Till Death(53)

“I’m going to call Cole.” When I opened my mouth, he squeezed my hand gently. “He needs to know you’re in the hospital and that you’re okay before someone else gets part of that info to him.”

“Oh, all right,” I murmured. “Please make sure he’s not worried. I don’t want him to do that when I’m okay.”

Derek rose. “You fell down the stairs. Accident or not, you could’ve been seriously injured and you are hurt. Being alive doesn’t always mean you’re okay.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I said nothing. Derek left. Mom hadn’t returned yet, so I closed my eyes, and I tried to figure out what the hell had happened.

It was quite probable that someone got into the inn through either the front door or the back entrance to look for money or items to pawn. This county had a major drug problem, but on the flip side, nothing like this had happened before and the drug problem around here, all the thefts and robberies, weren’t anything new.

But what was new was me.

I’d only been home for one week.





Chapter 16




Eyes fluttering open, it took a couple of moments for my brain to catch up to what my eyes were seeing. I was staring at the hospital ceiling and my mouth was still incredibly dry. What was it about hospitals that always made you feel like your throat had turned into the Sahara Desert? During my only other much longer hospital stay, it had been the same every time I woke up. Strange.

I inhaled, expecting the bitter and weird scent, a mixture of cleaning products and sickness of the hospital, but I caught a clean, citrusy scent that so did not belong anywhere in a hospital. My heart skipped, and I shifted my gaze to the left.

And I fell in love.

Right then and there.

I fell in love.

Sounded absolutely crazy and some might believe it was the pain meds I’d been given after Derek had left, but I knew the swelling in my chest, much like an overinflated balloon, was not a result of whatever it was the nurse had shot into my IV. It wasn’t the much-needed nap I’d gotten after Miranda and Jason had visited. As soon as my eyes settled on Cole, I knew what I was feeling was real, and the intensity of that swelling brought tears to the back of my throat.

Truthfully, I’d fallen in love with him ten years ago and never fallen out of it.

Cole was sitting in the narrow, uncomfortable hospital chair. His feet were propped up on the edge of my bed. He had on dark trousers again. Work pants, I guessed. He had a black leather jacket, a dress shirt underneath. One arm was folded across his lower stomach; the other was jabbed into the arm of the chair, and his chin was resting in his open palm. The position he was in had to be uncomfortable, and I had no idea how long he’d been there, but the sky was dark outside the small square window, and the hospital, other than the beeps and clicks, was relatively quiet. His hair was rumpled, like he’d dragged his fingers through it many times. Cole, even with his long legs up on the bed, was cramped in that chair.

And he was the most beautiful thing I’d seen.

He didn’t have to be here. Though I wasn’t surprised that he was, since I knew Derek called him, but he didn’t have to do this, and in that moment, everything he had been doing really hit me. It had started to make sense after talking with my mother, but now I truly realized that he really wasn’t doing any of this because he felt like he had to. It was always because he wanted to.

Apparently it took a fall down a set of stairs to see things clearly.

I inhaled a ragged breath, and Cole’s eyes snapped open. Our gazes connected, and a moment passed before he straightened, dragging his feet off the bed. They hit the floor with a heavy thump.

“Hey,” he said, voice rough with sleep as he leaned forward.

“Hi,” I whispered back.

A half grin appeared. “How you feeling?”

“Perfect.”

That grin spread as he caught a strand of my hair and carefully tucked it behind my ear. “You’re in the hospital after hitting your head. How is that perfect?”

“You’re here,” I admitted in the same whisper.

His brows flew up and then everything about his gaze softened. The hand dropped to my cheek and his thumb swept along my jaw. “Is this a drugged-up Sasha talking? Because I kind of like her.”

I laughed, ignoring the dull flare of pain. “I’m not that drugged up.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His gaze coasted over my upturned face. “Want something to drink? They have some water in here.”

When I said yes, he got to pouring me some into a plastic cup while I figured out how to get the bed into a somewhat sitting position so I didn’t spill water down my front. He handed it over, and the cool liquid soothed the dryness in my throat. I started to gulp it down, but he caught my wrist, slowing me down.

“You might want to take that easy,” he said.

He was probably right. I lowered the cup to my lap. “What time is it?”

Glancing down at his watch, he said, “A little after midnight.”

My eyes widened. “How are you in here?”

He lifted his gaze to mine and raised an eyebrow. “Flashing an FBI badge has its benefits. Plus my charming smile goes a long way.” He grinned. “And nothing was keeping me out of this room.”