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When she arrived, it was late. The hospital was noticeably quieter. She was grateful the doctor had given her permission to stay as long as she liked.
She turned off the sports channel and turned on some of her favorite music, setting the device on the table close to Pierce. “I don’t know how you feel about Coldplay, but if we’re going to get along, you have to at least be willing to tolerate them.”
Silence, except for Chris Martin’s vocals.
She sat and stared.
Nothing.
Dang it, she had to stop hoping for the miracle.
“It feels strange not to have been at the church’s market tonight. It’s one of my favorite things to organize every year. I usually find a lot of Christmas presents there, you know. Well, you don’t know, but I do.” When she tried to imagine big, bad Pierce wandering around all the little handcrafted items that interested and fascinated her, she smiled. “It might not be your thing. But if we’re going to get along, you might have to tolerate that, too.”
She took his hand and squeezed it again. “When you wake up—not if, because I’m determined you will—we have a lot to talk about. And the first thing I want to tell you is how much I missed you.”
Tears stung her eyes and trembled on her lashes.
As they began to fall, he twitched in her grip…almost as if he was trying to squeeze her hand in return.
Her heart leapt to her throat. She watched him, blinking, holding her breath, almost afraid to hope. “Pierce?”
He turned his head toward her voice and tried to open his eyes. “Brea…”
Wednesday, October 15
One-Mile glanced at his phone. It was after seven in the evening. Brea was usually here by now. He’d memorized her schedule—hell, her every move—in the weeks since he’d been released from the hospital.
He texted her. She didn’t answer.
Fuck.
A solid dozen of his worst what-if scenarios—everything from a car accident to violence to her quitting him—rolled through his head. Panic crowded in. He sucked in a rough breath to cool his anxiety. Brea was a good driver. The likelihood of anyone shooting up the small-town salon where she worked was slim. And she would never turn her back on anyone without a word, much less the man for whom she’d been a savior for the last month.
After he’d awakened in the hospital in New Orleans, Brea had maintained her vigil at his bedside for the next two days. Cutter stayed glued to her, but by unspoken agreement, they’d kept the peace, in part for her. The other part… Well, he’d saved Bryant’s life in the past, and now the Boy Scout had saved his.
They were square.
Everyone had encouraged him to talk about his time in Mexico. His bosses and his team claimed they’d come to visit, but he knew the drill. They mostly wanted tactical information—how many men, what kind of operation, who were the key players. Brea had simply encouraged him to share his experiences with her. One-Mile had declined. First, he hadn’t seen much that would be helpful. Second, he didn’t want to traumatize Brea any more than she already was.
Since his release nearly a month ago, his condition had improved day over day. He and Brea had settled into a rhythm. She came every night after work to puree him some dinner, tidy up his house, and do an occasional load of laundry. They talked—at least as much as he could with his jaw wired shut—mostly about his physical therapy and doctor’s appointments, his frustration with lingering headaches, short-term memory losses, and periodic exhaustion. She empathized, always doing her best to maintain a cheerful front and positive outlook. Yes, he knew how far he had come in just over a month. But he was impatient to be one-hundred-percent healed.
When he could get her to talk about something other than him, Brea admitted how much she worried about her father’s heart condition and fretted about organizing activities at the church. He sensed she had something else on her mind, but the few times he’d asked, she’d given him a false smile and changed the subject.
He had no fucking doubt he was in love with her…but he was clueless about where he stood. Trying to express himself beyond the superficial when he couldn’t really enunciate was somewhere between grating and I-want-to-punch-a-fucking-wall frustrating. For multiple reasons, it was hard to ask why she’d stayed by his side and done everything to help him over the last month. Because she had feelings for him? Or because she just felt sorry for him?
The idea of being her pity project made him sick.
So did the knowledge that she was still with Cutter.
During her bedside vigil in New Orleans, he’d figured out that she spent her days with him…and her nights in a nearby motel room with Bryant. If he’d had any doubt before that the two had “taken their relationship to the next level,” he didn’t anymore. Sure, Brea might have refused to fuck her boyfriend while giving most of her waking attention to the guy who had popped her cherry. But realistically, if the tables had been turned, One-Mile would have been all over Brea every chance he got. He couldn’t be in the room with that woman and not crave her. But he would have wanted to remind her that, no matter how much attention she paid to another man, she belonged to him.
