Healed (The Found Book 3)

by Caitlyn O'Leary

  Just four more steps and she would reach the bathroom. A big hand opened the door and helped her to the toilet just as she heaved the contents of her stomach. She didn’t know how long she stayed kneeling in front of the commode, resting her head on the cool porcelain but it seemed like forever. The room wouldn’t stop spinning, her head was killing her, and she was shivering and sweating at the same time. Suddenly a huge hand cupped the back of her head and a cool compress wiped her face. Nate.

  Her head no longer felt like someone was trying to drive a spike through it.

  “Are you done, Angel?” Her eyes weren’t watering anymore, but she still didn’t feel up to opening them and seeing the pity in Nate’s hazel eyes.

  “Go away,” she said in a raspy voice.

  “Nope.”

  “Please Nate, I’m begging you. I’ll be out in a little while.” His hand lifted, and she had to stifle a groan of pain. The door opened and closed. She didn’t try to analyze why she felt both relieved and disappointed he had left, the pain in her head made higher thought impossible. The door opened again.

  “Is that you, Kali?” she whispered, not opening her eyes.

  “Nope. Can you stand?” Nate’s big hand stroking down her back felt wonderful.

  “I think so.” Where seconds ago she thought she might pass out from the pain, now she felt like she could push herself up off the floor.

  “Let me help you.” How could such a big man be so gentle? He assisted her and she found herself in front of the sink gazing into the mirror. Nate helped to balance her from behind. She looked like death warmed over.

  “You look beautiful.” Damn, she’d said it aloud.

  Sarah looked up and up and saw his utter sincerity. It was too much, so she went to rinse her mouth.

  “Hold onto the sink, I brought your toothbrush from the other room.” God, she didn’t want to have to go back out into the hotel room where four other people overheard her toss her cookies. Brushing her teeth would help her feel more in control.

  “I can stand by myself.” Sarah went to grab her toothbrush he held out, but her hand started to shake again. She realized just how bad she was shivering, but at the same time, she was dripping with sweat. Then to her utter horror she started to cry.

  “Come here, Angel.” Nate turned her around from the sink to take her into his arms. Her shivering and sweating stopped. He tilted her chin and used his thumbs to brush away her tears.

  “It’s okay to cry, to show weakness. You held it together for everyone, this is just between you and me and I promise not to tell. You can just relax for a few minutes.”

  “No,” she said as her teeth stopped chattering. “I want to brush my teeth.”

  “Then let me help you.” He turned her towards the sink, put toothpaste on the brush, and helped curl her fingers around the handle. Sarah was able to do a light brush and rinse and felt human again before she slumped against Nate.

  “That does it. We’re getting you to bed.”

  “We can’t disturb Noah.” Noah had been wounded and was resting in the hotel room where she, Kali and Sierra normally slept. She just used her newfound powers to heal both Noah and Dakota ‘Kota’ Blackthorne and apparently she was suffering the side-effects from expending the energy to do so.

  “I arranged for another room.” He turned her around and scooped her up into his arms. God, the man was huge. No wonder he had been so successful playing college football at Oklahoma University.

  “Wait, I didn’t think it was safe to get another room.”

  “It’s all taken care of.” If Nate said it was taken care of, then she knew it was. He would never let one of his teammate’s safety be compromised. The thought made her sad for a moment, she didn’t want to be considered just another member of the team, but thinking about it made her tired. She was too worn out to do anything more than sink into the warmth of Nate Goodman’s arms. In moments Nate was laying her on the soft surface of a bed. As soon as she was no longer touching him, her stomach heaved and she clenched her back teeth together trying desperately not to gag.

  “Sarah, do I need to get you to the bathroom? I was just closing the curtains.” He started to lift her and everything settled.

  “Just stay with me a moment. Don’t leave me.” She finally caught on, his touch made her feel better. She couldn’t explain it, but what damn thing made sense these days? Less than an hour ago she’d knit a man’s flesh together and he’d healed before her eyes.

  “I’m not leaving Sarah.” He brushed back her hair and kissed her forehead. She totally relaxed, taking her first settled breath in an hour. After a few minutes, he moved his hand down her body and pulled off her shoes. She wiggled her toes.

  “Let’s get you under these blankets.”

  “You’ll still stay with me?” God, who was this woman?

  “Don’t worry, Angel, I know this isn’t you. I know you’ll be back in fighting form tomorrow. Today is an aberration.” Shit she was saying her inside thoughts out loud.

  Nate barked out a laugh. “Yes you are.”

  “Fine if I’m saying what I’m thinking you might as well know touching you is making me less ill.” He stopped pulling back the covers and went still as stone. Damn, what else should she have expected? What man wanted to hear that kind of heavy news?

  “I don’t want to freak you out, Angel, but I’ve kind of been feeling sick.”

  “What?” Sarah pushed up on her elbows to get a better look at Nate.

  “Headache, sweats, nausea, chills?” She realized his normally tan skin looked pale and his short blonde hair was damp with sweat.

  “How is that possible? Are you saying you’ve been feeling some of the same symptoms as me?”

  “It was after I started touching you.”

  Sarah plopped back down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling trying to assimilate this latest piece of information. Nate stroked her face.

  “Angel?”

  “This is freaky,” she whispered in a daze.

  “I told you.”

  “So somehow we’re connected? Do you think it happened with Kali? Why didn’t it happen with Noah or Kota?” He just looked at her and raised his eyebrow. She blushed.

  “Right.” She knew why. There was already a connection between the two of them. There had been for a long time. It would have only happened with him. When she said as much, he smiled.

  “Thank God, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get you to rest in my arms tonight, and now the perfect excuse lands in my lap.” Sarah peeked at him through her lashes and found him staring down at her in the dim light of the hotel room. “I’m serious. No funny business. I didn’t want to leave you alone. There was no way you were going to get me to leave this room. I was going to, at the very least, sleep on the floor, but my hope was to lie with you in my arms.”

  “I thought it wasn’t safe for us to get another hotel room,” Sarah said.

  “Angel, let’s talk about this some other time, okay? I want you to rest.” He pressed his lips to her forehead and she about melted into his arms. How she could melt into such steely muscles she didn’t know, but she had never felt safer or more comfortable.

  “Nate?”

  “Shhh, I’m tired. Can we nap for a bit?” He was such a liar. She snuggled closer, and breathed in the scent of him. A nap sounded good. She was awfully tired.

  Chapter Three

  Brayson fell asleep immediately when they set up camp but Nate couldn’t. His stomach churned and his head pounded. It felt like he was coming down with the flu. He lurched upwards and staggered out of the tent, falling to his knees he threw up.

  Sarah.

  It was Sarah, she was sick. She had just healed someone. He got up and took a couple of deep breaths and used his canteen to rinse his mouth, and sat under a tree. He needed to make a connection with his woman. He’d been able to before when she had been this ill, he prayed he would be able to do again.

  He had to fight the nausea and th
en the headache hit him like a freight train. He honestly didn’t know how she was coping. He finally found her or at least her spirit. He pushed towards her wanting to hold her. He received a definite push back.

  It’s like that, is it?

  He didn’t want to hurt her, he could feel the pain of her headache, but she was being stubborn. He knew his presence, his mental touch helped. He pushed again. This time when she pushed back, he was ready for her, he wrapped her in his mental arms, and he felt her sink into him. He felt her melt in relief, what the woman didn’t understand, was it was a relief for him as well.

  She needed to lie down. Actually, they both did. Finally, after following her halfway across the country she was almost back in his arms. When she was feeling better and actually in his arms, he was going to hug her, then he was going to kiss the hell out of her, and finally he was going to spank that delicious ass.

  Despite those fulfilling thoughts, he was still frustrated he couldn’t help her in person. It reminded him too much of those times he was in Miami and unable to be with her when she was trying to help baby Nell. God, Sarah had been so wiped out, and he could only reach her like he had tonight. He hated not having her with him for real. Nate remembered back to the first time he had held her from a distance.

  “Brice, you have to take my place.”

  “What is it man?”

  “Honestly? I think I’m having a malaria attack.” Nate was dumbfounded. He had malaria once five years ago and it was the treatable type the docs assured him would never reoccur. But here he was on a rooftop in Miami suffering all of the symptoms.

  Another shudder racked his big body, how could he be this cold in the hot sun? How could he be sweating this profusely? A sunbeam came at him like a knife and shot through his eye, sending searing pain to his brain. He could barely keep himself from throwing up.

  “Nate! I’m calling an ambulance.” Nate barely understood him, between the pain and Brice’s thick Scottish accent.

  “No,” he forced out the word. “Can’t draw attention.” He shoved the binoculars to Brice and curled up. “Be fine. Need rest.”

  “Nay, you’re burning up.”

  “Watch building. More important.” He squinted at the man, ensuring Brice would do as he said.

  “Ach, ye’re right.” Brice moved him gently to his side. He pulled off his shirt and folded that under Nate’s head. “Try to rest.” As soon as he saw Brice move into position to watch the warehouse, he closed his eyes. It helped the pain, but the questions burst across his mind as the shudders continued to rush along his frame.

  “No sense,” he whispered.

  “What mate?”

  “Nothing.” He couldn’t explain it to himself, let alone to anyone else.

  “Well okay then, I’ll ignore ye and your feverish ramblings.”

  It made no sense. How could a malaria attack come on in thirty seconds? From out of a literal clear blue sky? Nate wiped the sweat out of his eyes. He flashed back to wiping Sarah’s tears away when she had been this helpless after healing Kota and Noah. God, he missed her.

  Sarah! That’s what was going on. He wasn’t sick with malaria. He was feeling Sarah’s pain. He felt a little of it the last time she was so ill after healing, but it had gone away once they were touching. Now they weren’t touching, so both of them were going through the pits of hell, suffering the after effects of one of her healing sessions. Dammit, what was his girl doing?

  Now Nate knew what was going on, he pushed up from the graveled roof.

  “Stay down, man. Malaria is nothing to fool around with.”

  “Doing,” Nate gulped down some fresh air, “better,” he lied. He needed to get his shit together. He threw Brice his shirt. “Put that back on, man.”

  “What, can’t ye handle seeing a manly chest?”

  “The red chest hair is going to alert anyone who might look up, it’s like a fucking beacon in the sunlight.” Good, he was getting his shit together, he could talk in complete sentences. Nate made his way over to the doorway, and found the little bit of shade there was on the roof and hunkered down. He was still hot and cold at the same time. If he felt this bad, he couldn’t imagine how Sarah was feeling. Goddamn it, what was going on in California?

  He pulled out his cell and punched in her number. It rang a while before going to voicemail. Good it wasn’t turned off. He did it again. And again. And again.

  “Go way,” she finally answered, her voice a slurred whisper.

  “Angel, where are you?” He heard her taking deep breaths, and he just waited, wanting so badly to have her in his arms. “Angel? Is anyone with you?”

  “Can’t know.” Dammit. He knew exactly what she was saying, if anyone knew how adversely the healing affected her, they wouldn’t want her to do it.

  “Don’t tell.” She whimpered. “Please Nate.”

  “I promise, Angel. Are you in your apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Concentrate on my voice. Let’s pretend I’m there with you, that I’m actually there touching you. Let’s beat this bastard.” She gave a watery laugh.

  “I’m serious. You’re the physician, you’re the whoo-whoo healer. You’re able to do things that defy all logic, we should be able to help one another without physically touching.”

  “What do you mean one another?” Shit, he hadn’t meant to tell her.

  “Nate?” her voice was a loud whisper. He felt a spike go through his temple.

  “Don’t raise your voice, it hurts both of us.”

  “Oh God, are you feeling what I’m feeling? Even in Miami?” She sounded so anguished it broke his heart.

  “Angel, I thank God I’m feeling it, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to call. Now let’s both of us concentrate. If I can feel the pain, we should be able to connect and relieve the pain, right?” She was silent for so long, he looked down at his phone to make sure they were still connected.

  “Sarah?”

  “It might work.” Her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear it.

  “Where are you in your apartment?”

  “I’m propped against the foot of my bed.”

  “Can you get in, and under the covers?” He heard her moving. It took a long time. “Put the phone on speaker on the pillow next to you.”

  “All right.”

  “Close your eyes.” Nate wiped more sweat off his brow. He hoped this worked. He needed to be on top of his game here in Miami, lives were depending on him. But God, this woman had a piece of his heart, and he hated being so far from her when she was hurting so badly.

  “Nate, I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep. You don’t have time for this.” Those words that so closely reflected his thoughts told him how deeply connected they were.

  “Angel, are your eyes closed?” he demanded, his voice filled with command.

  “They are now you big meanie.” Her voice was tremulous, but he chuckled at her humor.

  “How do you need me to hold you? Where do you need my hands?” He heard her take a deep swallow, then another.

  “This can’t work.”

  “Answer my question,” he demanded.

  “Hands, start by holding my hands.”

  “My fingers are tangling with yours, palms pressed together, I’m anchoring you. Breathe in. Breathe out.” He continued to tell her to breathe for long minutes.

  “Now I’m caressing up your delicate inner arms, not soft and teasing, but with firm strokes. I reach around and cup your elbows, and you sigh out a breath, your breathing is easier, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” he heard the truth in her voice. He wasn’t surprised, his chills and sweats were beginning to dissipate.

  “Keep your eyes closed, and arch into my touch as I glide my hands upwards towards your shoulders.” He heard her shudder out another deep breath.

  “You’re pressing in.”

  “Yes I am, Angel. Does it feel good?”

  “Please, my neck, my neck hurts so badly.”

&nbs
p; Nate rolled his head, stifling his groan of pain. “I know, Angel. Just feel.”

  “So good. I love your big hands.” Even though her voice was still a whisper, it wasn’t as slurred. She sounded better, more in control. His fingers clenched against his cargo pants as he pictured himself massaging the tense muscles at her delicate nape. Her hair was both resilient and soft, like the woman. Sarah only wanted people to see the capable warrior side, but he was gifted with this side, and he would do anything to offer her surcease and protect her.

  Lost in his thoughts, and the feel of her, he missed the tones and sounds. He was brought out his reverie by the sound of her moans.

  “Talk to me. Is the pain worse?”

  “So good. Please, harder. It’s helping so much. I can think again, I can actually open my eyes without pain.” He heard her sigh, and relaxed.

  “Keep them closed,” another command.

  “But Nate…”

  “You’re going to go to sleep.”

  He pushed his fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp, gratified by a moan that had his cock tightening in response. Well that answered that question. He was totally recovered.

  The sounds of pleasure she was making made it clear she was over the worst. It also told him that even with three thousand miles separating them they could connect. He could still take care of his girl.

  “Sarah, who did you heal?”

  “Can’t talk about it. You need to stay focused. Just come home soon. So tired.” She slurred her words again, but she was just drowsy, not in pain. He pushed with his mind, trying to see if he could merge thoughts with her like Kali and Noah did.

  “I felt that. That wasn’t polite. Sleepy time.” God, she was right. He rested his head against the back of the wall, sparing a glance for Brice. He needed a quick nap, then he could take over his watch and Brice could get back inside the warehouse.

  “Are you going to be okay, Angel?”

  “Am now.” He felt the exact moment she drifted off, and he shut off his phone. Who in the hell was injured?

  It was well before dawn when Nate woke propped against the tree trunk in the forest. He had dreams of holding Sarah, of helping her when she was ill. Shaking his head he realized they hadn’t been dreams. It was real. Dammit, she healed someone last night, and once again he hadn’t been there in the flesh to hold her. This shit had to stop.