"Oh, Ace." It comes out as a breath.
I cross the room, and my legs barely carry me. I take his hand, and it's warm. That's the thing that breaks me. It's warm.He's in there. Somewhere under all that damage, his heart is still doing its stubborn, beautiful work.
"Hi, Acey," I whisper.
The machine beeps, that’s the only answer I get.
I pull the chair close and sit, and I hold his hand in both of mine, and I press my lips to his knuckles.
"They told me what you did. That you took out two guards with a broken arm and a hole in your side. Show-off." My laugh comes out as a sob. "You couldn't just wait to be rescued like a normal person. Not Ace Sterling. Not my cowboy."
I wipe my face with my shoulder because I won't let go of his hand to do it.
"You listen to me now, okay? You're going to be so mad you slept through this part, so I'm going to tell you everything, and you can catch up when you wake up."
I take a breath. It shakes the whole way down.
"The baby's okay, Ace. Our baby is okay. The doctor checked twice. Strong heartbeat, I swear it sounds just like yours. Already too stubborn to quit. Wonder where she gets that."
The vent hisses. His chest rises. I keep calling her a she because I really think it is a little girl.
"And I've been thinking about the house. The one with the wrap-around porch. I want it near our spot, so the sunrise wakes us up in the place where we first said I love you. I want a porch swing. I want Penny in the paddock and Seven next to her, and I want our kid to learn to ride before she can walk, just like you said. I want Sunday dinners. I want Wyatt to teach her bad habits. I want all of it, Ace. The whole perfect dream. But it doesn't work without you. None of it works without you."
I lean closer and rest my forehead against his hand.
"Do you remember being seventeen? That stupid corsage in your teeth, your arm in a sling, shaking so badly you couldn't pin it on me. You told me you fell in love with me in English class when I smiled at you. I never told you my half of it." I close my eyes. "It was before that. Weeks before. You stood up to three seniors for a freshman kid you didn't even know, and you got a black eye for it, and you walked into class the next day grinning like you'd won something. And I thoughtthat boy. That's the one.I was fifteen years old, and I already knew. I've known longer than you, Ace Sterling. I just spent six years being too much of a coward to act like it."
The tears fall onto the blanket. I let them.
"I ran from you because I was scared of how much you loved me. Isn't that the stupidest thing you've ever heard? I was scared of being loved like this.Like a man crawling through his own blood to reach me. And now I'd give anything to be loved this way for the next sixty years. So you don't get to stop now. You hear me? You don't get to teach me how to be loved and then leave before I'm done learning."
I stand even though everything in my body screams, and I don't feel any of it. I haven't felt my own body since they said the word coma.There's no room. Every nerve I have is pointed at him.
I take his hand, gently, and guide it to my stomach. I press his palm flat against the small swell of our baby. His hand is so big that it covers the whole bump. It always did make everything look small. He makes everything feel safe.
"Feel that?" I whisper. "That's yours. That's April. Or whoever she turns out to be, Ace Junior, if you win, which you won't. She needs her daddy. She needs the man who's going to teach her constellations on the porch and lie about which star is called Frank. She needs you, Ace. I need you."
I hold his hand there. I’m trying so hard to be brave, but all I want to do is curl into a ball and cry my eyes out until there is nothing left in me. But I can’t. This man has been strong for me for what feels like my entire life.
It’s my turn to be his strength. And I will. I owe him that.
"So here's the deal, cowboy. Eight seconds. That's all anything ever is, right? That's what you always told me. You don't have to win the whole fight tonight. You just have to hold on for eight seconds. And then eight more. And I'll be right here counting with you. Every ride. Until you open your eyes."
I press a kiss to his palm. To his wrist. To the inside of his forearm, over the veins, over the pulse that's still going.
"I love you, Ace Trent Sterling. I have loved you since I was fifteen years old, and I will love you until the stars burn out. So come back to me. Come back to us."
Nothing. Just the beeping. Just the breathing that isn't his own. I don’t know why I’m expecting anything else.
"Take your time," I whisper. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm done running. Remember?"
I lower myself back into the chair, but I can't make myself let go of his hand, so I don't. I fold my arms on the edge of his bed and rest my head on them, his fingers laced through mine, his palm still warm against my cheek.
A nurse comes in at some point. Suggests, gently, that I should rest in a real bed. That my body has been through a trauma. That I need to think of the baby.
"I am thinking of the baby," I say without lifting my head. "She needs to hear her daddy's heartbeat. So do I."
The nurse leaves.
