“Christ, Rush, you’ve been shot,” he said as he pulled back Rush’s shirt and gear to see the wounds. “Fuck, twice.”
“It always hurts like a motherfucker.”
“Rush?” Katrina’s small, scared voice ripped him out of his haze of pain as she squirmed out from under his weight to wrap her arms around him and bury her face against his neck. “Rush, you came to get me.”
“Fuck, Kit-Kat, you knew I would,” he ground out between his clenched teeth, wholly unconcerned that he was cussing in front of her. “Did they hurt you?”
“No,” she said, the tears starting in earnest now and soaking his skin and mingling with his own sweat. She hugged him harder and he saw stars as she pressed against the wound that Brant was trying to compress as he called Elena for the SUV. “They kept saying that somebody would be mad if I was damaged. They weren’t supposed to hurt me.”
He closed his eyes in relief as he muttered a “thank God” under his breath. The room swam around him and he realized that his entire front was soaked in blood, his blood. It was coming out pretty fast and he could already feel the effects. Rush forced his eyes open and locked gazes with Brant.
“Katrina, you’re going to need to go with Mr. Scott, okay?”
She shook her head and latched on tighter, refusing to look at him or anyone.
“Yeah, you need to go with him because I’m going to pass out and squish you in about five seconds.”
He had less than that as he felt the world fall away from beneath him, his last thought that he’d broken his promise to Livvy.
Chapter Fourteen
Even wearing one of the ridiculous hospital gowns, Atticus still looked invincible.
And sexy.
In fact, he was the best thing she’d seen in a very long time.
The IV hooked to his arm and the beeping machines assured them all that he was breathing and all his organs were working like they should. The staff had attempted to clean him up as best they could but he still had streaks of dark red across his collarbone and right cheek. He was a little pale under the dark tone of his skin but he looked better than he had a couple of hours earlier. A couple bags of blood made a huge difference and she was finally able to breathe deeply.
The time between the phone call telling her he’d been shot and when the doctor gave him the “all clear” had taken years off her life. At least a full decade. For the time it had taken Carla to drive her to the hospital, her heart had stopped beating at least a dozen times and she’d worried that he was also gone and her body somehow knew. She never wanted to feel that way again.
Her anger at being restrained and left behind was still there but the fear of losing him and subsequent exhilaration of knowing he would be okay had watered down the fury to a dull, resigned thud. He was Atticus and he would never change. He wouldn’t explain and he wouldn’t talk to her. Trying to get him to change was as futile as a caged bird beating its wings and thinking it could fly.
Olivia shifted in the moderately comfortable chair, stretching her neck and back. She picked up the cup of coffee, took a sip and grimaced at the cold beverage before leaning over to toss it into the trash. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she eased out of the chair and walked to the window, gently pushing aside the blinds to look at the DC skyline shining white and gleaming against the dark backdrop of the night sky.
“You had a chance to zip-tie me to the bed and you missed it.”
Olivia’s heart stuttered and then thudded against her chest. She reached out and steadied herself against the shallow window ledge, a brief press of her suddenly heat-flushed flesh against the cool of the window glass.
“A lady never kicks a man when he’s down.”
“The Queen would be proud.” The sharp inhale of breath from Atticus as he shifted behind her prompted her to move to his side. Olivia reached out, hands hovering over him since she was unsure about the help he needed from her. Knowing Atticus, he didn’t need, or want, anything from her.
“What can I do?”
“I’m good. I’m good,” he insisted as he moved slowly, inching into a sitting position. She motioned toward the controller, which would elevate the head of his bed, and he gave a quick nod. She pulsed the button and the mattress shifted upward.
“Thank you.” He looked down and picked at the IV tubing and growled. “This is ridiculous. It was just a flesh wound. I’ve had worse.”
“It was more than a flesh wound and the nurse said you lost a lot of blood and they were worried about your vitals.” Olivia reached out and lightly brushed a finger over the white bandage spanning the area between his collarbone, shoulder, and upper chest area and then lifted it to the one covering the side of his head, dangerously close to his temple. “We were all worried when you wouldn’t wake up.”
She tried to head off the catch in her throat, to blink back the tears testing her waterproof mascara. But hell, he’d scared her. The thought of losing him… Atticus wasn’t part of her life, but the thought of a world without him in it made her blood run cold and her heart calcify.
“It will take more than some Colombian assholes to end me,” he murmured, his own hand reaching up to capture hers as she lowered it. The unspoken words—please don’t cry on me—hovered in the air between them. They stared at each other for a few moments and she found it impossible to read whatever was going on in his mind. As always. But she wanted to know, wanted to be the one he told things so that she didn’t have to guess. She wanted to be the one he wanted to tell.
He opened his mouth to say something and Olivia withdrew her hand, breaking their connection. Turning toward the attached bathroom, she grabbed a clean washcloth and filled a basin with warm water. When she came back into the room he was watching the door, his expression equal parts suspicious and curious.
“What are you doing?”
“Relax, I’m going to clean off some of the blood. You look like a train wreck.” She placed the basin on the tray next to his bed, dampened the cloth and began to dab at the smears on his cheek. He watched her, his gaze intense and when he spoke, his voice was rough with the gravel of battle and fatigue.
“How is Katrina? The team? Are they okay?”
“They only had very minor cuts and scrapes. Katrina is at home already. She was unharmed except for being scared half to death and a little dehydrated.” Olivia met his gaze. “Brant and the others had to leave when visiting hours were over but I lied and told them that we were still married so they would let me stay.”
He looked confused. “Aren’t you pissed at me?”
She scoffed. “Furious, actually. I want to shove your face down into the water and drown you.”
“So…you are mad.”
She gave him a sharp look as she rinsed and wrung out the cloth. “Don’t make fun of me, Atticus.” She felt the break in her voice before it happened and no matter what she did, she couldn’t hold it back. “Just. Don’t.”
“Livvy.” His tone dipped deeper into the pit of gravel and her eyes prickled with tears caused by the last few hours, few days. The heavy weight of new and old emotions from the past threatened to bring her down, and for once she was glad she’d taken off her heels before curling up in the chair because she wasn’t entirely sure she could stay on her feet otherwise.
“It doesn’t matter. I can be as mad as I want but it won’t change who you are and that you think you did the right thing. You’re not sorry you tied me up.” He paused and she eyeballed him. “Are you?”
He shook his head, his expression somber but not contrite. “No. I’d do it again.”
“Because you don’t trust me.”
“Because it was a dangerous situation and two nights ago I told you to get out of the house and you took out your earbud, ignored me, and almost got caught. I couldn’t take that risk with a bunch of kidnappers with guns.”
“I didn’t follow your orders at the senator’s house because I had it all under control.” She tossed the cloth onto the side table an
d pointed at him. “Do you know how many times I’ve been in that same exact situation? I wouldn’t tell you how to do your SEAL stuff because I trust you to know how to do your job. B&E is my job.”
But this issue keeping the gulf between them was more than a simple theft job. He didn’t trust her. Not really. She’d lied to him and he’d put up walls and that was the beginning, middle, and end of that story. There was nothing she could do and nothing she could think to say that would change it.
“Livvy.”
He reached out to touch her but she dodged him, moving to the end of the bed. Letting him touch her was a very bad idea. Being within arm’s reach of him for the last few days had been the worst idea she’d ever had. Having sex with him again? Epically stupid.
“I’m going home, Atticus. Tonight. I was just waiting for you to wake up to say good-bye.”
He stared at her and she waited for him to tell her to stay. To say he didn’t want her to go. To say he would miss her and maybe they could talk soon? That they could start over and…
But that was a joke. This was the guy who’d never given her the chance to explain about her past, about the stealing, to do anything to make it up to him. He’d written her off and they were done.
He’d been done.
She’d never be done. That much she knew.
“Katrina is back at home. You’ve got to get back to your mountain. I have things to do.”
It was pathetic but she waited, watching him closely to see if she saw anything in his expression that would tell her to stay. He stared back at her. Silent and stoic as always. Giving nothing away and she had nothing more to give. He had it all.
He just didn’t want it.
She rubbed her hands on her pants, looking around to locate her purse. She spied it on the floor and reached down to scoop it up, placing it over her shoulder. Olivia slid her feet into her heels, the boost making her stand up taller and uncover the strength to give him a smile.
She walked over to the side of his bed again, reaching for the damp cloth, surprised when he let her wipe gently along his collarbone. The blood came off easily but she got his hair wet in the process, so she pushed it back and finished the job. Her fingers got tangled in the strands of his hair and she enjoyed the slight wave of silk in her hands.
“For the record, I like the hair. The marauding dark Viking is a look you can pull off. Brant is just jealous.” The joke fell flat even to her own ears and she pressed her lips together to keep from saying something worse.
He reached up as she pulled away, his fingers wrapped around her wrist. “I feel like there’s something I should be saying. I just don’t know what it is.”
She pondered that for a moment, wondering if this was the opening she needed. But she couldn’t feed him the words she wanted to hear. He’d never told her he loved her and that was a hard limit for her. The bottom line was that she needed him to say them because he couldn’t go another minute without saying them, not because she gave him verbal prompts. They couldn’t build anything on the real-life equivalent of mad libs.
But she knew what she wanted to say.
“We were never easy, Atticus. Not really. Sex was the only time we made sense and no matter how hard we like to pretend, that’s not enough. I’m still me and you’re still you and there is no natural place where we are going to meet in the middle.” She took a steadying breath and continued, knowing that this would be her only chance to vent. “I think we had our moment to try and find a place to build a bridge and it passed many years ago. But I’m glad we got this time. I’m glad the way we ended before isn’t our last memory of each other.”
Three little words were poised on the edge of her tongue but she would not let them fall into the space between them. Olivia had said them before for nothing. Her utter humiliation at begging for him to take her back was burnt on her heart, and she wouldn’t do it again. They were not the magic talisman as portrayed in books or movies, not the key to unlock the secret to happiness.
So she leaned forward and kissed his mouth. It was brief, light but also heavy with its finality. It was a good-bye kiss, after all. It should have some weight.
“Livvy, I…” Atticus rasped out the whispered words, his voice faltering with the words he couldn’t, wouldn’t, or didn’t want to say. The regret was hard to miss but it wasn’t what she needed to hear. She didn’t want him to miss her; she wanted him to need her.
“Me too,” she answered, leaving the rest unsaid as she turned to walk out of his room without a backward glance and shut the door.
The hospital corridor was as empty as she would expect at almost midnight. She nodded at the nurses behind the desk and tried to keep down the noise created by the tap of her high heels on the hard tile.
Olivia stopped at the elevator and pushed the down button for the main lobby. She’d grab a cab back to the Batcave, gather her bags and head straight to the airport. The sooner she got back to her regularly scheduled life, the sooner she’d tie up and shut down the feelings that had escaped their cell in the basement of her heart the last couple of days.
Chapter Fifteen
He did a double take when he saw who was standing on his front stoop.
The video monitor was filled with the face of Katrina Hickman, her huge eyes blinking in the bright sunlight, a bandage on her right temple. A big dude in a black suit and the stereotypical dark aviator sunglasses stood just behind her. He pressed the intercom.
“Yeah?”
“Let me up, Rush.” She held up two wrapped gifts. “I have something for you.”
Oh hell. She got him a gift? She looked up at the monitor, the smile on her face widening as she waved the boxes wildly back and forth.
Oh hell.
“Come on up.”
He could hear the pounding of her feet on the stairs and opened the door just as she hit the landing. She stopped when she saw him, her eyes widening when she saw the bulky bandages under his T-shirt and the dark bruises on his face.
“Oh, Rush,” she said and then flung herself at him, catching him around the waist with her thin arms.
He could hear her sniffling, imagine the tears running down her cheeks, and it took everything in him not to ditch her and run. But what he did surprised him. Reaching down, he grasped her around the waist and pulled her up until her arms could wrap around his neck and he squeezed her tight, letting her know that he was here until she worked this shit out.
Eventually her sobs died down and he braved a peek at her. Cheeks red and eyes slightly puffy, she looked done. Thank God.
“Oh, Rush.” Her lower lip wobbled again and he unlatched her from his neck and slowly lowered her to the ground.
“Nope. No more of that. I’m fine,” he said, nodding toward her bodyguard as he closed the door behind them. “Do your parents know you’re here?”
“Yes.” She rolled her eyes in tandem with the sarcastic answer and he looked at the bodyguard for the confirmation nod. When he got it, he motioned for her to continue inside. She wiped her cheeks and looked around the space, nodding in approval. “This is cool.”
“Thanks.” Rush almost mentioned that Livvy had helped him choose and decorate it but he bit it back. Just because his mind always strayed to her didn’t mean his mouth had to follow.
It had been a long week since she’d left him in the hospital, and once the debriefs and post-mission crap were wrapped up with Brent, he’d had a lot of time to dwell on what would never happen. Too much time. So much that he’d sent out feelers on the network that he was available for jobs.
He returned his focus to Katrina. “How are you doing?”
“I’m good. Seeing a shrink and I have nightmares.” Her honesty shocked him but she didn’t notice and kept talking. “They say they’ll get better.”
“They do,” he said, debating how honest to be with a young girl. After what she’d been through it would help for her to know what the deal really was. “They don’t go away but they do get better, less fr
equent. You learn to deal with them.”
Katrina nodded. “Thanks for being honest with me. All of the adults are telling me that I just need to sleep it off and then whispering behind my back. It helps not to hear the same old bullshit.”
He considered correcting her cursing but he wasn’t her dad. Instead he went with what he could do, but it shocked him to hear the words that came out of his mouth. “You’ve got my number. Call me if you need to talk.”
“Anytime?” She waggled her eyebrows and he had to laugh.
“Stalker.” She smiled and he let out a breath that he hadn’t freaked her out. He didn’t know shit about dealing with kids. “Do you want something to drink?”
“Can I have a soda?”
“Are you allowed to drink soda?”
“No.”
He knew her mother was a health nut. Fuck it. This was his house. “Grape or orange?”
“Orange,” she said, her smile wide and bright. He hid his own grin behind the open door of the fridge when he leaned in and grabbed a soda for her and a beer for himself. Handing them off, he motioned for them to head out onto the deck.
Katrina popped the top and slurped at the soda, skipping across the patio to look over the edge and across the view. He lowered himself into one of the lounge chairs and watched her. She was a good kid and he was glad to see her okay.
“Do you want your present?” she asked, turning to face him. In the bright light he could see bruises on her neck and wrists and he tamped down the rage at her markings. She was fine now.
This wasn’t about him being pissed or the likelihood that her dad might be going down for corruption if Paulo tattled like the little bitch he was. Brant had made sure that the right people got the info on the stolen hard drive. Rush hoped she didn’t hate him when it all went down.
Katrina sat down on the lounge next to him and held out the box. “I hope you like it.”
Rush: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) Page 9
