Love, Tussles, and Takedowns (Cactus Creek #3)(59)

There, let her pretend to be asleep now.

She broke less than a minute later.



*



THE NEXT MORNING, Lia found herself staring down at a smorgasbord of hot sexy male flesh. She loved waking up before Hudson. If this was the sight that was going to greet her every morning, she wouldn’t need her ten morning alarms anymore.

She ran her tongue over the granite cut grooves of his abs before continuing lower.

Someone was happy to see her.

With just her fingertips, she teased over his skin, lightly enough to keep him on just this side of sleep, but placed strategically to ensure that the navigation of his thoughts while he slept was all hers to control.

When her soft puff of air against his rapidly rising morning salute resulted in his rubbing a sleepy palm over himself for a few lazy strokes, Lia felt her panties practically melt at the erotic image.

She was awfully disappointed when her private show ended just brief moments later. But she got over it soon after when Hudson slid that same hand across the mattress in search of her.

A sexy glide of his hand between her thighs and she was ready for the man to wake up.

Using her hair as a paintbrush, she slowly tried to wake him up.

From the waist down.

And the man thought she made sexy noises while she slept.

She trailed her little fun-brush across those chiseled dips below his eight-pack and grinned in triumph when his right hand shadowed the path of her invisible artwork.

Swirling her makeshift brush in wide sweeps over his ‘good stuff’ hands and all, she froze when he mumbled muzzily, “That tickles.”

Her brows dropped in surprise.

Perhaps she was sleep drunk because that couldn’t have been…

She gathered her hair and slid it across his skin again.

“Dammit, woman. That tickles.”

Suddenly, every muscle in his body turned rigid with shock.

Lia was right there with him.

Together they stared at his right hand in mute astonishment.

“Again,” he graveled in a voice that sounded so hopeful it hurt her heart.

This time she used her hand, wanting it to be her hand if there really was a miracle brewing before them.

When she slowly twined her fingers with his, instantly she felt each of his fingers twine right back.

She gasped. He could feel her.

“I can feel you,” he exhaled in naked wonder.

Tears flooded Lia’s eyes as he slid his hand over her skin. She jumped up and grabbed her phone and his. Thrusting his phone at him she demanded, “Call your doctor now.”

He looked dazed as he pulled the phone from her hand—with his right one—and just sat there flexing his fingers on the phone whispering, “I can feel everything, Lia. Everything.”

“It’s like the explosion never happened.”

And that’s when Lia’s tears ran.

Because she knew exactly what this could mean for him.

The second he looked up and saw her crying, she knew he thought her tears were of sadness instead of joy. It broke her heart to hear him modulate his voice to hide his excitement and toss out casually instead, “It might be nothing.”

Or it might be everything.

She wished that he’d believe she wanted it to be the latter.

When he continued to school his expression as he called his doctor, Lia turned and started typing into her own phone.

>>> DREW, IT’S LIA. I NEED YOU TO CALL HUDSON’S C.O.

She took a deep breath and texted the next part that both filled her heart with hope for the man she loved, and splintered it at the edges:

>>> LET HIM KNOW THAT HIS HAND MIGHT BE HEALED.

>>> IF IT IS, HE MIGHT BE ABLE TO GO BACK TO AFGHANISTAN.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


LIA PACED BACK and forth in her apartment, checking her watch every ten minutes. Okay, maybe it was more like every five.

Hudson was over three hours late getting back to Cactus Creek.

All week, Hudson had undergone medical tests in both Arizona and California with his old doctor and therapist, along with what seemed like a half dozen different military doctors.

And between all those appointments were hushed phone meetings that ran for hours on end. The fact that it was in the middle of the night when Hudson thought Lia was sleeping didn’t have her obsessing over it any less.

It didn’t take a genius to know he was talking to folks overseas.

The reason for the talks were pretty clear as well...just as clear as the medical test results that Lia had accompanied Hudson to California to go get.

His hand was healed.

Whether it was a psychological thing or a delayed, cumulative result of the bio feedback training with Gabe’s rigged therapy rifles, no one knew. But his hand was definitely healed.

...And soon his heart will be, too.

Lia had heard the doctors talking last week, before the tests. And she’d done her own fair share of internet research. There was precedence for Hudson to return back to active duty.

According to one conversation she’d overheard him having with his CO, he could even be back in Afghanistan by the end of the year.

It was the dream.

The one thing so many injured soldiers spent their entire lives yearning for and never getting—the return to their former military lives. To return to the brothers-in-arms and missions they once vowed to give their lives for. To no longer ignore the call to duty it broke their hearts to turn their backs on.