Page 118 of Nothing But Air

“Come on, Liam.” She kept her voice low, conversational, the way she’d been trained. Studies showed comatose patients often heard more than anyone realized. “Time to wake up and wipe the worry off your pretty girlfriend’s face.”

Nothing. Just the steady beep of the cardiac monitor and the soft wheeze of the blood-pressure cuff deflating. Somewhere down the hall, a cart rattled past. The antiseptic smell of hospital-grade cleaner mixed with the faint metallic tang that always seemed to linger in these rooms—blood and saline and fear.

Meg tucked the penlight back in her lab-coat pocket and studied him. Dark, wavy hair matted against the pillow, still gritty with canyon dust despite the nurses’ best efforts. A purple bruise bloomed from his left temple to his cheekbone, the skin swollen and angry around the edges. His jaw—that strong, stubborn jaw Nimue had sketched in her notebook a dozen times—was relaxed now, slack in a way that made Meg’s stomach clench.

The CT showed swelling but no epidural or subdural bleeds. Good news. The length of unconsciousness…less good.

The door swung open and Noah appeared in the doorway with two cups of coffee.

“Anything?” Noah’s voice came out tight. Controlled. But the muscle jumping in his jaw gave him away.

“No change.” Meg stepped back to let him closer to the bed and accepted one of the cups. “But that’s not necessarily bad news. His brain is healing. Sometimes it just takes time.”

“How much time?” Nimue sat up and took the other cup with her left hand but didn’t let go of Liam’s hand with her right.

Meg wrapped her hands around the warmth, inhaling the bitter steam. Not hospital coffee—this was the good stuff from the café down the street. Noah must have walked three blocks for it. “Could be hours. Could be days.” She took a sip, letting the caffeine hit her system. She’d done longer shifts during her residency, but that didn’t mean she liked it. “But his vitals are strong. The swelling is already starting to come down. I’m optimistic.”

Noah eased into the plastic chair beside Liam’s bed, deep-brown eyes—usually so guarded—raw with worry as he studied Liam’s face. Not long ago, Noah refused to let anyone close. Hadn’t wanted friends or community or anything that might crack open the fortress of grief he’d built around himself.

Now look at him. Sitting bedside vigil for a guy he’d hired as a seasonal ranger.

“Have you heard anything from the teams?” Noah kept his gaze on Liam, but the question was directed at her. “Did they make it back to base camp?”

“Last I heard, they were hiking out this morning. Should arrive by midafternoon.” Meg checked her watch. Just past noon. The second hand ticked past the twelve, steady and sure. “Xander was coordinating from South Rim dispatch. He’d call if there was a problem.”

Silence settled over the room. Not comfortable silence—the kind that stretched and pulled, filled with all the things no one wanted to say. Meg found herself watching Liam’s face, cataloging every micromovement. The flutter of eyelids. A change in respiratory rate. A twitch of fingers against the bleached hospital sheets.

Anything.

Then—

A groan.

Low. Rough. The sound of someone clawing their way back from very far away.

Nimue was at his side before Meg could blink, her coffee abandoned on the bedside table as she grabbed Liam’s hand with both of hers. “Liam?”

Meg pressed the nurse’s call button and then moved to his other side, leaning over him as his eyes began to move beneath closed lids. Rapid eye movement. Good sign. Very good sign. “Liam? Can you hear me?” She kept her voice calm, professional, even as her pulse kicked up. “It’s Meg. You’re in the hospital. You’re safe.”

“Nimue is right here,” Meg added, softening her tone. “And she’d love to see those blue eyes of yours.”

His eyelids fluttered. Once. Twice. Then slowly—so slowly—they opened.

Unfocused at first. Pupils dilating against the light, searching, trying to make sense of the world. Meg held her breath. This was the moment. Either he’d come back to them, or…

His gaze found Nimue’s face. Settled there. And despite everything—the bruises, the swelling, the hours of unconsciousness—a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“There you are.” Meg couldn’t keep the relief from her voice. “Welcome back. Do you know where you are?”

Liam’s eyes tracked slowly around the room. The IV pole with its tangle of tubing. The cardiac monitor with its steady green line. The industrial tile ceiling with its water-stained panels. Then back to Nimue, his expression softening in a way that made Meg’s chest ache.

“Why am I in the hospital?” His voice came out like sandpaper on wood. Rough. Raw. The voice of someone who hadn’t spoken in far too long.

She clicked the nurse’s call button again. “You had a pretty bad head injury on a climb. Do you remember that?”

“The canyon. We were—” His hand came up toward his head, reaching for the goose egg hidden beneath his hairline, but Nimue caught it gently. Brought it back down to rest against the sheets.

“Don’t touch.” She pressed her lips to his knuckles. “You’ve got quite a bump there.”