Page 93 of Diners, Damsels & Wolves

“I did. And I think you should wait and give her the chance to talk to you about it.”

“Go home, Maria.”

She squeezed his arm before leaving.

He continued to stand there. He didn’t know how much time had passed. The nurses came and went several times.

“Sir?”

He jumped. A woman in blue scrubs stood at his elbow.

“You can go in and sit with her if you want,” she said.

He pinched his brows together. He wanted nothing more than to be at her side, but he needed to consider what she would want. If she wasn’t afraid of him being a wolf before, seeing him covered in gore in the woods certainly would have horrified her.

“Are you Thomas?” the nurse asked. He nodded. “She’s been asking for you, in her sleep.”

Shock rocked his core, chased by waves of warm relief. She was asking for him. After everything that happened, she wanted him next to her?

“You know, a lot of people don’t think they can hear you when they’re asleep, but they can. The patients who have relatives talk to them, sit with them, they recover faster. She’ll know you were there for her.”

The nurse left.

In a daze, he went into her room, taking the chair from the corner. Setting it to face her at her unbroken arm, he sat down.

His lips quivered. Clutching her cold hand in both of his, he brought it to his lips. The emotions that’d been building inside him finally cracked, he couldn’t hold the dam back any longer. Gripping her was like a lifeline as he wept.

Twenty Eight

Thomas

“Here’s your breakfast.” An orderly set a tray on the table in front of Clarissa’s hospital bed.

She didn’t move to open it. Tom leaned over and pulled the lid off—scrambled eggs, sausage, hash brown cakes, with a side of Jell-O.

“You should eat,” he said, staring at the tray. His heart couldn’t take looking at her battered face, or the swollen arm braced and propped up on a pile of pillows. It made him hurt every time.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

He fell back in his chair with a defeated huff. These were the first words she’d spoken to him.

“I have some questions,” she said.

“Of course.”

“I … I don’t even know where to start.” She was quiet for a long time. He thought she’d gone back to sleep. “You. I mean, your family … you’re not a mob boss?”

His jaw dropped. Her pale face flushed as her good hand picked at the hem of her blanket.

“At the picnic, everyone kept calling you ‘boss’ and then …” She sniffled. “And then there were other ‘bosses of the family’ that were coming to pay their respects to you. I thought, I mean, it was the only thing that made sense at the time.”

“When you told me you didn’t feel safe at the picnic …” he trailed off.

She nodded.

“Most of the people in my family are marshmallows,” he said, shell-shocked.

“I … I don’t know why that’s the conclusion I came to. I just, that’s, I didn’t know what to think and I was scared and felt betrayed. I’m sorry.”