A Harmless Little Plan (Harmless #3)(38)

He halts in front of me, bending slowly to eye level, his gun holster revealed, his shirt uneven across his ribs. Bandages. I realize the lumpy look comes from bandages. How badly was he hurt?

His hand covers mine again, and this time, he does squeeze.

“I wasn’t preparing to protect you.”

Our eyes lock.

“I was protecting me.”

The longer he lets me just look at him, our breathing in sync, his hand holding mine, the closer I can get to him. The darkness within doesn’t seem so vast. It gets smaller as I inhale, then exhale, the enormity shrinking just through the balm of time.

“I was protecting the ‘me’ in the past that I couldn’t protect then,” he elaborates. I look at his mouth, the curve of his nose, how intense his eyes get when he speaks with passion. With compassion.

With love.

“So for all those years I beat myself up. I told myself I’d never let it happen again. And then it did.”

No.

“I failed you.”

No!

“But worst of all, I failed myself. And when you fail yourself, you have two choices. You make it right, or you give up. Please don’t give up, Lindsay. Come back to me, but come back to me because you want to. Do it for yourself. Make it right for you. I’m here. I’ll be here to hold you up. Hell, if I could breathe for you, I would.”

He lets out an intense sigh, his eyes darting left and right, like he’s struggling. Then he looks at me again and says, “But I can’t. And I won’t. Because if you don’t break through this for you and do it yourself, then I’ll have robbed you of even more parts of yourself than have already been taken. I am not going to be that man, Lindsay. I won’t take any more from you. When you’re ready to connect, though, I’m here to give.”

A sound comes out of me, a breathy protest from deep in my chest, like my heart needs to speak but can’t figure out how. It’s a sound of yielding, a quiet plea.

This is what invisible shields sound like when they give way.





Chapter 14





Drew



She squeezes my hand.

Her mouth tightens as her shoulders relax, her legs sinking into the mattress, her body releasing some pent-up tension I didn’t know she had. Her eyes won’t leave my face and that little sound she just made is the best form of I love you that I’ve ever heard.

She’s looking at me, really looking. I sense a change in her. A part of me gives a victory shout, except it ricochets in my heart, coming out as a thin tremor in my hand, excitement filling me.

Lindsay is coming home.

To me.

“You didn’t fail,” she whispers. “I did. I failed.”

“Oh, baby, no. No, no, you were a goddamn warrior. Always have been.”

She squeezes my hand. A thousand angels sing in my head.

But there’s only one angel on earth – and she’s talking to me.

“I don’t know how to be,” she confesses. Emotion overwhelms me. I know that feeling.

“You don’t have to be any specific way. Just let it all unroll in due course.” Having her look at me, talk to me – it’s sweet glory. I control my breathing because if I don’t, I’ll start gasping like I’m running the last mile of a marathon.

“Drew,” she whispers, looking at me like my soul is hanging out of my body, “it hurts.”

I look at her shoulder. “I know. I should have tackled him before the gun went off, but -- ”

“Not that. Being. Being hurts.”

“Not being hurts more. Because if you decide not to be, Lindsay, then they won.”

She frowns.

“Every second feels like eternity.” She’s confessing. I’m honored.

“I know. I remember.”

She gives me a sharp look, her brown eyes narrowing. “You remember? You felt it, too?”

“The black hole.”

“It’s worse than that,” she admits. “Like -- ” Her heart rate shoots up suddenly, spiking. The machine behind me starts to beep.

“Hey, hey,” I soothe.

“Too much,” she whispers, her voice filled with anxiety. “It’s too much.”

Without hesitating, I stand up, still holding her hand, and stretch out on the narrow foot or so of mattress space at the edge of the bed. She’s shivering, but she doesn’t tense. Doesn’t freeze. Doesn’t push me away.

In fact, Lindsay curls into me as much as she can, given her immobilized shoulder. Her good hand goes on my chest, finding my heart.

Like it’s a guide for her own beat to follow.

Instantly, the sensors stop their crazy chatter. Lindsay’s breathing settles, her eyes closed.

I’m so fucking happy.

Through the window, I see Silas’s worried face. As he spots us, his face goes slack. Blank with surprise.

Then a gradual smile takes over his face and he gives me a thumbs up.

“Drew,” Lindsay says, her mouth against my shoulder.

“Yes?”

“How did you get through it? The distance? The darkness?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I just did.”

“No. Not good enough.”

“Not good enough?”