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And yeah…she would have loved Noah. He couldn’t imagine her not loving him when Rowe already loved him so much. Had always loved him.
Gretchen turned, her eyes still sparkling. Gripping the edge of Rowe’s coat, she pulled him down and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I will see you at Christmas. Get used to the idea now.”
She then walked over to Noah and took back her daughter. Once Melody was settled in her arms, she brushed a kiss across Noah’s cheek as well. “Take good care of him, or I’ll take my fork to your fucking balls.”
With a last wave good-bye, she walked to her car, murmuring softly to the little girl. Rowe watched her for a moment before turning back to look at the headstone. Noah stepped close, putting his hand on Rowe’s shoulder. Reaching up, he pulled Noah’s hand down across his chest so that he was now wrapped in Noah’s strong arms, his back pressed to Noah’s chest.
Noah dipped his face forward, nuzzling Rowe’s hair. “Would she have liked me?”
“Mel would have fucking loved you,” Rowe said without hesitation.
Several seconds passed in comfortable silence before Noah spoke again. “Your sister-in-law is strange.”
Laughter bubbled up in his throat until it finally broke free. With his head tilted back against Noah’s shoulder, he closed his eyes and let the joy fill him. In his mind, he could hear Mel laughing too. “You have no idea.” Rowe paused, looking down at Mel’s headstone one last time. “I miss you, baby.” He always would, but that was okay.
Stepping out of Noah’s arms, Rowe twined their fingers. “You’ll get to meet the whole family at Christmas. They’re all just like Gretchen.”
Noah just smiled at him, fingers tightening around Rowe’s. “Can’t wait.”
“Let’s go home.”MistletoeNoah bit his tongue, holding back the snide remark that rose up, while the doctor shined a light in his eyes for a third time and asked him a series of questions. Even blinded, he could feel Rowe across the sectioned-off area, glaring at him with his arms folded over his chest, still wrapped in his thick winter coat. The air was heavy in their little corner of the emergency room, and Noah knew his boyfriend was just waiting for the doctor to leave so he could explode.
Not that he could blame Rowe.
He’d not followed his training. Well, his training for Ward Security. And he’d gotten hurt. Not badly, but enough that he’d been required to make an appearance at the ER.
“Well, Mr. Keegan, it looks like you got lucky,” the doctor said, clicking off his little penlight. He stepped back and stuffed the light into the pocket of his white coat. “You might have a mild concussion, so I’m going to order up a scan to get your head checked. I also want to X-ray your wrist. It’s not broken, but you could have a hairline fracture in there that could only get worse for you if we don’t catch it.”
“But other than that, I’m just fine, right doc? Nothing serious?” Noah said, earning a snort from Rowe.
The doctor scratched the gray stubble along his jaw and glanced at Rowe out of the corner of his eye before looking at Noah again. “No, nothing serious. Let’s just get those tests run and then you can be on your way.”
“Any chance you can give my boyfriend here a sedative before you go?”
The doctor looked over at Rowe, who was still glaring at Noah, and stammered something about getting those orders in before he scurried past the dividing curtain and out of sight.
Noah smirked. Sometimes it was too easy. He looked at Rowe and his amusement faded away. He let out a long-suffering sigh. “All right. Just let it loose. You’re going to hurt yourself if you hold it in any longer.”
“What the fuck?” Rowe shouted. A few voices outside their curtain immediately stopped. Rowe walked to the foot of the bed where Noah sat. His hair was standing up, pointing in all directions as if he’d been pulling on it in frustration. Probably had been, considering that Rowe had beat him to the hospital and then been forced to sit in the waiting room while he was initially checked out.
“I know. I screwed up. I wasn’t supposed to chase the guy, but Royce said he had the client covered. I hated missing the opportunity to catch the douchebag.”
“We’re not cops. We’re not in the Army anymore. We protect the client. That’s all. We don’t pursue. We don’t catch the bad guy. We keep people safe.”
Noah lifted his right hand to shove his hair away from his eyes but stopped himself. His wrist did hurt like a motherfucker from where he’d tried to catch himself while diving out of the way of a car running him down. He’d landed hard and ended up slamming the back of his head against the concrete…hence the potential mild concussion.
