Page 72 of Tormented Hearts

Sinead issued a wet, broken laugh and agreed.

Rhae picked up her young daughter and carried her away. Ayla and Willow said a few soft words to Sinead and left too, leaving her with Bella. The woman didn’t pry her for information on what happened out there. She just stayed close, her presence offering comfort.

They didn’t close the curtain between them, allowing them to see each other. When the surgeon wrapped up with Hawk, he stepped around the curtain to speak to her.

“Your bodyguard should play the lottery, because he’s one lucky son of a bitch.”

His harsh statement was just the sort of thing she imagined from a surgeon in combat hospitals. And it was just the thing she needed to reassure her that Hawk was going to be all right.

“The bullet went straight through. Ultrasound and x-rays show it missed anything important. Didn’t even nick a rib.” He smiled and peeled off his sterile cap to reveal thick blond hair. “He lost some blood, and we’ve given him a transfusion. I’ve given him something for pain, and it will help him sleep.”

She nodded, fingers twisting together. “Thank you,” she said thickly.

He nodded. “You should get some rest too.” He looked at Bella.

Something passed between them, though Sinead couldn’t put her finger on it. A current of energy. Maybe more.

“I’ll see that she is settled in a room,” Bella said.

The surgeon nodded and was gone, and for a long moment Sinead just sat there, letting his words settle into the empty spaces the fear had carved out.

Missed anything important. Didn’t even nick a rib.

She repeated it in her head like a prayer, needing to believe it fully before she let herself move.

She stood on legs that felt borrowed and crossed to the gap in the curtain.

Hawk lay on his side, bandages stark white against his skin, IV line taped into the back of his hand. The same hand that had gone so cold in the helicopter. His eyes were closed, chest rising and falling slow and even, color already creeping back into his face now that the transfusion had done its work. He looked wrecked and exhausted and utterly, gorgeously alive.

She pressed a hand flat over her own mouth, holding back a sound that wanted to be a sob and came out instead as something closer to relief.

He was okay. She could see it now—really see it, not just hear it secondhand from a surgeon with a blunt bedside manner—and something in her chest finally, finally unclenched.

She stepped closer, careful of the wires and lines, and rested her palm gently against his shoulder, needing the contact more than she needed anything else in that moment.

His eyes drifted open at her touch, unfocused at first, then finding her face.

“Hey,” he rasped, voice rough from whatever they’d given him.

“Hey yourself,” she whispered back, and let herself finally believe it.

He was okay. He was really, truly okay.

Which was good because he may have fulfilled the terms of his contract with her, but he hadn’t even begun to meet the terms of hers—the ones she hadn’t written down anywhere.

The ones that said stay.

That said don’t ever scare me like that again.

That said I love you and I meant it and I need you to survive long enough to say it back.

“Don’t do that again,” she whispered, pressing her forehead lightly to his.

His hand found hers, weak but certain. “No promises.”

She let out a watery laugh. “Hawk.”

“I’ll do my best,’ he amended, voice softening. “For you. Always for you.”