by Chloe Cox
“They told you all that?” Adra asked. She smiled a little, in spite of herself. “Isn’t that, like, a massive violation of…something?”
She couldn’t remember the word. Freaking painkillers.
Ford just shrugged.
“I didn’t give the doctor much of a choice,” he said. Then he smiled at her, and it lit her up from the inside. “I regret nothing.”
She almost let it win. She almost let that joy he kindled inside her win out.
But she remembered. She remembered all that pain, she remembered Nicole’s house. She remembered her family.
Don’t cry.
“Nothing’s changed, Ford,” she said.
And that’s when he stood up, one hundred percent fierce, implacable Dom.
“Everything’s changed,” he said.
That. Voice.
It was an order, or a declaration. An order to the universe, maybe. It was the voice he used when he wasn’t fucking around.
“Adra, look at me,” he said. He still held her hand, and he brushed her cheek again, gentle and light as a feather, but his face was firm. “Everything has changed. I’m going to take you home as soon as they clear you, and I’m going to take care of you. And then we’ll talk about whatever you want to talk about. But this is non-negotiable. I can’t live if you—”
The sudden silence felt heavy. The words he didn’t say felt heaviest of all.
He put his hand on her cheek again, and angled her face up, pinning her eyes with his own.
“The only time my life needed fixing was when I thought something had happened to you,” he said.
“I’m so sorry about what I said,” she whispered. “But it doesn’t change what I am.”
“Can you tell me to go away?” he asked. “Can you do that?”
She couldn’t look away if she’d wanted to.
“No,” she said.
She’d never be that strong.
“Then I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m going to bring you home as soon as they let me.”
He bent down to kiss her forehead again.
“But first, there’s someone you have to meet,” he said, and his smile came back.
It actually took Adra a second to figure it out. She blamed the painkillers still, but on the plus side, Lola actually got to see Adra’s surprised face when Roman wheeled her into the room.
Well, Lola and the baby got to see Adra’s surprised face, but probably only Lola appreciated it.
“Oh my God,” Adra said.
“Right back at you,” Lola said. She looked tired but happy, and had this tiny little pink bundle in her arms, and Adra just couldn’t stop staring. “You know you’re not allowed to jump out into traffic until Emma has gotten a chance to meet you, right?”
Adra tried to laugh, and winced. Screw it. “Emma?” she said.
“Emma,” Roman said. The man was beaming like a lighthouse.
“She’s actually never allowed to jump out into traffic,” Ford said. “Again, anyway.”
“Can I?” Adra asked.
There was that moment of hesitation, when Lola was reminding herself that babies didn’t break, and Adra felt, for a second, kind of bad—she hadn’t thought, she’d just spoken up. Painkillers again. But that baby…
“Of course,” Lola said softly. She was smiling. She was beyond smiling. Adra had never seen anyone look as happy as Lola and Roman did, and it made her heart swell to the point of aching.
And then as Roman wheeled her up to the bed, Ford intercepted.
“I want to get in on that, too,” he said.
Which was how Adra got to watch Ford for with the baby. She watched him pick her up, so carefully, in those huge hands, and then just…hold her. This giant man holding this tiny little life, his whole being focused on just that little light in his arms. And then he looked at Adra.
Adra tried to breathe. She couldn’t. And not just because of her ribs.
She saw about a million things, there. She saw the life Ford almost had, the life he wanted. The life she wanted. She saw this person that Ford hadn’t had a chance to be yet, this amazing father. She saw promise. And she wished, more than anything, that she was able to live up to it.
And then Ford tucked little Emma into her blanket just a little bit better, and gently, so gently, placed her in Adra’s arms, and that was it.
Adra was in love.
“You’re going to have to give her back eventually,” Lola said.
“Hush,” Adra said.
chapter 27
“I’m pretty sure I can walk, you know,” Adra said.
Ford shook his head and wheeled her around a corner, toward the big bay doors of the hospital entrance where his car was waiting.
“Bull,” he said. “I saw your face when you put weight on that leg.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t walk!”
“I can pop a wheelie for you,” he said. “But that’s the best I can do. You are not getting out of this chair until we get home. That’s an order.”
Adra tried to look over her shoulder, and Ford tried not to laugh at the expression on her face. Pretty much everything made him smile now that he knew she was ok. In comparison to those first few hours when he couldn’t find her, and couldn’t get any information? When he thought the worst was possible? Fucking everything made him happy now.
“Wheelchairs only have two wheels,” she said accusingly.
He shrugged. “I didn’t say it would be a good wheelie.”
Man, he was glad to see her joking around, considering the circumstances.
Adra sighed and leaned back in the chair, content, for the moment, to let him wheel her around, but Ford could see the uneasiness building inside her. And he got it. This was weird. This was uncharted. Ford knew where he was, what he wanted, and what he was doing, but he knew she didn’t have all that quite figured out yet.
He’d help.
In the meantime…
He’d do whatever he had to to make sure she was taken care of, including, but not limited to, carrying her to and from cars. When they got back to his house, he didn’t even have to look to know her hand was already reaching for the door handle.
“Nope,” he said.
“There’s no chair! We left it at the hospital!”
“Sit,” he said.
This was just a proxy argument. She was testing him, and testing herself, trying to figure out what it actually meant to let him take care of her while she was injured. Adra was ambulatory, even if it hurt, and she was a grown woman; she could take care of herself if she wanted. But she didn’t want that. She wanted Ford, just as badly as he wanted her. She just didn’t think she deserved it.
That, that more than anything else…
Jesus, when he’d seen that accident, the bottom of everything had fallen out. Like the earth below his feet had disintegrated and he’d fallen to his own special kind of hell. He barreled through that accident scene like a fucking mental patient, demanding to know where Adra was, who had taken her, whose blood that was on the ground. It was a minor miracle he hadn’t been arrested, but the whole time, the whole damn time, he kept thinking: No. No. This was not right. This was not how things were supposed to end. This was not how he would allow things to end.
And then, speeding back to the hospital, he’d thought about how Adra’s last words to him had been about how she wasn’t good enough for him. How she wasn’t good enough for him. He’d clenched his jaw so hard he’d nearly cracked his teeth, thinking he’d let her go even one damn second without showing her how wrong she was. He would never, ever forgive himself for that.
No more letting things play out. No more soft touch. Enough of that. That was done. He’d nearly lost the most precious thing in his life, the only thing that mattered, and he wasn’t going to take any more chances. He would find a way to move the goddamn ocean to show her what she really was, if it came to that.
Besides, he had almost all his plans locked up already. He�
�d needed to do something while Lola was in labor and Adra was unconscious, and he’d had his cell phone and about a bunch of people who owed him favors. He’d put the time to good use.
Now? Now it was time to take care of the love of his life.
He walked around to her side of the car and locked eyes with her through the glass. She looked softer than she’d sounded, her eyes telling him more than her words at this point.
She was still scared. He was determined to fix that, too.
He opened the door.
There was a moment.
Then Adra gave him a crooked, uncertain smile. And then she said, archly, “Thank you, Jeeves.”
“Man, you’re gonna pay for that one, too,” Ford said when he was done laughing.
“Hop to it, man,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“How do you make an English accent sound Australian?” he said as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Carefully, so carefully, he slipped his hand under her legs and began to lift. She was light as a feather, as always.
“Talent,” she said.
He smiled. “This ok?” he asked. “Do you hurt anywhere?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
He would be lying if he said he didn’t like having another reason to hold her. And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy taking care of her in this more mundane way. It actually had a lot in common with the way he controlled everything during a scene with her, only he didn’t take his pleasure in taking her so much in taking care of her. Which he would do any day of the damn week if need be.
When he had her set up on giant mound of pillows and blankets, ice packs and painkillers at one hand, TV tray at the other, he finally took a moment.
Damn. Beautiful, as always.
“What are you looking at?” she said. “I’m a mess, right? I feel like a mess.”
“You’re so fucking gorgeous it hurts, actually,” he said. “But I am gonna have to check on those bandages.”
She smiled weakly up until that last thing.
“What? We just left the hospital.”
Ford shrugged. Checking out of hospitals always took forever, and Adra had bad case of road rash on her arm and shoulder. “Tough,” he said.
He was already at her feet, gingerly picking up the leg that had taken a beating. Her hip hadn’t dislocated, but it would hurt for a while. She winced slightly.
“Still tender, huh,” he said, smoothing his hand lightly over the skin.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said quietly.
He’d done his best to make sure she was comfortable coming out of the hospital. He’d brought her this travel makeup kit that was the size of a freaking suitcase that she referred to as her “portable battle station,” and he’d carefully helped her into a simple wrap dress and heels before he’d put her in the wheelchair. Should have been easy, but damn, that moment was fraught.
It was a different kind of nakedness, helping someone after they’d been hurt. And, to be fair, after she’d ended things. She’d turned away slightly, instinctually, as he’d wrapped the dress around her, and then she’d caught herself, and looked him in the eye.
That right there was another moment to fall in love with her.
Anyway, he thought about that now, as he undid the ties on her wrap dress. Because this time it was different.
There was a charge in the air.
She didn’t move to do it herself. Just let him undress her.
Fuck.
“Lean forward,” he said, and helped pull her up, as gently as he could.
Silently, she obeyed. Ford managed to position her between his legs, in the middle of this ridiculous nest of pillows and blankets, and she leaned into him.
It would not be even remotely appropriate for his dick to get hard at this particular moment, and yet Ford knew that fucker had a mind of his own.
Concentrate.
Looking at her wounds made him feel crazy all over again. Thinking about how much they must hurt drove him even crazier. If he could take that pain on himself, he’d do it in a heartbeat.
“How’s it feel?” he said, removing the dressing.
“Um…” She was breathing a little bit too hard. Damn. “Not…great. Not terrible, but not great.”
“You’re due for another painkiller, anyway,” Ford said. “Take it.”
“Yes, sir.”
They both paused.
By the time he got the bandages changed, he couldn’t tell what was going on anymore. She was in some degree of pain, and so was he, just watching her, but that didn’t seem to matter. Whenever he touched her, he felt it, that charge.
So did she.
When he repositioned her next to him, he could see that she was on the verge of tears.
“Tell me what hurts,” he said.
He knew it wasn’t anything physical.
She laughed, and wiped away that first tear. “Ford, this isn’t fair to you.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “I decide what’s best for me.”
She hit him with those big, wet doe eyes.
“And for me, too?” she asked.
Ford took her hand. “Only when you’re being dumb.”
Adra glared at him, genuinely pissed off. Which was good. It was honest; it was real. He liked that.
“You are dangerously close to calling me stupid,” she said. “I might be injured, but I can still find a way to kick your ass if you deserve it.”
“I didn’t call you stupid, I said you were being dumb. And you are. And you know it.”
She looked at him, mouth open, but speechless. Then she frowned in frustration and looked away.
That was it. There was no more time to waste. She needed to be pushed, and Ford needed to say it.
“You think you’re going to end up like your brother,” he said.
She didn’t say anything.
“You think you’re going to pull a Charlie and hurt people, and that’s why you can’t be happy,” he went on. “You can’t let anyone love you because of the Davis curse, or whatever the hell it is.”
She turned on him, then, angry for the first time, eyes flashing.
“No, shut up and listen, Adra,” Ford said. “That is what you believe. Only it is total, complete bullshit. If you don’t want to be with me, that’s one thing. But I’m not going to let you talk shit about yourself and then use it as an excuse to run away because you’re scared. I am not going to let you believe those things about yourself. And when I’m done with that, then you can tell me to fuck off if you want.”
“Stop cursing,” she said.
“Stop screwing yourself over,” he said back. “And while you’re at it, stop worrying about me. I’m tough as fucking nails, Adra, and you know it. I don’t care if you break my heart anymore; it’s already yours to do with as you please, and I’m better off that way. You could break my heart tomorrow and every damn day with you would still be worth it. What you’re really worried about is you, because you know you’re wrong, and you know I’ll prove it to you.”
There was a silence. Adra stared at the hem of her wrap dress and picked at it with a little too much concentration, but the tension had gone out of her shoulders.
“You’re kind of being a bully,” she said finally. Softly. Smiling ruefully while she said it.
“Hell yeah I am. If you really want me to go and you can tell me to leave, you know I’ll leave you alone,” he said. “But you have to say it. And I know you can’t.”
Finally, she sighed.
And then she relaxed against him.
“I’m too tired to prove you wrong right now,” she said.
“Uh-huh.”
“That, and painkillers,” she said.
“I know.”
“You don’t fight fair, you know that?”
Ford grinned. “I’m a lawyer.”
Adra laughed, and then winced, her hand going to her side. “Don’t make me laugh,” she said, smiling.
Goddamn, he was so reliev
ed to see her smile. He could barely bring himself to let go of her, but he had to.
“Spicy beef and a movie?” he said, lowering her back onto a pillow.
“Yes, please,” she said. “Die Hard marathon this time. All these injuries make me feel like a badass.”
“You are a badass,” he agreed. Then, an order: “Don’t ever do it again.”
Adra tried to fight it, but she gave him a satisfied smile. He’d take it.
The rest of the night, they settled in, silently agreeing to just table the big stuff until later. Which left them with just time spent with each other, which was always better than anything else, anyway. It was the easiest thing in the world.
Until Adra started to drift off, tired from healing and the drugs, and it was time to go to bed.
He carried her, with less protests this time, to his bedroom. To his bed.
She didn’t say anything, but he could feel the question.
When he put her down, he said, “I can sleep on the floor if you want, but I’m going to be here in case you need me.”
“Ford, I’m not stealing your bed.”
“Don’t argue,” he said. Then, realizing he couldn’t leave, even if he’d wanted to, he said, “I saw blood on the ground, Adra.”
There was a brief silence.
“What?” she said.
“I saw the crash site. I saw your car. There was blood on the ground.”
Before she could say anything else, he silenced her, his hand going to her cheek.
“It’s ok. No one was killed—it just looked bad.”
“And you thought…”
They looked at each other.
“I’m not leaving,” he finally said. “Besides, you know you’ll do something dumb like try to hop to the kitchen in the middle of the night.”
“Stop being right,” she whispered.
They sat there for a moment, Adra propped up against the pillows, Ford sitting on the side of the bed, just looking at each other. Ford watched those emotions play across her face again. If he’d had it rough thinking the love of his life had just died, she had it worse—every so often, he could see the reality of the fact that she could have died flash across her face.
