Page 160 of Missile Strike

Chapter Thirty-Six

The emergency room waiting area was crowded. Quiet, except for the occasional moan. People slumped in chairs. Hospital personnel behind a glass barricade. The rest behind locked doors that only swung open with an access badge. Metal detectors and security guards. Everything was white and beige. Sterile and yet dirty at the same time.

Isabella wanted to scream.

The only reason she didn’t march to the check-in desk and demand answers was the two men hemming her in as if they expected her to break down in a loud, messy, spectacular way.

It was a tempting idea. But she wouldn’t. She’d stay strong.

For Danny.

Nathan and Lachlan hadn’t left her side since the ambulance doors had closed.

She’d never met Lachlan before, but after watching him argue with the police about letting her leave the scene, she realized he was a force to be reckoned with. He was the president of Dìleas Security Agency and had left his pregnant wife to come to Charlotte because Danny had called and told them she was missing.

One of the officers had retrieved her shoes from the storage unit before she came to the hospital, so at least she was no longer barefoot.

Sitting between them, she felt physically dwarfed. Even the people nearby angled subtly away, instinctively avoiding the space the two men occupied. She could see why. Nathan, Danny’s former SEAL team leader, looked like a biker with his tattoos, short, spiky hair, and perpetual five o’clock shadow, while Lachlan’s striking good looks did nothing to soften the aura of danger surrounding him.

At Lachlan’s insistence, an ER nurse assessed her. Other than the nick on her cheek from where Talia’s bullet had struck the concrete block wall, she didn’t seem worse for the wear. Physically, anyway. The nurse applied an antibiotic cream to her cheek and advised her to follow up with her doctor to make sure she suffered no side effects from whatever drug Talia had given her.

“Danny’ll be okay,” Nathan assured her for what was probably the fifth time since they’d arrived. “He’s been shot before.”

Every muscle in her body constricted.

“Christ, ya bawbag, that’s not what she needed to hear,” Lachlan snarled.

She’d find them humorous if her entire being wasn’t focused on the doors that led into the ER bay. Like everyone else, she was a fan of that new emergency room TV drama everyone was talking about.

Now, all she could think of was a team of doctors and nurses standing over Danny as his blood pressure cratered.

Or maybe he’d coded and someone was up on his gurney giving him chest compressions, cracking his ribs.

Tears blurred her vision.

A large hand captured hers and squeezed. She looked up at Nathan to find him watching her closely. His thumb swiped away the tear that slid down her cheek.

This was everything she’d tried to avoid in her life. The chaos. The lack of control. Then Danny swept into her life, disrupting her sense of stability.

Was it worth it?

God, yes.

Loving Danny Mayhew would never be safe. Or boring.

She smiled at Nathan and squeezed his fingers in return. “I’ll be okay.”

“I know you will, darlin’.”

The doors to the ER bays hissed open and spat out a woman in navy blue scrubs. “Strickland?” she called out. “Bella Strickland?”

Isabella jumped to her feet.

“Here.” She wound her way through the people in the waiting room, Nathan and Lachlan following. “I’m Isa—, I’m Bella.” Her hands shook, then her knees, as the rigid control she’d hung onto finally slipped. If this woman was using the name only Danny referred to her by, that meant he was conscious. He was alive.

The nurse gave her a reassuring smile. “Mr. Mayhew is on his way to surgery. There’s a waiting room on the second floor. The surgeon will be out to speak with you as soon as she’s finished.”

“How is he?” Lachlan asked.