Karla slid her hand under the thermal blanket and laid it on Adam’s bare chest, over his heart. She knew the monitors beeped his heartbeat at steady intervals, but she needed the reassurance that only came from feeling his heart beating against the palm of her hand.
His skin was so hot, dry. They couldn’t keep the fever down. She pulled the blanket up to the bandage on the side of his neck that continued to seep blood, especially when he thrashed around as he had been doing since last night. The cougar also had clawed his side, which was covered in a bandage under the blanket. But most of the damage had been to his back and neck.
Tears blurred her eyes. He lay so deathly still now. They kept him heavily sedated because of the painful wounds he’d suffered, but she longed to see those crinkles in his eyes when he smiled. To know he had the resolve to fight his way back to her. To hear him growl or give her that special look that told her she’d gotten through to him, good or bad.
He stirred in his sleep. Since last night, he’d been restless, mumbling and thrashing about, as he appeared to fight old battles in his head. She’d stayed by his side for three days and nights, occasionally letting the others in, but Marc said she was probably the one he needed most. The one who could pull him back.
She didn’t understand why he’d said that, but didn’t argue either. Adam was only allowed two visitors at a time and she hated to give up her spot here for even short breaks. The nurses, as well as her friends, tried to get her to leave from time to time, but rarely succeeded.
Adam always took care of everyone else; never thought about himself. That was going to change. “Adam Montague, you’d better hear this,” she whispered. “You are precious to me and I’m going to take care of you, whether you like it or not.”
Adam needed her. He’d risked his life to protect her. Just as he’d done in that bus station, only this time, he’d nearly died. Now he needed her to protect him, watch over him. She wanted to be the first person he saw when he awoke.
If he ever woke up.
She laid her head on his arm, the one that didn’t have the IV tube puncturing his hand. Just one more wound on his battered body. She hadn’t been able to look at his back at the scene or when they’d changed the bandages. From Marc’s and Angelina’s reactions, it sounded really bad. She couldn’t stand to see his beautiful body so horribly mutilated.
All to save her.
Again.
“Garcia! D’Alessio! Report!”
Karla sprang up to look at Adam’s face contorted in sleep, his head thrashing about on the pillow. His hand flung up and would have hit her in the face if she hadn’t caught it in midair and held on tight.
“Shhh. It’s okay, Adam. You’re safe. I’m here.”
Her voice seemed to calm him, which made her feel good. Did he know she was here with him?
“I lost them, baby.”
She smiled. He’d never used any endearment other than “hon” or “honey” with her before, and he used that with other women, as well. But the despair on his face caused her to reach out and stroke the worry lines from his forehead.
“Oh, God, Joni. I lost so many of them.”
Joni Her hand stilled. He thought she was his dead wife. Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. Well, if he wanted Joni right now, she would be Joni.
“You did everything you could, Adam. You were a brave soldier.”
He growled. “Marine…know better.”
Karla smiled. She’d forgotten that he’d told her while writing to her from Iraq that calling a Marine a soldier was an insult. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I forgot myself.” His eyes remained closed and she leaned closer. “You’re my hero, Adam. Don’t you forget that.”
“Nobody’s hero.” She thought he’d fallen asleep again, he’d become so still. “Lost you, too, didn’t I?” he whispered.
Tears stung her eyes. “No, Adam, you’ll always have me. God brought us together” Forever.
“And our baby boy.”
Oh, God, he’d never told her that he’d lost a child. Adam kept so many of his hurts bottled up inside. She cleared her throat to get past the tears. “There’ll be other children.” She hoped. He would be such a wonderful father.
“Too late.”
No, we have all the time in the world—if you’ll just stop pushing me away.
The days of her letting him ignore her were over. She’d waited for Adam for nine years and, by God, she was going to have him. If that meant becoming a submissive for him, she’d learn how to do that.
When he’d bound her in ropes the other night, rather than feel constricted, she’d actually felt freed. Release through restraints, he’d said. She’d felt so precious and cared for. Adam had been so incredibly gentle, considerate, and tender. Long ago, she’d wondered what kind of lover he would be. Well, that night had shown her he could be gentle, even with the BDSM stuff.
“Excuse me, Miss.” Karla looked up to find a nurse’s tech. “Two family members would like to come back for a quick visit.” She looked down at a piece of paper in her hand. “Marc and Damián. This might be a good time for you to take a dinner break. Something smells really good out in the waiting room.”
Karla didn’t want or need a break right now. But she knew Adam needed to have time with Marc and Damián, too. She sat up, ignoring the protesting muscles that had been cramped for too long in the uncomfortable chair. Leaning over, she placed a kiss against his lips.
“I love you, Adam.”
“Love you, li’l subbie.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. Joni was the luckiest woman in the world to have been loved so well by this man.
“I won’t be gone long.” She squeezed his hand and left his room.
Karla met Marc and Damián at the entrance to the waiting room for the Tertiary Care Unit. “He’s been having a lot of dreams and nightmares. Incoherent. Fever hasn’t broken yet.”
Inside the waiting room, she was surprised to see what was left of an Italian feast spread out on the coffee table. The food probably smelled delicious, but it just churned her stomach at the moment.
After being introduced to Angie’s family who were about to leave, she homed in on Cassie, sitting alone with her sketch pad, lost in her special place. The crowd must have set her nerves on edge. She walked over to her sweet friend. “Cassie, what are you still doing here?”
Cassie looked up, blinking her sad brown eyes as she shifted her focus from the drawing she’d been intently working on back to the real world. Wisps of hair had come loose on her forehead and at her temples from her braided pigtails. She smiled, her lips always looking as though she’d painted them with a pale pink lipstick. But Cassie didn’t wear makeup. Ever. She tried to make herself as unattractive to men as possible, which was totally impossible, because she had a natural beauty that couldn’t be hidden or denied.
“I wanted to be here for you, Kitty. How is he?”
Karla sat down beside her. Cassie was the only one of her current friends who called her Kitty, a nickname she’d picked up in high school for reasons she couldn’t even remember. In college, she’d matured and the name seemed so childish.
“He’s still out of it. Talked in his sleep a little bit tonight, but he thought I…” She glanced away. “He gets confused. I think he’s having nightmares about things from the past, probably because of the fever and narcotics.”
And maybe a little bit because his guard has been relaxed for the first time in…well, forever.
“How are you doing, Kitty?”
Why did that question always lead to tears, whether it was her Dad, Adam, or now Cassie asking? Her friend reached out and squeezed her hand. “I love him so much, Cassie, and he doesn’t even know I…”
“You’ll let him know, when he gets better. Show him.”
“He’s so stubborn, honorable, proud. And he still loves his wife so much. I don’t know if he can ever love anyone else again.” Her heart squeezed tight.
“Breathe, Kitty. Right now.”
Karla remembered Adam’s giving her similar instructions on the nights she’d found him at her bedside after particularly vivid nightmares about Ian. Deep breaths. Now. She smiled.
But her smile faded quickly. When he regained his strength, the steel wall would go back up and he would shut her out again.
“I don’t know how to break down the wall, Cassie.”
“If anyone can figure it out, you can, Kitty.”
Cassie laid her forehead against Karla’s and the two shared a quiet moment, then Karla lifted her head and looked down at the sketchpad. Cassie had drawn the image of an angel, a woman, holding a tiny baby.
“Who’s that?”
Cassie looked down as if seeing it for the first time. She picked up the sketchpad and examined the angel and child more closely. “I have no idea. I don’t even remember sketching it.”
“You were intently working on it when I came out. You didn’t even notice me at first. May I?” Karla reached her hand out.
“Sure.”
Karla looked closely at the angel’s smiling face, but didn’t recognize her either. She wondered if it was Joni and their baby. Maybe Luke would know what Joni looked like. Karla knew there was a photo of her in Adam’s office, but she’d never brought herself to look. The woman’s ghost had such a strong hold over Adam. Right or wrong, Karla felt a little jealous of her chokehold on Adam’s heart. But perhaps seeing a sketch showing Joni and his baby boy were happy on the other side would ease some of Adam’s pain.
Maybe Luke could help. She carried the pad over to him.
“Any change, Karla?”
She shook her head and gave him the report she’d given the others. “Luke, do you know what Joni looks like?”
“I’ve seen a picture of her in Adam’s house, but it’s been a while.”
Karla extended the sketchpad to him. “Could this be her?”
* * *
Luke took the sketchpad and his blood ran cold.
Angel, seated next to him, placed her hand on his arm, apparently having noticed he’d gone tense. “What’s wrong, Luke? Who is it?”
“Mag…” He had to clear his throat to speak past the lump that had formed there. “It’s Maggie, my wife.” With our baby? Luke blinked several times so he could see the picture clearly again.
Karla’s hand covered her mouth. “Oh, my God. How can that be?”
Good question. How could Cassie, who’d never met either of them, draw such a perfect image of his dead wife? Luke looked over at Cassie, who became self-conscious under his scrutiny and moved her left hand up to brush the tendrils from her forehead in what clearly was a move to hide her face from him.
Luke turned back to the sketchpad, unable to stop looking at this smiling Maggie holding their baby. He’d forgotten what a beautiful smile she had. He had no doubt she’d wanted him to know both of them were okay.
“It’s time. I’m sending you an angel. She needs you.”
He closed his eyes and saw the image of the woman he’d seen in his dreams. Olive skin. Long brown hair. Sketching outside a mountain cabin. Cassie fit that physical description and was a recluse who lived in a cabin in the mountains.
She needs you.
Was Cassie the one she’d sent? The message seemed even more clear this time, but he’d mistaken Angel Giardano as being the one, too. He wouldn’t jump to conclusions too fast this time. Hell, Cassie was so skittish, he didn’t know how he’d be able to get within ten feet of her anyway.
You always did have a warped sense of humor, Maggie.
Karla didn’t take the sketchpad away from him when she went back over to Cassie. Karla apparently told her, because Cassie gasped and glanced furtively toward Luke, pain and confusion in her eyes. He held her gaze a few seconds, then she squirmed in her chair and looked down at her clenched hands.
Well, Maggie, you know I’ve always liked a challenge—and I don’t give up.
He smiled.
* * *
Karla had never felt so rattled before in her life. For Luke to have such a precious glimpse of heaven and his lost loved ones was such a godsend. But why Luke? Cassie had never met him before in her life. Why hadn’t she sketched a picture for Karla showing Ian happy on the other side? Smiling. Raising a little hell maybe.
And Adam. What would it have meant to him to have received a similar sketch of Joni and their baby boy?
She shook her head. “Why Luke?” She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until Cassie responded.
“I told you, Karla. It just came to me out of the blue. What do you think it means?”
“I have no clue. You’re sure you’ve never met Luke?”
Cassie glanced surreptitiously across the waiting room at him and Karla thought she noticed a blush on her cheeks. “Never. I’d have remembered him. He looks like…” She turned her gaze to Karla. “Never mind.”
Before she could ask any other questions, Marc and Damián came out and her focus reverted immediately to Adam. They approached her and she wanted to get back to Adam now. When she stood, the blood rushed to her head and she swayed on her feet. Damián was by her side in a second and wrapped his arm around her, supporting her.
She’d grown very fond of him, since he’d intimidated her to death during her audition at the club. He teased her the way Ian had and usually managed to bring a smile to her face. Only he wasn’t smiling much these days either.
“When’s the last time you ate, chica?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s not an answer. C’mon, look at all this food. You need to eat.”
Karla pulled away and glared at him. “I said, I’m not hungry.”
Damián grinned. “Me-ow. The gatita has claws.”
“Stop calling me kitten.”
He grew serious. “You can’t be strong for Adam if you don’t take care of yourself.”
The sadistic bastard knew just how to draw blood. How Damián could go from playful tease to sensual sadist in the club, Karla never could understand. But he knew what would inflict the most pain and the thought of not being strong enough for Adam led her to walk over to the table and dish out some lasagna and pull off a piece of crusty bread. She sat and ate, growling at Damián, who just grinned back at her.
I’m doing this for Adam, not you.
Minutes later, she was beside Adam’s bed again. He slept fitfully, having kicked the blanket off again. Karla covered him and took up her sentry position in the chair at first. She stroked his arm, which felt sweaty. Maybe his fever was breaking.
“Just rest, Adam. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m here.”
Suddenly needing to feel closer to him, she laid her head on the bed, placing her hand across his blanketed chest. She drifted off to sleep and was awoken by another one of Adam’s bad dreams.
“I’ll be good. Don’t lock me in there, Mommy!”
He sounded so scared. His voice was high-pitched, like a little boy’s. Oh, God! What horror was he reliving now? What kind of mother would lock a little boy up? Anger welled up in Karla and she wanted to slay the dragons of his past, whoever they may be.
Adam cried out, a most pitiful, keening sound, and her heart broke for the little boy locked inside him. What horrors had he endured? Karla stood and reached up to stroke his whiskered cheek.
“Adam, listen to me. You were a good boy. And you’re a good man. No one will ever hurt you again.”
Not if I can prevent it.
Needing to hold him, to keep the most insidious of the demons away, Karla crawled up onto the narrow bed and stretched out beside him. She laid her head on his chest and her arm and leg over his chest and thigh, sliding her hand under the blanket and splaying it over his heart.
She’d first fallen in love with Adam’s bare chest at the age of sixteen, there in her family’s kitchen as her mother had patched up the wounds he’d received rescuing her at the bus station when she’d been stupid enough to run away from home.
But if she hadn’t run away, she never would have found Adam. Fate. Just like the voice she’d heard later that day telling her to go after Adam when he’d left the house to walk. Watch over him. She’d followed him to the lake and watched as he stood braced against the elements, lost in his thoughts. When he’d turned toward her, she’d seen tears in his eyes and, much later, she’d learned Joni had died just a couple weeks before that.
When Karla had professed her love for him on her front porch shortly after, as only a sixteen-year-old with a crush could do, he’d let her down so gently, not wanting to hurt her feelings. She grinned. The look of terror on his face had been priceless—in retrospect. But she’d never forgotten his words.
I still love my wife.
Now, nine years later, Karla could see his love for Joni was as strong as ever. How could she make him see her as a living, breathing woman who wanted to love him. Now. Who wasn’t that immature sixteen-year-old runaway? Who needed to…
“Karla?”
Her heart thudded against her chest. Adam! The rumble of his beautifully raspy voice against her cheek brought her head up and she met his gaze. He recognized her! She smiled for the first time in days.
She reached out and stroked his scruffy cheek. “You’ve come back to me, Adam.”
“What the fuck are you doing in my bed?”