick work of getting you here. What matters now is that you’re going to be fine.”
Satisfied with that answer, I give him a nod and squeeze Cole’s fingers for the support I know he needs.
The doctor excuses himself after checking my vitals, leaving Cole and me alone. He’s having a hard time looking at me, so I ask softly, “Who found me?”
I watch as he swallows with difficulty, still avoiding my gaze. “Me.”
Shit.I slowly exhale, knowing that had to be hell on him. By his pained expression, I know I’m right. “I’m sorry.”
His brows pinch together, but his eyes meet mine. “You’re not allowed to die.”
I chuckle a little and wince again as I do. “My therapist once said that everyone dies and we should just accept it. I’m starting to think he was an asshole.”
His expression becomes serious. “I mean it, Tegan. I love you, and if we’re going to make this work, you cannot die before me.”
My breathing stops for a second, and I study him as his words sink in.Wait . . .“You love me?”
I’ll give him credit, he doesn’t break eye contact. I know those words, those feelings, are foreign to him, so for him to be so sure, to say it the way he had, he means it. “I do.”
The smile that spreads across my lips grows into something so wide that my cracked lips ache. “What would you do if I said I love you too?”
“Die a happy man,” he grunts.
I bring our joined hands up to my mouth and press a kiss to his knuckles. “Let’s not talk about death anymore. But I mean it, though. I do love you.”
Satisfied with that answer, he sits on the side of my bed, mindful not to jostle me, and leans down. He’s careful when he kisses me on the lips, and against them, he whispers, “I’ve been dying to do that since the moment I found out you were alive.”
I chuckle underneath him. “What stopped you?”
He shrugs a little, but there’s a ghost of a grin on the corners of his lips. “The tubes, mostly. But Tori, secondly.”
I frown a little. “Where is she anyway?” It’s unlike her not to hover and fret.
“The shop. It opened the other day, but she said something about being here tonight.”
Nodding, I settle a little back into my pillow, and he presses a kiss to my eyebrow before leaning away to sit upright. “What now?” I ask, sore but content.
“What do you mean?”
“Where do I go from here?”
That brilliant grin of his appears, and it’s then I realizehow much I missed it. With the seriousness before my incident, it had been absent. “I have a few ideas, sweetheart.”
“Care to share?” I press with a raised eyebrow.
He shakes his head, and I know then that he’s up to something, but as always, he’s going to refuse to tell me until the time to do so arrives. That’s fine. I got my life back. This new life I didn’t think I’d ever have, having it almost stolen from me, and then reclaiming it? I feel lucky. I feel on top of the world. And I feel like I have the whole future ahead of me. It’s a future that I know, without a doubt, involves the man in front of me, and absolutelynothingcould make me happier.
