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“Soon,” he concedes. “They’re wrapping things up now and then they’ll move her down.”
He peers toward the clock on the wall and focuses for a long beat. Counting. “Give it an hour.” He brings his gaze back our way. “An hour, and I’ll come find you. But until then,” he straightens his back and groans like the movement brings him pain. “My hospital is full, and another patient will be moved into my OR just as soon as the last has been wheeled out.”
Taking a step toward the desk in the middle of the room, he yawns wide and signs a clipboard handed to him. “I need coffee first.”
“I should call Fletch.” Aubree searches her pockets for her phone, only to grunt in frustration when she comes up empty. “Shit! I forgot that asshole took them from us. Dammit.”
“Here.” Tim takes out his device and offers it. “You can use mine.”
“No one is calling Fletch.” I push up to stand, then brush my brother’s hand down. “He made his choices, and I made mine. We’re done.”
“He deserves to know she’s out of surgery.” Seraphina stops in the doorway of the waiting room. “He’s your best friend, Detective. And he cares for Minka deeply.” She folds her arms and looks down her nose at me, despite the almost foot difference in our height. “He deserves to know.”
“He walked out,” I grit through tight teeth. “And he wasn’t there when she needed help at the bank.”
“He was mad at you for some reason,” Aubree cuts in, her words like knives in my back. “For weeks,” she asserts, “you and he have been weird. He was angry.”
“So?” I turn and walk backwards. “I don’t give a shit about what he was feeling.”
“He was mad,” she presses. “And now you’re mad back. Sounds like you were looking for a reason to be irritated.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I push through the doors my former partner charged through on his way out, but I stop by the elevator on the other side and search my options. “What floor will Minka go to after this?”
“I’ll tell Detective Fletcher the answer,” Aubs challenges. “Then you’ll have to phone him and ask.”
I choke out a cathartic laugh and hit the button on the wall. “I’d rather scour every room in this building on my own than call that motherfucker for help.”
As the doors open and reveal an empty silver box, I breathe a sigh of relief and step inside. Then I hit the close button to get the doors to slide shut before anyone else can squeeze in.
I’m aware the elevator probably has a security camera nestled somewhere in the corner. I’m fully cognizant of the fact the hospital is under intense scrutiny tonight after Parker Slade’s bullshit. But I press my back to the wall and slide down until my ass hits the floor. Then I slap the emergency stop button and drown in my grief.
In my terror.
In everything that’s happened in the last twelve hours, from the moment Minka walked into the bank to now: the blood she’s lost. The blood I now wear on my clothes because she’s incapable of clotting on her own.
Oh, and she’s probably been in more pain than she’s ever let on, from a shoulder injury she never once told me about.
“Fuck.” I drop my head back and bang it against the cold steel wall as my eyes burn with emotion. Then again as my stomach twists. And again when my own shoulder injury tweaks with pain.
She was so busy taking care of me, she never once stopped to announce she was hurting too. Because she’s a caretaker who refuses to let anyone else know she needs help. She pretends to be hard, aloof, and uncaring, in contrast to Aubree, who wants to pat everyone on the hair and whisper reassurances.
Minka does all the work without saying a word. She puts in the effort, but takes none of the praise. And even when she’s in pain, she gets on with things and says not a damn thing about it.
It’s my job, as her husband, to see beneath the brave face and take care of her anyway.
And I’ve failed.
“Fuck.”
MINKA
The sun is like a warm blanket kissing my skin and setting off a rainbow of electrical bursts just beneath the surface. But each sensation feels like magic. Like sliding into a warm bath. Like a buzzing electricity that hums just beneath my flesh.
Though, when Archer pushes off the lounger and reaches back for me, it’s his boyish grin and the promise in his eyes that wherever he takes me, whatever he intends to do, it will feel a million times better than what I’m already experiencing.
“Come with me, beautiful.” He takes my hands and helps me to my feet. But he doesn’t step back to make room for my body. He remains put, so my almost-bare breasts brush over his chest, and my thighs touch his stupid cat-shorts that provide comic relief to an otherwise intense holiday on a remote island in the middle of the Caribbean.
Slowly, he places my hands on his shoulders and his lips on the side of my neck. His hair brushes over the sensitized skin of my cheek, and his smile can be felt deep in my soul, even if I can’t see it.
