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If you stay. There was no if about it. She’d finally figured out exactly where she wanted to be, no way in hell was she going anywhere. She sat forward and placed her hand on his leg, just above his knee. He covered her hand with his, sending fissions of electricity up her arm.
“I’m not leaving.”
His fingers squeezed hers as his lashes lifted. Relief and something more darkened the gold-flecked eyes that met hers. “Good.”
It’s a good thing she wasn’t hooked to a heart monitor, or the whole floor of nurses would have come running.
“And I want to help any way I can.”
“So long as you get that crazy idea out of your head about you being bait to lure this guy out. If anything happened to you…”
When he trailed off, his hand came up to brush the hair away from her face, then threaded through the tangled strands to cup the back of her neck. He leaned in for a quick kiss, then gently rested his forehead against hers, well clear of the bandage. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
“I won’t.”
But she already had. With her pulse tripping along at breakneck speed, she realized she’d fallen in love with the man who’d made no secret of the fact he’d never stay.
Chapter 29
One hundred percent confident no one had followed them this time, Joel put the truck in park and reached for the ignition. A glance toward his sleeping passenger made him pause. He hugged the steering wheel while laying his head down on his arms to just look at her.
Brittany’s head was angled away from him, but he could still see telltale circles beneath her eyes from lack of sleep and stress. Her hair needed to be washed better than the rinse the nurses had given her in the hospital, and the unpleasant stench of smoke seemed to have seeped deep into both their pores. Even with all that, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. His heart was in for a world of hurt once this was all over, but right now, he couldn’t bring himself to care. As long as she was safe and he kept her that way, nothing else mattered.
She’d fallen asleep less than five minutes into the drive, which was not a surprise seeing as she’d barely rested in the hospital. About five a.m., he’d left for a couple hours only to return and find a seemingly en
dless stream of friends popping in to make sure she was okay. Casey, Jayne, Mitch, Jon, Randy, Billy, Mark.
There were others he hadn’t met, and he added every single one to his growing list of names.
He watched each person, his anxiety winding tighter with each visitor as he was unable to keep from wondering which one of them had tried to kill them less than twelve hours ago. Recalling that faint scent of gas, he had no doubt the fire had been intentionally set. Even Brittany wasn’t her usual warm, welcoming self, and more than once he caught concerned glances exchanged between her friends.
Gina had arrived shortly before they discharged Brittany about two o’clock, and he took a moment to make sure she wasn’t planning to return to her apartment alone. Jackson was with her, she told him, and she’d head back to Denver with him for a few more days. Joel nodded his approval and added their names to the list as well. Brittany hadn’t seen it yet, but he could just imagine what she’d say when she did.
He shut off the truck and gently closed the driver’s door before going around to her side. When he opened the passenger door, she startled awake. Her gaze found his, her green eyes so large in her pale face that his chest ached.
He offered a reassuring smile. “It’s just me.”
Color infused her cheeks as she sat up straighter. “Sorry. I’m not usually so…wait, where are we? This isn’t your place.”
She stared out the windshield at the rustic cabin nestled in a small clearing, surrounded by enough Ponderosa Pines to permeate the air with their vanilla-scented bark. The sound of running water told Joel the stream they’d crossed a few minutes ago on the road ran right past the back of the cabin.
“Aaron gave me the key to his cabin. We’re about fifteen minutes out of Estes, and he’s the only one who knows we’re here. He made sure there was no way to track us.”
When she started to climb out of the truck, he reached forward, intending to carry her inside. She held up a hand. “I’m good. I have a bump on the head, not broken legs.”
She softened the rebuff with a smile, and he backed up to grab their bags from the back. “Okay.”
Two steps toward the cabin, she paused. He quickly moved to her side, but all she did was take a deep inhale.
“Mmm, that smells good.”
“After a shower, it’ll be even better without the undercurrent of Eau de Smoke.”
Her laugh warmed his heart. “You smell, too, you know.”
“I know.” He hadn’t showered when he left the hospital, only taken the time to grab his things from the duplex, stop at the ranger station for his files, and then the police station to talk to Aaron.
