“Take this,” he instructed, thrusting some sort of medicine in front of me.
I swallowed the bitter liquid with a wince and collapsed back onto the pillow. “What time is it?’ I muttered.
“Ten,” he replied.
“At night?” I asked in confusion. “Have I only been here a few hours?” My brain struggled to compute.
“No, baby, you’ve been here over a day. You checked in yesterday.”
“Oh my god,” I groaned. “Everyone must be so worried.”
He stroked a hand over my head. “I already called Gunner to report in. He knows I’ve got you and will let everyone know.”
I nodded wearily, exhaustion taking over once again.
“Rest, baby. I’ll wake you in a few hours to take more meds.”
“’Kay,” I muttered. “So glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” I heard him reply before I drifted back to sleep.
Despite my delirium, I was aware when Ruston woke me during the night to give me more medicine and to take my temperature.
When I woke on my own that morning, I opened my eyes, relieved to discover they no longer burned. My fever must have broken at some point.
My gaze drifted, finding Ruston leaned forward in the chair in the corner, hands clasped over his knees, his eyes on me.
“Hey,” I rasped.
For a moment he just stared at me, and when he finally spoke, his voice was like sandpaper. “Scared the shit out of me, Grace. Was this close to taking you to the ER if your fever hadn’t broken when it did.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized as he stood, striding across the room to help me sit up. “I started feeling crappy, and by the time I checked in here, I guess I went downhill pretty fast. I thought I could just sleep it off and keep driving the next day. Obviously, that didn’t happen,” I explained, shivering slightly. I was still naked from the night before. “How did you find me?” I asked, thinking of it for the first time.
“When I couldn’t reach you, I called Gunner. Emmie told me what you had planned and that you should have arrived already. I got Cason on it—he tracked your credit cards and found you’d checked in here. I was already headed this direction, figuring this was the route you’d take,” he explained as he shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around me, moving his big hands up and down my arms in a bid to warm me up. “Baby, I get what you were trying to do, but never again,” he ordered sternly.
“It was supposed to be my grand gesture!” I protested feebly.
He cupped the side of my face. “Save grand gestures for the bedroom, baby. Otherwise, I need to know where you are. And Grace, serious as shit, I would have never agreed to this fucking plan—you driving across the country by yourself in that death trap of a car.”
“It’s not a death trap,” I snapped.
He snorted. “That thing made it over the Rockies, I’d be fucking shocked. And there’s rarely cellphone reception—you would have been stuck. Christ,” he swore, clearly stressed by the very thought.
“I didn’t know that,” I admitted. “And,” I sighed, burrowing back down into the covers, relishing the warmth of his jacket and having his smell wrapped around me, “the road trip part pretty much sucked.”
His lip twitched. “Get bored?”
“Yes,” I groaned dramatically. “So bored. My stereo barely works, and a girl can only talk to herself for so long.”
He chuckled. “Well, lucky for you, that’s an experience you’ll never have again. Deal?”
“Deal,” I agreed, reaching over to grasp his forearm. “I’m sorry I worried you. It wasn’t my intention. And it certainly wasn’t part of the plan to get the sickest I’ve ever been in my life.”
He swept a hand over my forehead. “How about some food? I ran out while you were sleeping and picked up a few things.”
“I could try a little something,” I agreed. “And I’d kill for a shower.”
“Food first, then shower,” he decreed as he stood up to rustle through a bag by the door, producing a banana and some crackers.
