Almost in slow motion, she’d watched Alex collapse to his knees and look towards her before pitching forward, unconscious before he hit the floor. Too far away for her to get to him, to be with him, all she could do then was look on with growing horror as blood blossomed over his side.
There’d been so much blood, so red, so very red, spilling out of his body, taking his strength and his life with it, and she could do nothing to stop it. One false move and the suicide vest could have exploded, killing both of them. The only chance Alex had had was for her to stay put and wait for Cam to find them.
It was a nightmare that would live with her for the rest of her life.
At such close quarters, the gunshot wound could have been a hell of a lot worse—not the doctor’s exact words, of course, but that was the message when they’d brought Alex back after surgery. He’d be unconscious for a while yet, to allow his body to start the healing process, and it was still impossible for them to say how long he’d have to remain in hospital.
She felt so tired—so very tired. Perhaps a little nap would help. She leaned forward, pillowing her head on her arm. Just a few moments, that was all she’d need. She’d be fine then.
17
Alex groaned. A search through the fog that seemed to have replaced his memory had failed to uncover any recollection of his having been around any horses lately, but sure as hell, one had kicked him. Judging by the way everything was aching, it must have been a bloody carthorse.
And that was another thing—he couldn’t remember painting his bedroom ceiling that insipid eggshell colour, either. As he continued to stare upwards, the smell started to intrude on his consciousness…it was the unmistakeable smell of a hospital, and for a second, he was transported to another time he’d woken up in a sickbay. He felt the razor-sharp shards of pain, nausea and shame all over again.
No, can’t be. That was ten years ago…
“Beth!” Her name came out as an almost unintelligible croak, carried along on the tidal wave of harrowing images that suddenly crashed through his mind.
He tried to get up, but his head felt as if it weighed about two tons. When he tried again, he became aware of several things all at once—his side hurt like hell, even more than the rest of his body, and he was damn near strapped to the bed by a bunch of tubes and wires. A steady beeping provided a strangely comforting confirmation that he was still alive.
Movement drew his attention to the left; a middle-aged nurse with a cheerful smile was standing there. “Good afternoon, Mr. Lombard, good of you to join us at last.” She checked the displays on the monitors around him. “How do you feel?”
“Like shit,” he rasped unapologetically. His throat was like sandpaper and his mouth tasted like a particularly unhygienic monkey had died in it. “Where’s Beth? Miss Harrison? How is she?”
“Your young lady? I believe they’re getting ready to discharge her.”
Discharge her? She’d been an inmate too? “Is she all right? I want to see her.”
To his surprise, the nurse chuckled. “She’ll be here soon, I’m sure. The only reason she isn’t here now is because they have to go through the discharge paperwork. I don’t know how, but she managed to persuade both her doctor and yours to let her spend most of the time here with you—she wouldn’t leave your side unless one of the doctors ordered her out. I would imagine she’ll be back here by the time the doctor’s done with you. He’s on his way now.”
Alex felt his eyelids closing. Bloody anaesthetic. He had to stay awake…he had to see Beth, make sure she was all right. When the doctor arrived, he endured the prodding and poking, not to mention the man’s endless questions, with mounting impatience. He knew he’d been relatively lucky that it was a low-velocity round that had hit him; he knew he’d been even luckier that it hadn’t done any lasting damage to any major organs. He didn’t need to hear the lecture from a medic; he’d seen enough battlefield injuries to know just how fortunate he was.
By the time the doctor was giving the nurse instructions for his further care, Alex had switched off mentally from what was going on around him and was looking beyond the hospital staff to the entrance to the ICU, waiting for the one person who could make this whole situation a lot more bearable.
Consequently, he was only vaguely aware of the doctor’s departure—he’d spotted Beth peering into the unit, and as she came towards him, relief flooded his heart. Thank God. She was safe. Pale, tired and bruised, but safe—and that was all that mattered.
“You all right, sweetheart?” They’d given him something to drink, but it was still an effort to speak.
“I am now.” She smiled, but he could see the unusual shine in her eyes. He watched her lift his hand to her cheek, brush her lips across the back of it. “They said I could have a few minutes with you, but they want you to rest.”
“As if I have any choice.” He touched the discolouration that marred her lower jaw. “I shouldn’t have let this happen.”
She held his hand to her face as she shook her head. “Don’t, Alex. Don’t blame yourself for something you couldn’t control.”
“I should have made you leave.”
She tilted her head. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Don’t blame yourself for something you couldn’t control. You couldn’t control Ewan Underwood, and do you really think you could have made me go anywhere without you?”
The guilt still made him feel sick, though. If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t have had to fight for her life—she wouldn’t have known the kind of fear no civilian should ever know, nor would she ever have seen the kind of violence no civilian should ever have to witness.
“Cam’s coming to pick me up soon,” she continued quietly. “He had meetings in London this morning, something about ensuring that the right people were made aware of what happened, and that the appropriate steps are taken to deal with any consequences. What did he mean by that?”
Alex swallowed. His mind was still fuzzy, but he knew what Cam was up to. “It means there’ll be no investigation into Underwood’s untimely demise. I would guess that Cam has enough material to put together a valid case for self-defence.”
She nodded, taking in what he’d told her. “He also said he’d stay at Winterleigh with me until you come home. He was going to take me back to London, to his place, but I wanted to be here so I could come and see you.
“And,” she added, suddenly unable to look him in the eyes, “we need…we need to talk, but not now.”
He wondered exactly what she wanted to talk about. Statements like that seldom boded well. Had she decided that the experiences of the last couple of weeks were all too much?
All of a sudden, Alex felt an iron band tighten around his heart—was this her way of telling him that she was planning to say goodbye?
~~*~~
Previous painful experience told Alex that he wasn’t going to get out of the hospital any time soon. Although the doctor treating him kept making encouraging noises about his progress, it was only Beth’s daily visits that kept him from going insane with a combination of frustration and boredom. As for the dread, he pushed that back into the farthest recesses of his mind—he refused to waste his energy on trying to work out when she was going to tell him it was all over.
The cuts and bruises she’d sustained at the hands of Ewan Underwood were healing well; each day brought a marked improvement. However, what Alex was disturbed to note was the deepening of the shadows around her eyes. She clearly wasn’t sleeping well, if at all, a fact that she confirmed when he questioned her about it.
“Don’t worry about it, Alex,” she told him, trying to reassure him that it wasn’t important. “It’s just a phase. It’ll pass.”
“Tell me why you aren’t sleeping,” he insisted. By now, they’d taken away a lot of the equipment monitoring his condition, and were even making noises about moving him out of the ICU in a day or two. He was already having some light physiotherapy in situ.
“So help me, Beth, if it weren’t for the fact that it would shock the hell out of the staff, I’d put you over my knee and spank some sense into you!” Alex kept his voice low and tightly controlled. “Just because I’m in here, it doesn’t mean you can forget all about the rules!”
Her eyes widened in alarm, and then he saw the moment when her defences came down. She glanced down at her hands, clenched together on her lap. “Nightmares,” she admitted, her voice barely more than a murmur. “I keep…I keep seeing you, that moment just before Cam came in, but in my nightmares, he’s too late, and…I lose you. Over and over again. There’s been a couple of nights when I’ve been afraid to go to sleep.”
Christ. Alex knew all about that. He held out his hand and she came to his uninjured side, resting her head against him while he held her as best he could and murmured reassurance. “I’ll be home soon,” he promised. “Just as soon as I can, and you’ll never have another nightmare, I swear.”
“It’s not just that, Alex.” She sat up straight again. “Cam told me what happened to you ten years ago—not in detail, but enough for me to know.”
Alex felt all of the colour drain out of his face. The one thing about his past he’d never wanted her to know. The scale of the humiliation he felt wiped out ten years of his life in an instant, took him right back to that moment when Cam had found him in that filthy, stinking cellar. When he dared to look at Beth again, her face was as white as his felt and her expression was one of complete horror.
“Oh, God, I never meant –”
“I don’t want your pity, Beth, and if that’s all there is left –”
“Shh.” She touched her finger to his lips to silence him. “Not pity, never that. Love…and admiration for a man of incredible strength and courage.” She laid her palm against his cheek, her other hand holding his. For long moments, she simply looked at him, and then all he saw was love and want and need. She leaned closer, her hand on his cheek coaxing his head to the right place for his mouth to receive her kiss, a gentle touching of lips to tell him what he meant to her. “I wish I’d been here for you then. I wasn’t, and there’s nothing I can do about that, no matter how much I wish it. What I can do something about is the future—I can be here for you for as long as you want me. Please want me.”
His free hand reached up, covered hers and brought it to his mouth so that he could press a kiss to her palm, as she had done so many times for him. This woman—his woman—was nothing short of a miracle. He would never know what he’d done to deserve her, but whatever it was, he hoped he could keep on doing it for the rest of his life. When he spoke, his voice was raw with emotion.
“You’re here now, that’s all that matters.” He curved his hand around the back of her head, exerting just enough pressure to draw her close enough for a further, longer kiss. “I love you, Beth Harrison. So damn much, the thought of losing you kills me. I’ve wanted you since the day I met you, and I’ll never stop wanting you—never.”
~~*~~
Alex was settled back into bed after a frustratingly gentle amble around the physiotherapy department. The specialist was pleased with the way his recovery was progressing, but for Alex it wasn’t progressing nearly fast enough. He needed to get back home and be with Beth. He had no intention of being away so long that she got used to managing without him. Even though they’d discussed their relationship and their feelings at length, he was prepared to work on convincing her that he was still worth keeping around.
Cam was due to arrive straight from London any moment, for his first visit since Beth had let slip that the other man had told her about what had happened ten years ago. Alex had made a point of asking him to get there early for a quiet chat before Beth arrived. He let his friend make himself comfortable in the visitor’s armchair before speaking.
“Why did you tell her?” Alex knew he didn’t need to elaborate any further.
Cam squared his shoulders. “I’m sorry, but I had to, Alex,” he said quietly. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer. You know, you really need to train your sub better.”
Alex took in the tentative wry grin on his old friend’s face. He knew Cam wasn’t happy about having talked to Beth. Alex also knew how much he valued their friendship. “You’ve nothing to apologise for, Cam. You were right. I should have talked to her. She said she wished she’d been there for me. Can you believe that?”
“Of course I believe it. That’s exactly what she said to me. She’s Beth—she couldn’t be any other way. I told you: she loves you.”
Starting to feel a little more at ease, Alex allowed himself a small wry grin. “Where is she?”
“Right here,” a female voice, as clear as a bell, announced. “Is this a private party, or can anyone join in?”
Beth was standing in the doorway. Although not all the shadows had gone, with her usual lovely smile back in place, she’d lost the haunted look he’d seen far too often over the last few days.
“Beth!” Cam jumped up to offer her his seat. “Come and sit down.”
“It’s okay, Cam, she’ll sit here.” Alex patted the bed beside him. When Beth perched delicately on the edge, he turned towards her, timing it just right, so that the kiss she intended for his cheek landed squarely on his mouth.
Cam groaned. “Come on, guys, get a room! Do you have any idea how nauseating it is for a blissfully single man to watch you two get all loved up? I’ll have indigestion for a month!”
“Ignore him, sweet, he’s just jealous.”
“Maybe we should do some matchmaking,” Beth suggested mischievously.
This time, Cam’s eyes rolled. “Heaven preserve me! Just for that, I’d make you walk back to Winterleigh, except he’d try to beat the crap out of me.”
The three of them talked a while longer, as only three people bound by one single, terrifying experience could talk. If any good could be said to have come from that incident, it was that it further cemented the friendship between the two men, strengthened the love between Beth and Alex, and created an unbreakable bond between all three.
Eventually, Cam stood and rolled his shoulders. “Right. I’m going to get the car and bring it around to the front. Anything to get me out of here while you two do the kissy-kissy thing.” His face creased in a comically over-the-top grimace.
“You’re just jealous, Cam!” Alex hurled the comment at his friend, and received a silent but cheerfully and expressively obscene parting gesture in return.
Once his friend had gone, Alex turned to Beth, his expression becoming serious once more. “There’s something I have to ask you, love. The things you saw, the things I did –”
“Shh.” She placed a finger on his lips. “I know it was self-defence. I know you did it to protect both of us. What terrified me most was the possibility of you being hurt. When I saw the blood…” Her voice trailed off, eyes fixed on the area where he’d been wounded.
“It looked worse than it was, sweetheart.”
Her face spoke volumes about the degree of her scepticism. He could understand her point of view, but relative to the experiences that had already left their mark on him, the gunshot wound was next to nothing.
Her breath came out in a huge sigh. “I wish I didn’t have to go home. I hate being without you.”
“It won’t be for much longer, I promise.” He kissed her fingers. “I’m going to get out of here just as soon as I can.”
As he watched Beth, felt the small, comforting movement of her thumb over the back of his hand, a sense of soul-deep rightness swept over Alex. This was how his life was meant to be, shared with this unique woman.
It was how Beth’s life was meant to be, too, and the radiance of her slow, gentle smile told him that she wasn’t about to argue. She was home.
~~*~~
Contrary to statistics and the forecast, there was a white Christmas that year.
It was Beth and Alex’s first Christmas
together. The events of autumn were behind them now, though not forgotten, and since then there had been many changes in both their lives.
The way things turned out, for all practical purposes, Beth had moved out of her apartment the night her ankle was injured in the mugging. She’d returned to her former home for the sole purpose of collecting her belongings and arrange for larger items to be transported to Winterleigh, all of which she’d done without a hint of regret. Nor had she been back to the office, for one very significant reason—there was no office for her to go back to.
Oh, the building was still there and so was the business, but the latter no longer belonged to the man walking hand-in-hand beside her through the snow. Alex, just about fully recovered from the lingering effects of his wound, had sold Paduan Ventures and even given up the lease on his London apartment. He was now deciding what to do with the rest of his life—besides supporting Beth in her new career as a writer.
Alex had finally managed to persuade her to let him read her novel. He’d provided some constructive criticism and then encouraged her to submit it to a suitable publisher; the news had finally come about ten days prior to this wonderful Christmas Day that her manuscript had been accepted for publication.
That had been Beth’s second-best Christmas present. The first had been an early one—Alex’s release from hospital, a little premature in the doctor’s opinion, but Alex had insisted.
At least it had given Beth the opportunity to boss the big, bad Dom around while she supervised his recuperation…and to fall even more deeply in love with him. He’d been every bit the difficult patient she expected him to be, but she’d managed to keep him in line with promises of what he could do to her when he was fully recovered. A somewhat rash decision on her part, since she’d barely been able to sit down for three days, once he’d regained his strength. She smiled, hugging the memories to her, like a warm blanket.
The Velvet Ribbon Page 27
