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By the time she made it to the door, she was staggering like a drunk person. She pulled it open and leaped inside. Mark caught her as he pressed the button to close the doors, but he went down, and she went with him.
It took her a minute to get the panic under control, for her body and mind to realize she wasn’t in any danger. Lying there, she rested on top of Mark, catching her breath.
Wait, why had they fallen? She hadn’t realized she’d crashed into him so hard. “I’m sorry for bowling you over. Are you okay?”
He wrapped his arms tighter around her. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry you had to get back out here by yourself. I got the bus as close as I could, but…”
She pushed away from him and got up. “Yeah, I made it. Gotta learn to fend for myself, right?”
He let out a sigh. “No, little librarian, you shouldn’t have had to fend for yourself. I should’ve been there to help you.”
Why weren’t you?
She wanted to shout it. Now that she was back inside her home base and feeling better by the second, she wanted to know why he’d abandoned her when he could’ve so easily been inside the hospital to at least help escort her out.
She wanted to know how she could’ve been so wrong about what was between the two of them. He obviously wasn’t thinking of them as a team, a couple, or he never would’ve—
Why was he still on the floor?
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He sighed again. “I’ve been better.”
“Is there a reason you’re still on the floor?”
He rubbed a hand down his face. “Mostly because I don’t want to look like some invalid in front of you.”
Shit. She dropped back down beside him. “What happened? Where are you hurt? Did you get shot?” She started moving her hands around his body, looking for a wound. “They told me there was a bad guy, but they didn’t tell me you’d gotten hurt. Why didn’t you—”
He grabbed her roaming hands. “I didn’t get hurt.”
“Then what is going on?” There was some big piece of information she was missing.
“Do you mind helping me up? I got special permission for the bus to park here, but we need to move.”
She nodded, still not understanding what was going on. She helped him up, watching him carefully. He was stiff and slow, but he didn’t seem to have any specific wounds. She helped get him into the driver’s seat then he fired up the bus.
She stood right behind him as he drove, trying to piece together anything she could. Mentally, he seemed fine, and nothing about his driving concerned her. They were both silent as he drove a few miles then parked inside a secure lot.
When the engine was off and all the security was in place, he stood. He was able to walk on his own back to the table, but he was limping.
“I thought you said you weren’t wounded? Did you fall?” Dread spiraled through Jenna. “What’s going on?”
He sat down, and she sat across from him.
His face looked haggard. “You know how I went down when we were sparring?”
She nodded.
“When I was a SEAL, I was injured. Multiple times. It’s the nature of the job. Most of the time, everything turns out fine, but I got unlucky. I got hit in the spine one too many times and…” He sighed, shoulders sinking like the weight of the world was suddenly on them. “I have what’s called peripheral neuropathy.”
Her brain flew through what she knew about the condition. “Nerve damage.”
“Yes. It comes in and out, mostly with my legs, but also my arms sometimes. I’ll be fine for weeks at a time, and then out of nowhere, it fucks me. I was in the middle of tackling the guy who attacked Sarah when my leg went numb. I couldn’t control it, couldn’t stop it. And then he was gone.”
His hands were on the table in front of him, folded into fists in anger. She didn’t blame him. Having something hijack your life in a way that made you rage at the universe?
That was an experience she was familiar with.
