Page 75 of Her Fearless Warrior

“I’ll go send Jase on a Starbucks run, sweetheart. Let’s go get you back with your mom.”

* * *

Linc was finally a little bit comfortable. It wasn’t because the couch in the waiting room was comfortable. Hell no, they made sure that the cushions came from a quarry. But having Leila lying with her head resting on his thigh, made this whole thing somewhat bearable. He looked over at Miray and saw that Paul’s wife had come in and she was doing better, but still, it was now going on eight hours of surgery. Leila’s hands were still coated with her father’s blood and she didn’t want to wash it off. She didn’t say it out loud, but Linc knew it was because if he died, she didn’t want to lose that last little connection.

He pushed the hair off her cheek and stroked it back down over her shoulder, then Jase caught his eye. Linc looked up and saw that a woman in scrubs had just walked into the waiting room and she was looking around.

“I’m looking for Grant Cloud’s family?”

Linc helped right Leila into a sitting position, then nodded toward the doctor. “She has some information, baby.”

Leila tried to scramble off the couch too fast and almost tripped, but Linc steadied her. They went over to stand next to her mother, who grabbed Leila’s hand.

“He’s going to need to be in the intensive care unit for a couple of days. I was able to save half of his right lung, but the bad news is the bullet ended up lodged in the anterior aspect of the subepicardial right ventricular outflow tract.”

“English,” Paul requested quietly.

“Sorry, I’m tired,” the surgeon apologized. “Look, that means that the bullet was lodged in a part of his heart. We were able to repair the damage and stop the bleeding. We want to monitor him for about a week, but we suspect that there won’t be any additional bleeding and at that point we can recommend outpatient procedures. His lung is also going to be a problem, but we can go over that later.”

“He’s going to live?” Miray asked.

The surgeon took off her operating cap, revealing gleaming gold hair. “Yes, Mrs. Cloud he’s going to live, and in my opinion, he will thrive. Especially if he is willing to listen to his doctors.”

“Oh, he’ll listen,” Miray promised. “He’ll listen. Can I go see him now?” She turned to Leila. “Both of us? Can we both go see him?”

“He’ll be transferred from post-op to the ICU in probably twenty minutes. I’ll make sure a nurse comes down and gets you as soon as possible, all right?”

“Yes, Doctor. Definitely all right. God bless you.”

Linc made sure to keep his arms around both Leila and her mother as they both looked ready to collapse, even though they had blinding smiles on their faces.

* * *

“They sleeping?” Jase asked as Linc came downstairs.

“Yeah,” Linc nodded. “She’s up there cuddled under the covers with her mom. I keep imagining Leila as a little girl, sneaking in to sleep in her parents’ bed when there was a storm.”

Linc sat down at the kitchen table where Jase had a bottle of bourbon set out for him. Linc poured himself two fingers, then rolled the glass between his hands.

“Did you see the way she flinched when it started to rain?”

Jase nodded.

“She told me about the flashback she had today when she was out with her father. He helped her through the whole thing. Kept ahold of her, hugged her tight, right there in the middle of that big bank lobby off Sixteenth until she got herself back together. Then he bullied her into agreeing to go to counselling.”

“I’m really liking this guy.”

“And I know that in the back of her mind, that even if he pulls through, she’s going to be worried that he’ll throw a clot a month later and die, like Elijah did.”

“Fuck,” Jase said right before he drank down his whole shot of bourbon.

“Yeah,” Linc agreed. He took a sip of his bourbon then started rolling his glass between his two hands again.

“What?” Jase asked.

“I overheard Grant’s boss talking.”

“Paul?”