Hero

by Samantha Young

  Grandpa’s hands curled around my foot. He looked tired. Disheveled. Not at all himself. “You’re going to be okay, sweetheart.”

  “Lexie.”

  I moved my head to the side and found Caine sitting at my bedside. He held my hand between both of his and he was leaning in so close his face was inches from mine. He looked exhausted too.

  I was confused. “What’s going on?”

  Caine frowned. “You don’t remember? You’re in the hospital.”

  The hospital?

  I frowned and glanced up behind me at the origin of the beeping. I saw the monitors and the IV drip that pierced my arm and it finally hit me that I was in a hospital bed. “Hospital?” I repeated.

  The memories came back in an avalanche of images.

  The dark blur. The pain. The blood.

  Waking up on the gurney as I was wheeled into the ER. Caine’s anxious face. His shirt covered in my blood. His hand refusing to let mine go as the paramedics tried to calm me down.

  The sight of the ER doctor rushing toward me was the last thing I remembered.

  The beeping on the machine escalated in rhythm as my heart rate picked up.

  “I had better go tell the doctor she’s awake,” Grandpa said before disappearing out of the private room. As he passed the door I noted the huge guy in a tight T-shirt and jeans standing outside with his hands behind his back, alert to the world around him. A gun holder was strapped across his back. He was armed?

  Understanding only the basics of what had happened to me, I felt fear and panic starting to crawl inside me. I looked back at Caine, whose grip on my hand had tightened. “Someone stabbed me.”

  I remembered the black blur of the body that had brushed me before the pain hit me in the gut.

  Why? Why would someone attack me?

  Anger blazed in Caine’s eyes as he replied thickly, “Yes. I didn’t even see it happen. When I came over to you, you looked up at me with this strange, pained look on your face. Your eyes weren’t focusing. You were pale. And then I looked down and I saw the blood spreading across your shirt. You passed out. We got you here and you woke up for a bit in the ER, but then you were out again. A surgeon arrived and he didn’t think anything major had been hit. He had you taken to the OR to explore the area. Thankfully he was right. The knife didn’t hit any major organs or arteries. They stitched you up and we got you a private room. They said you’ll have to stay in the hospital for a few days.”

  All of that of course was great to hear, considering the fact that someone had put a knife in my belly … but I was more interested in what Caine wasn’t saying. “Why would someone do this?” I moved to push myself up, but a sharp burn shot down my stomach and I cried out in pain.

  “Jesus, Lexie,” Caine scolded, “you just got stabbed. Try not to move.”

  I glowered at him. “I forgot about my wound, okay?” I winced at the ghost of pain. “I won’t again anytime soon.”

  “Alexa, you’re awake.” I looked up at the sound of the rich, smooth voice and found it belonged to a pleasant-looking young man. “I’m your surgeon, Dr. Fredericks.” He looked so young I was kind of anxious about the fact that he’d been poking around my knife wound.

  “Hey.”

  He smiled at my weak greeting and came closer, followed by my grandfather. “When you were admitted to the ER, I took you up to the OR to explore your wound and make sure that no major organs …”

  I listened as he repeated pretty much everything Caine had already told me.

  “So I’m okay?” I said when he was finished.

  “Yes. You’re going to be okay. I recommend that we keep you in the hospital under observation for a few days just to make sure you’re fighting off any possible infection, and then we can send you home. You’re looking at a recovery time of four to six weeks. Your nurse will be in soon to discuss antibiotics, pain management, and the routine for dressing the wound.” He looked between Caine and me and obviously drew his own conclusions when he said, “I’m glad you’ve got someone to help you. As much as I want you to be gently exercising throughout your recovery, the first week or so is difficult. You’ll need someone to help you get around.”

  I lowered my gaze at the doctor’s misunderstanding, and wondered how the hell I was going to cope on my own for the next six weeks. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “You’re welcome. We gave you something for the pain, but if you need anything just use your call button. Angela, your nurse, will be in soon.”

  The door closed behind him and I pulled my hand out of Caine’s grasp. “Now that that’s done, would one of you like to tell me why there’s a huge guy guarding my door? I’m thinking it’s got something to do with being stabbed, but I’ve been wrong in the past in situations like these. Oh, wait. I’ve never been a situation like this before.”

  “Lexie.” Caine’s warning only pissed me off more.

  “Don’t.”

  “I’m asking you to keep calm so I don’t fucking lose it,” he snapped, pushing up out of his chair with agitated energy.

  “Please, Alexa,” Grandpa said soothingly. “It took a lot to calm him down while you were out.”

  Guilt pricked me. I glanced up at Caine from under my lashes. He was worried about me too. “Sorry. I just … I half want to know whatever it is you guys know and I half really don’t.”

  Caine shared a look with my grandfather, then sat back down beside me. “We looked at footage from security cameras outside the building, and I have friends in the police department, so we’ve got them moving fast on this. They looked at footage from traffic cameras in the area. Both show you were approached by a man dressed in a black hoodie and jeans. He brushes by you, pauses a moment, and then hurries away like all he did was stumble into you. He had his hood up the whole time. We followed him using the traffic cameras, but we lost him at Faneuil Hall. The police are looking for him, but there are no leads so far.”

  “We’ll be looking to see if anyone has a grudge against Caine,” Grandpa spoke up. “But we also need to know of anyone in your past that might have a grudge against you.”

  I was paralyzed by disbelief. “No. I can’t think. No one who … This was … You think this was premeditated?” I was outraged and hurt in so many ways. “Why would …”

  The hardness in Caine’s eyes dissipated and he took my hand in his again. “I don’t know. But I promise you I will do everything to find out. For now I’ve got private security guarding your hospital room, and when you’re released I’m taking you back to my apartment where you can be protected.”

  Horror racked me. “Are you saying … are you saying this person might try to hurt me again?”

  Their silence was answer enough.

  I suddenly felt stifled by my fear in a way I’d never encountered before. I felt hunted, trapped, by the idea that some person was out there waiting for his next opportunity to attack me. I’d never feared walking out of my door, stepping out on my street before, but now the very thought of standing anywhere out in the open caused me this bone-deep terror.

  My chest wheezed as I tried to draw breath.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I can’t breathe.

  Black dots speckled my vision and my skin felt suddenly clammy and too tight.

  “Lexie.” Caine’s hand tightened on mine as his other smoothed my hair back from my face. “Deep breaths, Lex.” He took in a deep breath and let go of it slowly.

  I concentrated on his face and on mimicking him.

  The panic began to ease its death grip on me.

  My limbs felt limp, and I was more exhausted than ever. “Why is this happening?” I whispered as I closed my eyes.

  A few seconds later warm lips brushed against my forehead. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  I relaxed a little more upon Caine’s hoarse vow and felt the darkness of sleep reach for me.

  “I’ll have to tell Adele everything,” I heard Grandpa’s voice in the distance. “I’d
like to help in any way I can. I don’t want to leave Alexa to deal with this alone.”

  “She’s not alone. She’s got me,” Caine said. His voice sounded much colder now.

  “Yes, but for how long?”

  “Don’t you dare … You have no right to even be here. I’ll take care of Lex. You just go back to keeping the peace in your family, Edward. Lexie knows where your priorities lie. It would be hypocritical to change your mind now.”

  “This coming from you? I watched you on Saturday night and I can see the way she is with you now. You’ve left her.”

  “I never stopped being her friend. Now, the last thing she needs is us arguing, and frankly there’s only one Holland in this room I can stand, so why don’t you do what you’re good at and leave, and let me take care of her?”

  “She’s my granddaughter, my family. I’m going home to tell Adele about her, and I’m going to bring her to the hospital to see her granddaughter, and by God, no one, including you and your security guards, is going to stand in our way.”

  I tried to stay awake to hear Caine’s reply, but the darkness was much too warm and inviting …

  CHAPTER 27

  The hospital threw Caine out. They had a strict visiting hour policy and although he’d somehow managed to arrange it with them and the police to keep the two big, burly security guys stationed outside my door, the hospital wouldn’t budge on allowing him to stay. The fact that we’d broken up had temporarily fled my mind and I didn’t want him to leave. When I woke up my grandfather was gone and the police were waiting to talk to me. Caine sat by my side the whole time as I recounted what I could remember. None of it was very useful since I hadn’t seen the guy’s face.

  “He smelled a little,” I recalled. “Like stale sweat.”

  The police left with grim faces and Caine’s hand was gripping mine so hard I had to ask him to ease up on me. I knew my attack had shaken him up, and I had to admit that took a little of the sting out of his rejection. He didn’t love me, but he at least cared about me, and that was enough right then. Because right then I was scared, and he was the only thing that made me feel safe.

  I didn’t want him to leave.

  I could tell he didn’t want to leave me.

  So, even though I didn’t think I owed it to him, I gave him a reassuring smile and told him I’d be fine.

  “I’m tired anyway. I’ll just be sleeping. And you do have Stallone and Schwarzenegger stationed outside my door.”

  “I’ll be back in the morning.” He reluctantly shrugged on his jacket and leaned down as if to press a kiss to my forehead. He hesitated and instead of brushing his mouth across my temple, he bent lower and brushed his lips across mine. “Get some rest.”

  Dazed, I nodded and watched him leave, all the while wondering what the hell that had been about.

  The next morning I woke up before visiting hours in pain. Angela, my nurse, gave me Percocet and told me to stop wriggling around so much if I could help it. I couldn’t help it. I’d had approximately three hours of sleep. I’d woken up at every little noise and then had almost suffocated as I subconsciously held my breath while I attempted to hear over the sound of blood rushing through my ears.

  I’d remind myself I had my own commandos outside and then I’d doze off again, only to be woken up by the sharp, burning pain in my belly.

  Restless sleep did not go hand in hand with a knife wound.

  Caine showed up at morning visiting hours and he came brandishing pastries and coffee. He snuck them to me, and I swore if he had wanted to, I’d have married him right there and then.

  “Thank you.” I threw him a soft smile in gratitude.

  “You sleep okay?”

  “Fine. You?”

  “Fine.”

  We were both lying. He looked exhausted and I could only imagine I looked like shit.

  “I have a few things I need to do, but Effie said she’s dropping by this afternoon. I called Rachel and let her know what happened. She said she’d be here soon. I’ll drop by again this evening.”

  “Thank you,” I repeated. “You really don’t have to take care of me, you know.”

  He looked instantly annoyed.

  “Not that I’m not grateful,” I hurried to assure him.

  “There’s a possibility that the person who did this did it to get to me.” He stood up abruptly and started shrugging into his jacket. “I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

  All I’d been thinking about was who the possible culprit was. I knew my father was capable of some pretty shitty things, and that mixed with how I’d treated him for the last seven years, plus not knowing what my mother’s death might have done to him … but it was ridiculous. I shook the thought off right away, disturbed that I’d even considered it. It plagued me that I’d considered it. So I desperately tried to think of who else it might have been. And although I hated to think that Caine was right, something occurred to me. “What about that woman you were talking to on Saturday night? She sounded like she was threatening you.”

  Caine frowned. “I’m almost positive it wasn’t her, but I’m looking into it.”

  “We should tell the police about it.”

  “No,” he snapped.

  I blanched, feeling that ugly suspicion that I’d felt on Saturday night coil in my stomach. “Why not?”

  “Just … trust me. Please.” He stared me down until I nodded my uncertain agreement. “I’m doing everything in my power to find out what was behind your attack, whether it was random or has something to do with me. I won’t stop until I uncover the truth. You can believe that.”

  “So you’re taking care of me out of guilt?”

  “I’m taking care of you because it’s the right thing to do.”

  I narrowed my gaze on him. He’d gone all “preknifed Alexa” on me. “Wow, that makes me feel so special.”

  Caine sighed. “The smart-ass is back,” he muttered. “Someone’s feeling better.”

  “Yes, some mystery assailant did a drive-by slicing on my belly. I’m positively perky.”

  He cut me a dark look.

  I huffed, “You’re allowed to be concerned about me, you know. I’m not going to take your concern as an avowal of love.”

  We glared at each other for a few seconds and then Caine gradually softened. “Sorry. I’m being an ass. Of course I’m concerned. I’m taking care of you because I’m concerned, no other reason.”

  Grateful at his admission, I reassured him, even though it hurt my heart to do so. “As your friend, and nothing more, I appreciate it and understand where it’s coming from. I’m not expecting anything to change because I got stabbed in the gut.”

  “Would you stop saying that?” He gritted his teeth. “I keep seeing it every time you say it.”

  “Sorry.”

  He sighed again, but his lips had curled up at the corners, so I knew he wasn’t irritated anymore. “I’ll be back tonight.”

  As soon as he walked out the door, I slumped against my pillows and felt tears burn my eyes. I hated to admit it to myself, but the truth was, after his behavior yesterday, I’d let that hope sneak back in again. I’d hoped that his tenderness, his affection, his irate reaction to what had been done to me meant that he finally realized how he felt about me.

  God, I was such an idiot.

  “When Caine called I was so freaking worried.” Rachel slumped on my bed beside me. “And then I stepped out of my door and saw this.” She slapped the tabloid newspaper on my knee.

  A photograph of Caine and me occupied the lower half of the front page with the headline CARRAWAY’S PA ATTACKED OUTSIDE CARRAWAY FINANCIAL HOLDINGS.

  “Oh my God.”

  “Oh, it gets worse.”

  I pulled the paper up toward me and began to read out loud, “ ‘Yesterday afternoon, busy workers in the financial district were horrified during lunchtime rush hour to witness Caine Carraway’s PA, Alexa Holland, loaded into an ambulance. Although there was no actual witness to th
e event itself, it has since been reported that Miss Holland, who is pictured above with Mr. Carraway at the Delaneys’ Alzheimer’s Benefit on Saturday evening, was brutally stabbed outside Two International Place. Miss Holland is said to be in recovery while the police search for the attacker.

  “ ‘It is not clear whether Miss Holland was the victim of a targeted attack, or was just simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but what is clear is that Mr. Carraway, of Carraway Financial Holdings, is pulling out all the stops to bring justice to his employee. An insider reports that he has hired private security to watch over Miss Holland while she’s in the hospital, and that he is working diligently with the police in tracking the culprit. Questions are being asked not only about the nature of the relationship between the beautiful PA and the wealthy CEO, but also of the mysterious secrecy revolving around Miss Holland’s family. Our investigator reports that Miss Holland is in fact the daughter of Alistair Holl …’ ” I trailed off, sucking in a breath.

  “Go on,” Rachel urged.

  “ ‘… the daughter of Alistair Holland, the son of Diamond heir and entrepreneur Edward Holland, who famously and mysteriously disinherited his firstborn almost twenty years ago. Alistair Holland divorced his wife, Patricia Estelle Holland, leaving behind her and their son, Matthew, while he went on to settle down in Connecticut, where he married Julie Brown, the mother of his daughter, Alexa Holland. Edward Holland and his family have not publicly acknowledged Miss Holland despite the fact that she’s been a resident of Boston for the last seven years. Edward Holland was not available to comment.’ ”

  I looked up at Rachel, who was staring at me with something akin to hurt on her face. “Rach,” I whispered.

  “Look. I don’t want to take away from the fact that you’ve been stabbed and I’m really scared and upset for you right now, but I can’t believe you didn’t tell me who your family is. I mean I knew your dad was a bastard, but I didn’t know he was also the son of one of Boston’s oldest and wealthiest families.”