Trusting Xavier

by Casey Hagen

  Chapter 5

  Laramie cracked open her eyes, this time to a quiet room bathed in a golden glow. She looked around, for a moment forgetting she was in the hospital. The harsh fluorescent lighting overhead that would normally be her first clue sat dark while recessed lights scattered about the ceiling illuminated the room.

  “Hey,” Lucas said from next to her, his warm hand enveloping hers. His hair stood on end like he’d been running his hand through it the majority of the night, something she remembered him doing a lot when he was frustrated or trying to figure out a problem.

  The problem was usually her.

  Ironically, it still was.

  She gave a whole new meaning to pain-in-the-ass little sister.

  “Hi,” she said, pushing the words past her aching throat. “What time is it?”

  “Almost seven. The meds took a lot out of you,” Lucas said with a small smile while smoothing her hair off her forehead.

  “Harmony, can I see her?”

  “Sure. They were just waiting for you to wake up. I’ll let them know you’re awake, hang on,” he said as he stood and headed for the door.

  She turned her head left then right; sore and stiff, her neck jerked as though she had a kink. The IV itched. Clenching her fist and releasing it a few times, she tried to alleviate the need to scratch at it.

  Lucas slid in next to her bed. “It’ll be just a few minutes. What can I get you?”

  “Water and if I could just sit up a bit,” she said, pushing her hands against the mattress under her. She tried to scoot herself back, but her arms folded and her body went heavy, sinking her into the bed even more than she had been.

  “Here,” Lucas said, giving her the cup. “I’ll raise you up, too.”

  Pushing the button on the side of the bed, the back slowly rose until she was almost fully seated. The ache shifted now with gravity pulling on her upper body in a new way. “Okay, I’m up, so let’s cut right through the bullshit. What happened to me?” she asked, wary of the answer but knowing she needed to face it just the same.

  “You don’t remember anything?” he asked, his knuckles turning white where they clenched the rail next to her.

  Barely restrained anger. Some things never changed. Oh, they’d gotten older. Life had gotten harder for each of them. But they slid right back into this sibling dance where she could read his emotions as they played out before her.

  And he’d surely be able to read hers as well.

  “No, nothing. I was home. I—I had just tucked Harmony in for the night, I think. I was getting ready to lock up and watch a movie in bed, and I heard the garbage cans fall over behind the house. I headed to the back door to check them, but that’s where it ends.” She fought to say the words clearly around her stiff lip as she spoke. Reaching up, she traced her fingers over the thin ridge that wasn’t there before. “What is this?”

  His jaw clenched and his gaze narrowed. “It’s a faint scar.”

  “A scar?”

  He glanced away. “Yeah, but don’t sweat it, it makes you look like a badass superhero.”

  “Lucas?”

  “Hmmm,” he mumbled as he found the room all of a sudden too fascinating to tear his attention from.

  “Look at me,” she said quietly.

  He looked in her direction, but his focus turned to something just past her shoulder.

  “Lucas. Look. At. Me,” she said again.

  He finally did, his gaze roaming over her face. Eyes shuttered, his cheeks turned scarlet and his teeth clenched.

  “Just rip the Band-Aid off already and tell me what happened,” she said quietly.

  “You were beaten and left for dead,” he said, his voice breaking with his quiet words. “The bones in your face, they uh—were all broken. Brain trauma.”

  She roamed her hands over her face, her heart racing as she felt for scars and cuts. “I need a mirror; hurry, before Harmony comes in,” she said as she fought to swing her uncooperative legs over the side of the bed.

  “Shhh, it’s okay,” Lucas said, cupping his hands on her shoulders and crouching down to look her in the eye.

  “But what will my daughter think if she sees me like this? I don’t want to scare her,” she said, glancing around for her purse, a mirror, anything so she could get a look. “Maybe some makeup—”

  “Laramie,” Lucas said, the anguish in his voice and the way it broke snapping her attention to him.

  Even as she had been recklessly defying every bit of advice he’d given her, he’d been her hero, a pillar of strength. Only now, the way his eyes shone with—God, were those tears?—a knot of dread lodged in her gut.

  She curled her fingers into the blanket in her lap. “What is it, Lucas? Just tell me.”

  “Harmony is the one who found you. The one who called 9-1-1. Seeing a thin scar on your lip won’t matter after—”

  Hot tears slid down her cheeks before he was even done. Her throat clogged with a torrent of tears she struggled to hold back. “It’s not true. Tell me it’s not true, Lucas. Tell me she didn’t see me like that,” she begged.

  He didn’t say another word and instead lowered himself onto the bed next to her gently and pulled her into his arms.

  Everything hurt, the way he held her tight to his chest, his shoulder pressing against her jaw, but she didn’t care. Crumpling his T-shirt in her hands, she clung to him as guilt and shame warred in her heart.

  “We’re going to fix it, Laramie. I promise you; we’re going to get to the bottom of all of this and make the bastards that did this to you pay. And Harmony will be fine. Xavier even managed to break through to her today. He figured out what you were trying to say, and Harmony now has a social worker with her who knows sign language.”

  “Who’s Xavier?” she managed past the tears.

  “Dr. Thorne. He’s part of the team trying to figure this all out. We know about your husband, about Witsec, all of it. We have questions, a lot of questions, but we’ll get there. Your first priority is Harmony.”

  The door cracked open, and a woman popped her head in. “Is it a good time?”

  Lucas glanced over his shoulder and rubbed his hand up and down her back as though rubbing warmth back into her. “Yeah, we’re good. Come on in.”

  A short woman who didn’t look older than a high schooler with a bright-yellow T-shirt that read “I know sign language. What’s your superpower?” walked in holding Harmony’s hand.

  Laramie brushed away her tears and opened her arms, relief coursing through her at Harmony’s huge smile.

  She didn’t recoil in fear. She didn’t even hesitate. Her little girl let go of the hand she held and ran to her bedside where Lucas scooped her right up and laid her in Laramie’s arms.

  Harmony’s warm skin and the familiar smell of baby shampoo and detangler soothed Laramie’s aches in a way no pain medicine could. She could finally breathe now with her little girl in her arms.

  “Hi Mrs. Caine. My name is Cora. It’s wonderful to meet you.”

  Laramie fought not to cringe. Cora was just being polite, but this would be the last time anyone called her Mrs. Caine. “Please, I insist, call me Laramie.”

  “Laramie,” she said with a nod. “Harmony is just a joy and I look forward to spending more time getting to know her. I don’t want to interrupt. I’ll be back in a few minutes if that’s okay.”

  “Perfect. Thank you,” Laramie said giving Harmony and extra squeeze.

  Pulling back, she sought those blue eyes she’d fallen in love with the very first time she’d met her. The minute Harmony looked up, Laramie signed three little words that mattered most. One gesture, with one hand, her middle and ring fingers curled down with the rest of her fingers extended.

  Harmony mirrored the symbol and as usual tried to press her fingertips to Laramie’s. The sweet gesture never failed to remind Laramie just how delicate her little girl was in a world full of cruel, dangerous people. The older Laramie had gotten, the scarier the monsters and the

harder it became to break free of them.

  She wanted so much better for Harmony, and it was almost within reach. But again, Laramie fell short.

  She ran her fingers through her daughter’s soft curls and kissed her temple, her sole focus on the little heartbeat in Harmony’s chest that thumped against hers. She found Lucas’ gaze and smiled. “You picked her right up like it was the most natural thing in the world. I guess you got over your aversion to kids.”

  Too many years had passed without seeing him, and it had been all her fault. Young and stupid, she thought not letting her brother dictate her life meant cutting him out altogether. Oh, he had earned her anger, but he hadn’t deserved the punishment.

  When she punished him, she punished herself, and eventually, Harmony.

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that. A lot has changed. I have a family now,” he said, his smile slipping. “When you’re rested and up to it, Chloe would like to meet you. She has a son, and a daughter not much older than Harmony.”

  Laramie’s hand stilled on Harmony’s hair. “They’re not yours?”

  “They are now.”

  No explanation. No inflection. But then, Lucas had always been able to shutter his emotions like that so you didn’t know where you stood with him or if you were wading into hostile territory. “Still saving people, huh?”

  He leaned back against the wall and slid his hands in his pockets. “Not this time. She saved me.”

  She watched the shadows move through his eyes and nodded. “Sounds like there’s a story there. Maybe you’ll tell me sometime.”

  He nodded, and the slippery ground she thought she stood on with him solidified, and she let out of breath of relief.

  “We’ll share stories soon enough,” he promised, the determination on his face telling her that he wouldn’t just crack open his heart with nothing in return. She was going to have to do a little cracking of her own.

  When she did, she hoped to hell he’d forgive her.

  Xavier sat in the corner of Laramie’s hospital room, his eyes fixed on her heartbeat spiking on the monitor, seventy-two beats per minute. For what had to be the hundredth time, he asked himself what the hell he was doing there. Watching. Waiting.

  Harmony lay next to her, in a bed of her own, the side rails between them lowered so Laramie didn’t have to let go of her hand.

  He glanced away, doing his best to keep those small gestures from clouding his perspective. He’d seen that kind of devotion and love before, that need for connection, and still, no matter how strong the loyalty, selfish desires overrode any sense of honor and protective instinct, leading to disaster.

  How much would Laramie give up to protect her daughter?

  He’d stopped by earlier to check on her, and although her face was pinched with pain, she passed on anything stronger than ibuprofen for her discomfort so she could spend every minute possible with Harmony. Her focus had been on talking with her little girl, despite the roomful of people surrounding them, and although he had doubts, he had to respect that.

  Not ready to concede just yet, he had to admit that the chances of her being on the wrong side of the baby mill her husband had been involved with became slimmer and slimmer with every glimpse of her as a mother. Lucas had written off the possibility altogether, but Xavier still wondered.

  Or maybe he was kidding himself and instead he was grasping at anything to keep him from getting too close. To keep him from finding some sort of peace inside himself.

  Deep down, here in the darkness, he could admit that he didn’t deserve peace. He hadn’t been there for his own family. He’d neglected the two people who mattered most in his world, and he’d paid the ultimate price.

  It didn’t matter that he’d neglected them for his job. For his SEAL team. For missions assigned by the US government. All that mattered now was that the two hearts he cared about the most in this world were forever silent, leaving him wondering how to divvy up the blame.

  Let it go, man. She’s not Sarah.

  “You’ve been in here before sitting with me while I slept, haven’t you?” Laramie rasped.

  His skin prickled, the hair rose on his neck, and heat flooded his cheeks. Glancing down at his watch and then up to her monitors, he tried to make it like he was in there to check on her vitals. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Nice try, Doc, but you’ve got one of those voices, and I remember you talking to me,” she said as she tucked Harmony’s hand under her blanket and reached behind her to shift her bedding.

  “Here, I’ll get that,” he said, joining her to support her back while he adjusted her pillow. “Better?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Her eyes tracked him as reached for his jacket that lay over the rail at the foot of her bed. “You don’t have to leave.”

  “I just came in to check on your vitals,” he lied. Truth was, he didn’t know why the hell he couldn’t walk away from her, from her case. At first, he’d been determined to make sure she survived. Then his focus had shifted to doing everything in his power to make sure she healed well without needing extensive surgeries to fix the damage.

  And he’d succeeded. The purple and black bruises that had covered her entire face and part of her scalp had morphed into sickly green and yellow, then finally faded away, leaving porcelain skin behind. With a few more weeks, the slight puffiness would slip away, leaving her skin almost unmarred other than the few thin scars where her skin had broken open in remarkably straight lacerations.

  She’d gotten away with her life and her beauty intact. Hell, even the slight swelling didn’t look like swelling. If anything, it took a few years off her face and made her look like she’d just graduated high school at most.

  “Checking my vitals with nowhere to write them down?” she asked, raising her eyebrow.

  “I have a good memory,” he said quickly. Too quickly.

  “Don’t nurses usually check vitals?” she asked, the skepticism in her voice thick as she continued to prod at him.

  She wasn’t going to make this easy, and despite all of his questions and doubts, he wanted to see how far she would go and how much he’d be willing to admit to her in return. “I’m a hands-on doctor.”

  She shook her head and let out a laugh. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  He sighed, glanced down at her, and reluctantly smiled. “Tell me about it.”

  “Harmony told me about you, about what you did. Thank you,” she said. She reached for his hand and took it between her own, casting a quick glance down at her daughter.

  He froze, his gaze locked on the sight of his hand in hers. The way her thumb slid back and forth over his skin. Something shifted in him at the image of them intertwined, at the first woman to hold his hand in a decade. He swallowed hard, his skin growing tight and his heart sprinting away in his chest. It wasn’t sexual, but it awakened something in him he thought he had banished.

  Hope.

  He shook his head, the fact that he’d missed it still heavy on his conscience. “It took me over a month to figure it out.”

  Still holding his hand in hers, she caught one of Harmony’s dark curls with the other and twirled it around her finger. “But you did figure it out. Give yourself a break, Doc. No one’s perfect.”

  Harmony stirred and settled. Laramie squeezed his hand one last time before letting go to adjust the blanket around Harmony.

  “No, I guess not,” he conceded, shoving his hand in his pocket. Whether he did it to keep her from taking his hand again or because a part of him wanted to take hers, he didn’t know or care to examine.

  “So tell me, how bad is it?” Laramie asked.

  “How bad is what?” he asked, his eyes still on the little girl snuggled under thick blankets.

  “The damage. So far no one has been able to locate a damn mirror, and that tells me it’s not good.” Fully awake, her voice had become clear and strong, a hint of stubborn frustration fueling her words.

  “It’s not bad, either.”

  She slumped back, and her head tilted as though it became too much for her to hold up. “Your skills at reassurance could use a little work.”

  If she were any other patient, he’d be clinical about it, but the blurred lines between his professionalism and her particular case had him wandering in uncharted territory where he could no longer treat her as just a patient, or a friend. He’d never been good with shades of gray. That’s why being a doctor served him well. He could keep his heart out of it and just focus on the details. Or at least, he could before her. “I expected far worse with how you came in.”

  “How bad was it?” she asked.

  “Lucas said he already told you.”

  “Lucas is my big brother and has always been…selective with me,” she said.

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea—”

  Blonde eyebrows dropped low over her eyes as she glared at him. “Don’t treat me like a child. Be honest. After all, if my own daughter had to see me that way, I sure as hell need to hear it.”

  “Okay,” he said, crossing his arms. “You died on the table three times the first night.”

  She sucked in a breath at his blunt admission. “Gloves are off now. Damn.”

  “You wanted to hear this,” he reminded her.

  “Need to hear it. Keep going,” she said.

  “You should have died from the blood loss alone. You had multiple transfusions and over the course of the first twenty-four hours, twenty units of blood.”

  Laramie bit her lip and didn’t say a word other than a nod that he took as her encouraging him to keep going.

  “You had multiple fractures in your face. Enough that I hope to hell you lost consciousness early in the attack.”

  “I don’t remember any of it. Not even the first hit,” she whispered past silent tears that had begun to slide down her cheeks.

  “You had a brain injury that miraculously healed with only blood pressure control. We’ve done scan after scan, but there’s no permanent damage. You had dozens of injuries working against you. So many that there are moments I’m still shocked you made it. You’ve got one hell of a powerful guardian angel sitting on your shoulder.”

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