by Reina Torres
He didn’t answer her because he didn’t know. He just couldn’t be there.
It wasn’t his right.
Kate stood outside of the ICU, watching Pilar sleep. Well, she wasn’t sure Pilar was actually sleeping, or in some kind of drug induced haze. Either one, it was better than going through the pain of recovering after surgery.
She’d done it herself, twice.
The doctors had cleared family for visitation, but even though Pilar’s brother had directed the staff to allow Kate and Roan visitation, Kate continued to stand outside and watch her through the window.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
Turning, she saw Sloane Bravo standing beside her, gently swaying to keep her baby peacefully sleeping. “Do you want to go in?”
Kate pondered the question and then shook her head. “I’m still so angry at the situation. I don’t want her to feel that.”
The words seemed to sink in and Sloane nodded. “That’s a fairly empathic stance for a peace officer.”
Kate narrowed her eyes at the elegant woman standing beside her. “You don’t think that’s normal?”
Now it was Sloane’s turn to give her a pointed look. “Maybe I’m just thinking more of my husband’s colleagues. They tend to be a little more cut and dry than some of the local police that I know. Something about the federal connection, I think. Vicente is more like you, I think. It’s probably why Pilar thinks so highly of you.”
That was surprising.
“She’s talked to you about me?”
Sloane lowered her hand and turned until they were shoulder to shoulder at the window. “She’s told me a lot of things.”
There was a hint of humor in her tone and Kate found herself almost smiling. “Are you talking about my brother?”
“You’re sharp too.”
Kate felt herself relaxing and found a full smile. “Should I ask?”
“I don’t know,” Sloane’s voice was softer. “When we arrived and met Roan, it felt like something was... off.”
Nodding, Kate agreed with her. “I don’t want to speak out of turn and tell you something Pilar hasn’t, but recently they’ve become really... uh-”
“Close?”
There was no mistaking Sloane’s meaning.
Kate nodded. “Exactly. It was fast, but it’s right. It’s easy to see when you look at them.”
Sloane nodded thoughtfully. “But it’s not always easy for them to see it themselves.”
Kate turned a little, and leaned her shoulder on the glass. “You’re pretty sharp yourself.”
Shrugging, Sloane continued to look at Pilar through the glass. “We were so worried when she told us that she was moving away, but I understood it before Vicente. Sometimes I think he still doesn’t understand it, but of all of the Bravo children of their generation, I think it was the hardest for Pilar.
“There were enough of the older generation who couldn’t accept her decision to be in law enforcement. And everyone was waiting for her to fall in love and start having babies.”
“You forgot marriage in that comment.”
Sloane’s smile was tinged with humor. “I didn’t forget. Don’t get me wrong. All the Bravos and the extended family want her married, but they want the babies more. They would have forgiven the lack of it at first-”
“And then sent her brother to knock on their door with a shotgun.”
“Exactly.”
They stood quietly beside each other for a few moments before Sloane spoke again. “Does Roan love her?”
“Yes.” Kate answered before Sloane had finished her question.
“Okay. Good to know. But I’m guessing there’s a hiccup in the whole relationship thing.”
“Isn’t there always?” Kate froze a little when she realized how close she was to blurting something out about herself. It was damned frustrating that she couldn’t manage to keep Rock out of her head for a full twenty-four hours. Damn it. She pulled her focus back into place. “He hasn’t admitted it to me, but he’s scared.”
“And I’m guessing, this didn’t help.”
Kate tilted her head to the side and winced a little. “I don’t know. Don’t quote me on this... on any of this, but I think what happened tonight is either going to tip him in one direction or the other. I want to shake him and tell him to man up, but that’s what I think he’s doing. He's not like me, or our brother. We’re both in law enforcement. Roan’s more like his mother, a healer. So, I think he’s struggling with that.”
“I bet he wanted to be in that operating room with her, but because of how he feels-”
“Yeah, the head of the ER told him he couldn’t be involved in her care, and I think it drove the problem home for him.”
“Then, I’m not sure I shouldn’t go and rescue your brother.”
Kate gave Sloane a curious look out of the corner of her eye. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I think my husband tracked Roan down and just might be talking to him right now.”
Kate blew out a breath. “Is he going to try to keep them apart?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Sloane lifted her hand and touched the glass, flattening her palm on the clear surface. “Before we had Lora, maybe, but not now. Vicente will be the first one to say that no one is good enough for his little sister, but he wants her happy. And yes, he can’t wait to be an uncle to her babies. He’s not going to try to cut Roan out of her life, unless he feels like Roan’s going to hurt her more than he’s going to make her happy.”
Shaking her head, Kate sighed. “Well, here’s hoping the two of them have a good talk.”
Sloane nodded. “And if all goes well, I hope we’ll see each other outside of this hospital for some happier family gatherings. Hmm?”
Kate smiled and blinked back tears. “I’m hoping for that too.”
Roan didn’t hear the door to the chapel open. He didn’t even hear someone walk up beside him. He only realized that he wasn’t alone when Vicente Bravo sat down beside him on the pew. Leaning forward, he draped his suit jacket over the back of the pew in front of them and unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt.
For one moment, Roan wondered if Vicente was going to beat him senseless right there in the chapel. He knew that the FBI Special Agent wasn’t going to, but Roan wouldn’t have blamed him if he did.
They sat that way in silence for a long moment, but neither of them spoke.
Roan felt like he should say something to her brother. An apology of some kind. He just didn’t know what her brother would want to hear from him when he didn’t want to hear any of it from himself.
“How long are you going to torture yourself?”
He wasn’t sure that he’d heard her brother’s words correctly.
“I’m sorry, what?”
Vicente sat still as stone beside him. “I asked you if you were done torturing yourself.”
The words were clear, but Roan wasn’t sure he had an adequate answer. He decided to go with the truth. “I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Vicente’s tone was soft, almost gentle. “We can work with that answer.”
They remained silent for another long moment before Roan spoke up. “I’m not the right person for her.”
He expected instant agreement from her brother.
“Well, that’s not for you to decide, is it?”
Roan turned his head to the side and looked at the other man. Vicente still had his focus at the front of the room and the stained-glass window lit from behind. He didn’t look angry or upset. He just looked thoughtful.
“I think the question is whether or not she’s the right person for you.” Vicente pulled in a breath and spoke again. “You can’t tell me what she feels for you. Only she can do that. But I wonder why you feel like you’re not a good fit. Do you hit her?”
“Hell no.” Roan shook himself, remembering where they were. “I would never.”
Vicente
nodded. “Good. If you did, I’d have to put a bullet through your head myself. I don’t think I’d be able to let her carry that with her.” Another breath and Vicente tapped his knee with a finger. “Would you cheat on her?”
Roan sat up and shook his head, feeling anger building up inside of him. “I’m not that kind of a man.”
“Steal?”
“No.”
“I’m running out of ways that you’d be wrong for her.” Vicente rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck before he looked over at Roan. “So, what is it?”
“I don’t want to lose her.” Roan felt his heart squeeze tight in his chest. “I can’t lose her.”
“So, you’re going to lose her to avoid losing her.”
Roan turned toward him with a growl. “You know it’s not that simple. It’s not. She almost died today!”
Vicente’s eyes darkened, making the man look dangerous and on edge.
“I know that. I knew that the instant you said who you were on the phone. If she wasn’t calling me that meant she couldn’t, and I cursed the miles between us. I cursed the person who had caused her pain and I cursed myself for letting her move away.”
Roan shook his head, it wasn’t right. What he said wasn’t right. “You didn’t let her move away. She did it because she wanted to. I don’t know why, but she said she had a reason.”
“What do you think that reason is?” Vicente watched him carefully.
“She mentioned that you took some of the weight off her shoulders by getting married. Having your daughter.”
Vicente’s skin pulled tight at the corners of his eyes and made him look a little older. “Is that what she said?”
Roan nodded.
Vicente did too. “I guess so. Me? I think everyone gave up thinking I’d find a woman who could put up with me. And there are those in my family who view my job as important enough to excuse me from what they see as our familial duty to have children.”
“But Pilar is a police officer.”
“Local law enforcement.” Vicente held up a hand in surrender. “Not my words, but I’ve heard it and I’m sure she did too. But I think it’s too cut and dry to say she moved to get away from those expectations. Pilar never wanted to be spoiled. She didn’t want to be the baby. She wanted to stand on her own two feet and work for what she had.” A soft smile eased some of the tension in Vicente’s body. “And she was never afraid of work. At the Academy, they told her she was too small, too womanly. They questioned if she could pull her weight and keep up. No amount of equality training and sensitivity seminars will fix what’s been ingrained in some people. Still, she fought. She ran more and trained harder. She earned every achievement. Not just to meet it, but to exceed.”
“She’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.” Pride and love filled each and every word.
“And yet, you’re willing to let her go.”
“Not willing. I think I have to. Yesterday, I saw her take a man down to the ground who had threatened someone with a gun. At any moment he could have squeezed the trigger and shot her. I can’t imagine what...” Reality hit him square in the chest. “Yes, I can. It’s what happened tonight. Someone shot her.”
He only took another breath when he felt like he would pass out without it.
“I was useless. I’m a doctor. I’ve been through years of school. Residency. I’ve held a ribcage closed with my hands. I’ve had to clamp my fingers down on a ruined artery. I’ve been through hell and back with blood and brains, torn muscles, and held steady as the life fled from a man’s eyes.
“But all of that training was useless when I saw them pull her out of the ambulance tonight. All I wanted to do was hold her hand and beg her to live. I wanted to wrap myself around her and hold on tight. Every word, every experience I had been through to become a doctor was worthless to her. How can I be right for her, when I can’t even be a doctor when she needs one?”
He heard the soft tap of Vicente’s shoe on the carpet beneath their feet before he heard the other man speak again. “You’re right. What can you be for her if not a doctor when she needs one?”
Roan was speechless, but that was par for the course. Failing her when she needed him. Wasn’t it?
“Maybe,” Vicente turned slightly on the pew, giving Roan a look that brooked no argument, “maybe what she needs you to be tonight is the man who loves her.”
Roan opened his mouth to argue, but Vicente cut him off.
“It’s written across your face. And when you called me on the phone, I could hear it then too. You love her.”
A single nod was all he could manage when he felt like there wasn’t enough air in his lungs.
“And I think she needs that love. She needs your strength. Not your skills. Now, if you can’t give her that. If you can’t be her strength, then you should walk away. It’s just that simple.” He gestured at the room around them. “She’s in a hospital with many excellent doctors. She has medical care, but I think what she needs more than that are people who are pulling for her. People who want her to be in their lives. What you need to ask yourself, is if you want her in your life, Roan. If you do, then everything else is just fear. And the last thing she needs is for you to be afraid of loving her.”
Was it really that simple?
Vicente held out his hand, palm up and open. “Would you like to pray with me?”
Roan didn’t have to think. He reached out and clasped hands with Pilar’s brother and bent his head as he listened to Vicente’s fervent wishes for his sister’s full and complete recovery from her wounds. It wasn’t until the end that Vicente drew Roan into it. “... help him to know his heart and make the right choice for both of them. Amen.”
Getting up on his feet, Roan didn’t have the words to say what was in his heart. Besides, Vicente wasn’t the person who needed to hear it.
When Pilar woke it took every ounce of energy she had to pull herself free of the heavy feeling in her limbs. Why hadn’t her alarm sounded?
Then she heard it. The ever-increasing beeps from the table at the side of her bed. The light was different. Instead of the early morning light slanting through the window, the lights were all around her, but softer than the sun. Even softer than the light fixture high above her bed.
She started to roll on her side, but she couldn’t seem to make her body move. The last time she’d felt like that, she’d had the flu and a temperature of one hundred and four degrees. How was she going to get help if she couldn’t even move?
Flexing her fingers, she tried to reach out, hoping to grab her phone off the bedside table.
“Hey there... relax. I’ve got you.”
Confused and aching, a furrow pinched the flesh between her eyebrows. “Wh-” She didn’t have much of a voice either. “Roan?”
“It’s me.” He leaned over her and she saw the odd look in his eyes and the usual bluish-green of his scrubs. “Just relax. I’m here.” He smiled at her and she felt his fingers brush against her temple before they gently combed through her hair. “You’re so beautiful.”
She managed a lop-sided smile. “Are you drunk?”
He shook his head. “No, but you might qualify as stoned with those pretty amazing pain meds you have to be feeling.”
Or not feeling, she wanted to answer back.
That’s when it all came back to her, and she realized where she was. She wasn’t at home. She was in the hospital. She pulled her hand free of his and tried to reach across her body toward the burning ache that broke through her haze. “I was shot.”
She saw a dark shadow cross over his face.
“Am I... I’m going to be okay, right?”
Another odd look moved through his eyes. “Do you want me to call the doctors?”
Her hand latched onto his arm and pulled him closer. “You’re a doctor. Tell me what’s going on!”
He didn’t even try to get her to let go. He covered her hand with his. “You’re going to need some rest and then there’s going to b
e a good amount of physical therapy to get your range of motion back in your shoulder. But yes, you’re going to be okay.”
She fought back the tears that sprang into her eyes at the thought of going through all of that. “Are you sure?”
When she saw the tears gathering on his lashes, her first instinct was to comfort him and her hand loosened from its grasp on his arm and lifted to the side of his face.
Roan turned and pressed a kiss into her palm. “You’re going to be fine.”
“You can’t know that, can you? What if I get up from this bed and that’s when they find out there’s damage to my nerves, or an issue with my muscles and-”
“You’re right that I can’t know exactly what’s going on right now, but what I do know is that whatever happens you’re going to have me right there, helping you. If that’s getting through physical therapy or giving you sponge baths, you’re stuck with me.”
The tension in her body released and her instinct was to laugh, but she was pretty sure laughing would hurt like crazy, so she just gave him a soft smile. “Stuck with you? A girl could do worse.”
His expression sobered a bit. “You could also do better than me, much better, but I’m feeling a little selfish at the moment. I don’t want you to try for better, I want you with me, Pilar.” He cupped his hand over hers and turned it so he could touch a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “I love you and I should have told you sooner, but-”
She touched the tips of her fingers to his lips. “No buts. Not today. Not ever again. I love you, too. And I could have told you sooner but I was-”
“I thought you said ‘no buts.’” He leaned over the bed and placed a gentle kiss on her lips.
“Still,” she smiled up at him, “I like your butt, a lot.”
“Things a brother should never hear.”
That voice!
Holding tighter to Roan’s hand, Pilar looked toward the foot of her bed and saw Vicente standing there, his shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows and his face drawn as if he hadn’t slept in days. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled at her and shook his head. “Where else would I be when I hear that you’ve managed to take a bullet for your asshole partner?”
