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She moved behind him. Miguel followed her with his eyes, as Heather came down on her knees next to him. Fire shot through him as Heather pressed against the hole under his damned arm.
Hope slipped his head into her lap. Her fingers wrapped around his and she held his arm out of the way. He could feel the damned cast against his palm. He fought the urge to just cling to her hand. To feel that human connection just for a moment.
He could smell the copper scent of blood that was unmistakable. He’d smelled it too many damned times in his life now. The scent of the blood mingled with the hot-asphalt-and-leaked-motor-oil smell of the pavement.
And the smell of the woman holding him. She smelled like wildflowers. And industrial soap. From the lab, maybe?
He could stay there surrounded by the scent of her for the rest of his life.
As Heather pressed against the wound, it sank in that he very could be doing just that. And if that was true—he had something he had to say. Something that mattered.
He looked into Hope’s dark brown eyes. “My kids.”
“We’ll take care of them,” she promised. She leaned closer, the hand not in that damned cast brushing through the hair he just hadn’t had time to get trimmed yet. “I promise. I’ll call my mom from the hospital. She’ll watch them for you. We all will.”
“We will, Miguel. We won’t let anything happen to them until you can take care of them again yourself,” Heather said. Her hands put pressure on the hole in his damned side. The irreverent thought that he was lucky Heather wasn’t hurling right now crossed his mind. She had always been squeamish when blood was involved. One of the woman’s few weaknesses, he’d always thought. “As long as it takes.”
“If I don’t make it through this, Heather, please don’t let them get split up. Go into foster care. I lived that hell. I don’t want it for my kids. Before…Nick. Nick promised he’d take my kids. I don’t have anyone but my kids left. Don’t let them lose each other. Please.”
“Hey, Miggy, that’s just not true,” Hope said. He heard tears in her voice. Saw them in those beautiful eyes of hers. “You know my mom has adopted your kids as baby Colesons now. We won’t let them be split up. I promise. I promise. We’ll just move them into our house, in bedrooms right next to mine. I promise. We won’t let them lose each other. No matter what. I promise.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off of hers. She meant it. He knew she did. “You all have those eyes. Do you know that? A man just can’t look away.”
“Yeah, we’ve heard that before. It’ll be okay. I promise.” Hope just kept stroking his hair. She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “I promise I won’t let them be separated, Miguel. Ever. I promise. No matter what I have to do. I won’t let them lose each other. I know that fear—I won’t let it happen to your kids. I promise.”
For some reason, he believed her. There probably wasn’t anything the devil brat couldn’t accomplish if she was determined enough.
He just laid there on the pavement, Hope’s fingers brushing through his hair. Until he didn’t remember anything else. Just her.
Just her.
A man just couldn’t forget her, could he?
The last thing he felt was a soft kiss on his forehead.
Then again, maybe he had imagined it.
And then he wasn’t aware of much at all.
62
Haldyn heard almost immediately. It rippled through the entire post like a wave. Fear for Miguel was sharp. She liked him. He was calm and steady and kind. More kind at heart than most of the other men she had met through the TSP.
And she had seen him with his children several times. Seeing a six-foot-seven behemoth of a beautiful man rocking a little baby girl in a pink onesie, singing a soft lullaby, was the image she always thought of when she thought of Miguel Rodriguez first.
Even over all the times she’d seen him in command of so many horrific bloody and evil scenes before—she remembered him rocking his baby. He hadn’t deserved this.
She grabbed her first available team—Madison and Ashlie. “Let’s go.”
And then she did her job.
It was going to be a long night. She was going to work until every bit of evidence was where it was supposed to be.
She was ready.
Jarrod was in the side parking lot when she and her team pulled the ERT van around from their back lot. They needed the equipment inside.
She went to him. Quickly. “How is he? Have you heard?”
