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“I take it you two know each other?” Shelley asked as she jotted down numbers from his telemetry.
“He’s my neighbor,” Sarah explained.
At the same time Jude said, “We’re dating.”
Sarah’s gaze cut to Jude. “In case you forgot, whatever was between us ended earlier tonight.”
“What’s between you and I hasn’t ended. Never will.” His oxygen monitor beeped, indicating his oxygen saturation had dropped below ninety percent.
Concern filled Sarah. She needed to focus on his health, not be having a personal conversation with him. He shouldn’t be talking at all.
“Jude, please, stop,” she pleaded, adjusting his oxygen tubing. “Just stop talking and breathe deeply or I really will put the vent back in.”
“I could make a corny joke about you taking my breath away if it would help,” he offered.
“You taking a deep breath would help. Several deep breaths.” Sarah turned to Shelley. “Go tell his crew he’s awake and they are welcome to come back in here so long as they can keep him quiet.”
Shelley nodded and went to get his coworkers.
Jude sucked in a deep oxygen-rich breath, grimaced in pain, no doubt triggered by his fractured ribs and bruised chest. Then he took another, and another. His oxygen saturation instantly rose and Sarah sighed with relief.
“I tell you I’m sorry, that I don’t want to say goodbye to you ever, and you tell me to breathe?”
She took a deep breath herself, then blew it out slowly. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Jude. You suffered multiple injuries, were unconscious for who knows how long. You’re not yourself.”
“Then who am I?”
“Injured. Tired. Confused.”
“I need you in my life.”
She needed him, too. So very much, but it wasn’t enough. Would never be enough. Not knowing what she knew.
“I can’t do this, Jude. Maybe you don’t understand, but I won’t be second best. Not even to a dead woman.”
Proving just how quickly he was recovering now that he’d regained consciousness, Jude scooted up in the bed.
“Have you not heard anything I’ve said?” His voice was still scratchy but getting stronger. “You are not second best. You are best. You, Sarah. You and only you. There is no second best.”
Fresh tears ran down her cheeks. “Please, don’t.”
“Don’t tell you how much I need you? That had we not been interrupted earlier tonight I’d have told you at your apartment? That I’ve known from the very first night, here, that you were special? That I wanted you to know you were different from anyone I’d ever known? Which don’t do you mean?”
“I... But Nina...”
“Nina was an amazing woman, but I’m not in love with Nina.” At Sarah’s open mouth, he held up his hand. “Hear me out. Maybe I was always more in love with the idea of Nina and I than I was with Nina to begin with. Or maybe I didn’t want to acknowledge what a jerk I was to her after she chose Charles. I don’t know. What I do know is that when I thought I was taking my last breaths, I didn’t want Nina. I wanted you, Sarah. Just you. Always you.”
Trying not to let his words poke too many holes in her shabby defenses against him, she arched her brow. “This isn’t some traumatic brain injury talking nonsense that you’re not going to remember tomorrow?”
“I loved you before I left your apartment, before I made love to you last night. I think I loved you even before I took you to see your first Broadway show.”
Sarah’s jaw dropped and she grabbed hold of the bed railing to steady herself. “You love me?”
“I’ve never felt the way I feel about you. Not for Nina. Not for anyone. Just you.”
His words sounded too good to be true.
“How do you know what you’re feeling is real?”
