I’m good with the concrete. I may live a life that thrives on the spontaneity of others’ actions, but fuck if I like to live in that suspended state of limbo when it comes to my personal life.
I approach the nurses’ station, smiling warmly at the petite woman behind the desk. It takes me a minute to find my voice as urgency and anxiety collide in a ball of turmoil within me. “Beaux Croslyn’s room, please?”
“Your name, please?” she asks as she picks up a clipboard toward the side of the desk and flips a page up, her eyes lifting to meet mine.
“Tanner Thomas.” My body vibrates with so many emotions that I find it hard to stand still as I wait for her to look for my name on the approved list. And then when her brow furrows, I immediately start to panic. “I’m approved. I know I am.” I pound a fist on the desk, an action that jolts up my shoulder and causes me to wince.
She puts her hands out in front of her in a “calm down” gesture. “I’m sure you’re on here. Just give me a moment please, sir.” Her eyes meet mine, trying to calm me just like the soothing tone in her voice. I don’t think she gets the only thing that is going to calm me down is seeing Beaux.
But I turn around and walk a few feet away from the desk, my hands kneading the back of my neck as I try to contain the frustration while I wait yet again to see her.
“Mr. Thomas?” Eyes wide, I’m at the desk in a second, leaning forward and ready to take off in whichever direction her room is. “Sorry for the wait, but since you aren’t immediate family, I had to make sure you were approved by the chain of command.” My audible exhale of relief fills the space between us. “Ms. Croslyn’s room is three hundred seven, and I —”
I don’t hear anything else she says because I grab my bag and am already taking off, searching for her room number. And when I finally find it, in my mind I hesitate for the slightest second before barreling through the doorway to face what I fear head-on.
The immediate sight of her staggers me. She looks ten times worse than I ever imagined and a hundred times better than my fears had her looking. I expect my feet to falter when I see her bruised face, the cannula in her nose for oxygen, her small body dwarfed by the white, imposing bed, but they don’t. And I don’t pay an ounce of attention to the two doctors off to the other side of the room as I take her in because nothing and no one matters right now but her.
I’m at her bedside in a second, bag dropped to the floor, and my hand immediately finds one of hers while my other hand reaches out to cup the side of her face. And ironically I don’t know which of us I’m trying to reassure more with the rub of my thumb over her cheek. And Christ, even like this, that zing when I touch her skin ripples through me in that indescribable and unmistakable connection between us.
I can’t help myself, even though a small part of me worries I might hurt her more, but I sense that I won’t. I lean forward and press my lips so very gently to her forehead, tears stinging the back of my closed eyes as we stay like this for a moment, allowing myself to feel the warmth of her skin, know she’s still alive, still fighting, and that I haven’t lost her now that I’ve found her. I draw in a shaky breath, my heart at an uneven pace, and my lips needing to tell her the one thing I can’t hold back any longer.
When I draw in a deep breath, despite the medicinal scent of the room, I can still smell the underlying scent of her shampoo, and I hold on to that little piece of normalcy as I lower my mouth to her ear with my hand still on her cheek. “I’m here, rookie. I’m here and you’re going to be okay and we’re going to get through this. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to you fast enough. I…” My voice breaks as I’m overcome with the emotion of everything that has happened, especially finally being with her again, skin to skin, heart to heart. “I fought my way to you, Beaux, and now you’d better fight as hard as you can to get back to me because damn it, I love you. Did you hear me? I love you.”
Leaning my head against the side of her face, I draw in comfort from her as I let my heart hope for the first time since the ricochet of the blast froze it with fear. “I was stupid and didn’t tell you that night on the rooftop and I’m sorry and regret it but I’m saying it now. And I’ll say it to you every day until you open those eyes of yours and hear me say it to your face. I love you, Beaux Croslyn. You’d best get used to that.”
As I press one more kiss to the side of her cheek, my heart feels a little lighter after my confession, but my soul is a bit wary of the road ahead. When I lean back, my eyes still trained on hers, I become cognizant that one of the doctors who’d stood in the corner of the room is now on the opposite side of the bed. But when I switch my focus from Beaux to him, ready to ask a zillion questions about her status and prognosis, I realize he’s not a doctor at all, not even in uniform as are most of the people in this hospital. My gaze trails up the Levi jeans, muscular arms crossed over his wrinkled T-shirt, unshaven jaw, and then stop when I meet tired but demanding blue eyes.
“Name’s John,” he states.
Unsure why the man feels like a threat on my testosterone radar, I rise to full height to meet his eyes, pissed that he’s ruining this moment between Beaux and me. “Is there a problem, John?” I ask, irritation prevalent in my voice because I’m more concerned over finding her actual doctor so that I can get an update on her condition than wanting to deal with whoever this guy is. He’s already rubbing me the wrong way before he even says anything of relevance.
He clucks his tongue before pulling his lips tight as he nods his head, eyes never leaving mine. “Yes, I believe there just might be,” he says in a slow, even drawl.
It immediately gets my hackles up, and I feel like I’m back on base with Beaux when she was surrounded by all the soldiers who were teaching her how to play darts. “How so?” My gaze flickers momentarily to the doctor in the corner of the room whose attention we’ve piqued before returning to the man across from me.
“Because I believe you just told my wife you loved her.”
It takes me a few moments to hear what he’s just said. Well not really. I hear what he says immediately, a confused chuckle on my lips, but it takes a few seconds for it to sink in. Shock, disbelief, then indescribable confusion flicker through my already fucked-up head. I just stare at him, jaw lax. The ability to form a response is not even a remote possibility as I slowly pull my hand off Beaux’s and take a step back to physically distance myself although I already feel like I’ve been carried a thousand miles away from her.
This isn’t possible. Not at all. She said she loved me. She…
“What do you mean your wife?” I must look shell-shocked, because the bomb he just dropped on me was ten times worse than the one that exploded in our faces days ago.
“I really don’t think you have any right to ask the questions here.” He raises his eyebrows at me as I shake my head, the staggering pain in my chest only intensifying as I try to process some of this, but I just keep coming up empty-handed. “Were you sleeping with my wife?”
What the fuck am I supposed to say to that? I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that the woman I just professed my love to is married. Like silver-ring-on-his-left-ring-finger type of married. How can I answer him when I don’t even understand what’s going on here? I was just so absolutely blindsided that I’m still trying to find my feet after being knocked on my ass with one clothesline tackle.
“Yes.” It’s all I can say to him. I can’t lie to the man, can’t take back the words I said to her even if right now they taste like bile on my tongue. His revelation doesn’t change that I love his wife. Oh my God, what the fuck is happening here?
I step farther away from the bed and bump into the wall behind me because I haven’t been able to tear my eyes from the sight of Beaux bruised and broken in the hospital bed. I need her to open her eyes and talk to me, need her to explain what the hell is going on… that what was between us was real and that what this guy is saying is all a joke.
But she’s not.
And neither is he
.
John rounds the bed, teeth gritted, shoulders squared, and I know what’s coming next, but still I stand there like a deer in the headlights. “Then you deserve this,” he says as he cocks his fist back lightning fast and connects with my cheek.
My body crashes into the corner where the walls meet, my arm flying out and knocking over something on the bed tray that clatters loudly to the ground, causing the doctor to drop his clipboard and run to get between us. But there’s no need. Absolutely none.
I’m not the kind of guy who takes a punch without scrambling back up and landing a few myself. No one coldcocks me and walks away unscathed. And yet right now, I have absolutely no fight left in me. It’s not just the pain radiating in my already scrambled brain, but the fact that I deserve a whole helluva lot more than one punch because just like I don’t let anyone coldcock me and walk away; I also don’t sleep with someone’s wife. That’s not the type of guy I am.
But fuck, man… I didn’t know. I did not know. And I still fucking love her. How is that even possible?
I rest my head against the wall for a moment with my hands pressed on either side of it, the doctor and John at my back, to try and gain my bearings. I feel like I’m drunk and am trying to get the room to stop spinning out of control around me.
I need to leave, know I need to go, but can’t bring myself to walk away from her just yet. “Is she going to be okay?” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine, but I need to know the answer before I walk away and sort the shit out in my head that’s throbbing like a motherfucker right now. It’s rivaled only by the ache in my heart.
“Not your business, now is it?” John says as I turn to face him. The doctor stands between us in the small space at the same time security arrives in the room. “He needs to leave,” he tells the guards as the doctor takes my arm. I shrug out of his grip, my only show of resistance.
For a moment when I start to walk from the room, John and I are shoulder to shoulder, emotions raw and tempers escalating on both sides. I pause to contemplate their relationship for a second. Shit, I didn’t even know there was a relationship, but I speak the one thing I know deep down for certain. “You don’t deserve her.”
I may not have thrown a punch, and I may be one hundred percent in the wrong since I’m the one sleeping with his wife, but fuck me, I know he doesn’t deserve her. The Beaux I know would cheat on her husband only if the situation was bad, if she had reasons.
And now I just need to wait until she’s recovered and stronger to find out what those reasons are.
Chapter 23
“C
an I get you anything?”
I look up at the sound of the voice, surprised to find the petite nurse from the ICU station peeking her head into the waiting room. Glancing around, I notice there is no one else in here and realize she’s speaking to me. “Not unless you can tell me how she’s doing,” I murmur. The clock on the wall tells me that I’ve been sitting here for six hours without a single person talking to me except for my family via cell phone. I’m the pariah, the asshole who slept with a married man’s woman, and now I’m banned from the third floor with no hope of getting another glimpse of Beaux.
Without returning my eyes to the nurse, I sink back in my seat because every other person I’ve asked this question has left and never come back. I lean my head against the wall and scrub a hand over my jaw, surprised when I hear the chair next to me scrape across the floor as she moves it. I snap my head forward, my hope building that I might get some kind of answer here.
She stares in silence with sympathetic eyes that flicker toward the door every few seconds before she starts. “I could get in a lot of trouble if anyone found out I’m giving you this information,” she says, emphasizing how much she’s risking by being here. All I can do is nod. “Ms. Croslyn is stable. She had some swelling of her brain due to her proximity and the force of the blast. After the medical team successfully stopped the swelling, they were able to determine that she has what is called a diffuse axonal brain injury.” She pauses momentarily because yes, I knew coming here that Beaux had a head injury, but hearing the technical term scares the crap out of me, and without my computer open so that I can Google it and see all of the details, I need more.
“What does that mean?” I plead for more information even when she’s giving me more than anyone has thus far.
“Once she arrived here, the neurologists were able to do some more intensive testing and believe she’s incurred a stage one injury, which is the least worrisome of them —”
My audible exhale cuts her off, the pressure in my chest abates some, so that I lean forward, elbows on my knees and head in my hands as I try to rein in the rush of emotion that thunders through me like a freight train. And the nurse hasn’t even explained what an axonal whatever it is called means, but that it’s stage one is enough for me to hold on to until I can look it up myself.
“Now please remember that it’s still a brain injury. Until she wakes up, we won’t know the extent or if there will be any long-term damage, but compared to some of the injuries that we see here from the same scenario, I’d say luck seems to be on her side.”
I swallow over the lump in my throat as I nod my head because the diagnoses I’d imagined were so much worse and daunting. “How long until she wakes up?”
“That’s up to her body and the doctors. They did give her a mild sedative to allow her body to settle some, so they’ll probably bring her off that later today and then it’s a wait and see… but she’s a fighter. Has been responsive and seems to be struggling to wake up.”
All I can do is nod once again while tears well in my eyes before I blink them away as relief and hurt surge through me. “Thank you for talking to me,” I whisper as she scoots her chair back and nods in kind to me before walking away. She’s almost to the door when I speak without thinking. “I didn’t know she was… That’s not the kind of person I am…” I’m not sure why I feel the need to explain to her that I didn’t knowingly fall in love with a married woman, to let her know I’m not that guy. Maybe so she doesn’t regret her decision.
The nurse falters in her footsteps, keeps her back to me, but nods her head. “I figured as much by the way you came barreling into the ward. A man acting like that doesn’t know. I’m sorry for you too.” And with that she exits the room and leaves me alone with my thoughts.
I slump back in my chair and close my eyes as I let my thoughts war against one another. I’m the fool here. I should leave and never look back since the woman played me like a damn violin, but I can’t find it within myself to leave just yet. A small part of me hopes that there is some huge misunderstanding, that she’s going to wake and clarify everything, because I can’t comprehend that she doesn’t love me. If I was watching someone else go through this, I’d tell them they were a sucker, to cut their losses and leave with some of their dignity intact.
But I just can’t bring myself to put one foot in front of the other and walk out of the hospital. Only I know the passion in her kiss, the raw honesty in her eyes. God, I am a sap. Honesty? It seems that word doesn’t apply to Beaux Croslyn at all.
The longer I sit here, the more I hold on to that fact, shoving away how much I care for her, and try to focus on the anger I feel – at her, at John, at the whole fucking world. But then as the reality of my situation comes crashing down on me in this solitary waiting room, the eddy of my thoughts whirls back to the fact that there has to be a reason why she’d let me fall in love with her when she was committed to someone else.
Her explanations about her past filter through my anger, make me recall my fears that she had an abusive ex or a bad situation at home that she was escaping. Could that still be true? Is John one of those missing pieces that Beaux purposefully left unexplained? And if so, how does it all fit together?
Further, why the fuck do I care? If that was the case, then she should have just told me. Wouldn’t she at least have told me there was someone else and that it was complicate
d?
Stop making excuses for her, Tanner. She played you from the get-go, made you believe her time and again until you fell for her. Fell for her? Shit, more like yelling “Timber” at the top of my lungs in a forest-full-of-falling-trees type of fall for her if I’m being honest with myself. And yet through everything, rooftop confessions, afternoons spent making slow and sweet love, trying to teach her the lay of the land, none of it mattered because in the scheme of things, I was being played on every level imaginable.
Now I know I should walk away while I can. Grab my bag and go the fuck back to my reality where the possibility of being hit by opposition fire seems ten times more appealing than having my heart toyed with by a woman like Beaux and an angry husband in a hospital room that I don’t even belong in.
But I can’t. Not until I know she’s going to be okay. Call me a pussy, but I can’t turn off my feelings for her. I just can’t.
Instead, I shove up out of the chair, needing a change of scenery, some fresh air for a bit instead of this depressing waiting room with artificial light and waning hope. On the elevator ride down, I tell myself that I need to let this go, but I know for sanity’s sake that I need to make sure she’s okay before I can go back to the life I knew without her.
The minute I exit the doors of the hospital, I feel like I can finally breathe again, clear my thoughts, and am dialing my phone instantly. The phone is picked up on the third ring.
“Everything okay?”
“What do you know about Beaux, Rafe?”
“What do you mean, what do I know? Are you not in Germany with her?” Rafe asks, confused about where I’m coming from.