Hart Attack

by Cristin Harber

  Cash’s eyelashes fluttered.

  “Did you see that?” Brock asked.

  “Keep him going,” Jared ordered.

  Roman couldn’t swallow past the knot in his throat. He dropped next to Cash. “Wake up and go home to your girl. You’re having a baby.” Nothing happened. No more rustling eyelids. Nothing. “You’re going to be a dad, man.”

  Cash’s closed eyes pinched. Then nothing.

  “What’d you say?” Brock asked. “Whatever it was, do it again.”

  “Roman?” Beth’s small voice almost killed him. “Did you tell him?”

  Roman nodded, holding her eyes. He needed Cash to be okay for Beth, too. He had to fix this for all of them.

  “Tell him again. Wait.” She looked at Jared. “Get Nicola to tell him.”

  Jared frowned. “What?”

  Roman glanced at Cash then said, “Nic’s pregnant.”

  No one said a word, and Roman felt long, sad thumps of his heart. God, getting Nicola on the line was going to be awful.

  Jared switched channels on his radio, covering his mouth while he spoke. Brock nodded, then Boss Man switched back. “Get her on the line.”

  Minutes passed. Finally, Jared pointed to his headset, then to Roman, and held up two fingers. Roman switched to channel two, and his gut sank.

  “What the hell is going on?” Nicola asked. “Parker? Jared? Who the hell is on the line?”

  “Nicola.” He swallowed. “Nic—”

  “Roman?” She gasped. “Where’s Cash?”

  “Nic—”

  “No, no, no. Where’s Cash? Tell me! Where’s Cash?”

  “He’s fine. It’ll be okay, just listen to me.”

  “What is going on, Roman?”

  “Calm down, sweetheart.”

  “Roman! Don’t you dare tell me—”

  “I know you’re pregnant.”

  “Oh God! No! Where’s Cash?”

  “He’s with me. He’s sleeping, hon, and he needs to hear your voice.”

  “Oh, God.” She moaned. “Roman, no. Please.”

  “He’s okay, Nic. And he’s going to be better when he hears your voice.” Roman swallowed the ache in his throat. “You’ve got to do this for him. Got me?”

  Forever ticked by through one long sob. Then Nicola cleared her throat and said, “Put the headset on him, and get off this channel.”

  “Alright.”

  “Roman?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Please. Don’t let me lose him.”

  He nodded, even though she couldn’t see. “Give me a three count, and he’s all yours. You talk to him until we land. Three…” Roman slipped off the headset.

  All around him, everyone switched channels as Jared held up four fingers. Roman put the headset on Cash’s head, and then they went silent. Minus the rotor blades, there wasn’t a sound.

  Roman settled next to Beth and put a hand on her knee. She rested hers on top of his, and when he looked up, her sweet face looked tortured.

  Beth squeezed Roman’s hand and mouthed, “I love you like that.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Beth had a smoke-scented arm draped over her face when she heard boots walk in. The night before, Jared had been in and out of her room. The rest of the boys had said their hellos and goodbyes last night or that morning. All except Roman.

  Today, she’d washed up in her bathroom sink because taking a shower seemed like too much work. Then, she put together a plan to go find Roman and say… a lot of things. Mostly because the last thing that she’d said to him was something akin to her undying love. He hadn’t responded, hadn’t said a damn word, just kept his hand on her knee and squeezed.

  Really, she shouldn’t be nervous. Hell, he’d said he loved her. But never, not once, did he compare anything to Cash and Nicola. They were kinda the rock stars of love. Sappy, happy, sexy, lovestruck. And now, having a baby. That was quite the comparison. And it was exactly how she felt.

  So when she heard boots, her heart sped up. Slowly, she pulled her arm down. Roman. And wow, was he a man. Even after the hell they’d been through, he walked in looking tougher than hell and hotter than the devil. Beth bit her lip because she still rocked the hospital gown and had used commercial-grade paper towels to give herself a soldier shower from a sink.

  “Hey, pretty girl.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “You okay?”

  She nodded. “You?”

  “Exhausted. Feel like shit”

  “Me too.”

  His dark-brown eyes ran over her. “Make room, babe.”

  Scooting to the side, she sighed when he lay down next to her. His arm went around her shoulders, and she burrowed into him.

  “Where’s your hospital gown?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “I opted out of that look once the doc said I wasn’t dying.”

  “You check on Cash?”

  “Yeah.” His jaw flexed.

  “And… what’d they say?”

  “The bump on his head from the accident didn’t help the bump from yesterday. The smoke inhalation… his brain needs rest. Or some shit like that. Nic’s on her way out. Jared’s making arrangements to get him home.”

  “This is all my fault.”

  Roman shook his head. “No.”

  “If—”

  “Beth, babe. We made a decision to work these jobs long ago. And Cash and I made a decision to work this job in particular, even though we weren’t cleared to go.”

  “What!” She jerked back, letting guilt make room for anger. “You weren’t… why?”

  Roman shrugged.

  She slugged him in the chest. “You assholes.”

  “What?”

  “You could’ve gotten yourself killed. Cash is in bad shape. All because—”

  “Because there was a fuckin’ nuclear weapon out there, and I didn’t trust it to anyone else but Titan. I am Titan. So that’s how that works.”

  She tried to inch out of his iron hold. “Suicide mentality. If you don’t kill yourself now, you’ll kill yourself later. This is why I stayed away from you.”

  “Stop it, Beth.”

  Her chest felt tight. Why did she have to love him so damn much? “Can you just go away? I need to sleep.”

  “Fuck, no, babe,” he growled into her temple.

  “Roman—”

  “Everyone dies. Facts of life.”

  “Not soon, they don’t. Not by their own hand or because they’re too stupid to walk away when they should.”

  He turned in the bed, squared her to him, and narrowed his eyes. “I’m not him. You realize that, right? Say you get that.”

  Balling her hand into a fist, Beth nailed him in the chest. It hurt her sore muscles more than anything else, frustrating her to no end. “You’re all the same.”

  “Nah.”

  “Condescending, cavalier asshole.” She pushed back until she couldn’t get any farther because the bed railings fenced her in. If she could scream and run away, she’d feel better. She could—

  “Beth. Chill out.”

  She could never see him again. That would fix everything. Just like she should’ve done in the beginning. God, she was wrong not to have learned her lesson from Logan. “I hate you all.”

  “You can hate him all you want.”

  “I didn’t say just him. You, too.”

  “You don’t hate me.” He laughed, antagonizing her to the point of madness.

  “What the hell is your problem? Get out of my bed. Get… get out of my life already. I’m done.”

  Roman put two very strong hands on her shoulders and held her still. “Eyes up here.”

  “Go away.”

  “Eyes.”

  She huffed and glared at him. “What?”

  “Love sucks, pretty girl. Love sucks whether it’s family or friends or you. It fuckin’ hurts. But—”

  “I don’t need some psycho-babble from a lu
natic.”

  “But when you’ve got it, you own it. So even with you being all crazy woman right now, you’re worth the headache, the ups and downs. Figure out who you really are. Not who the CIA wants you to be or what you’re dying to avoid. Figure out you, then you’re supposed to be with me. Simple.” He got out of the bed. “Hell, you already know the answer. You already said the answer.”

  “Said what?”

  His face darkened, something playing there that she couldn’t name. “You looked at a dying man whose woman was doing whatever she could to keep him alive via a headset. Her heart was bleeding. Fuck, my heart was bleeding, and I saw your tears. You want to talk desperation? You want to see, to hear, to fear? That was them. And you, Beth Tourne, said you loved me like that. So don’t think I don’t know what’s going on with you and me. Don’t think I don’t know where your head’s at or where we’re going. I know. It’s you who has to figure your shit out.”

  She stared at him. Hundreds of thoughts ran through her mind as she replayed his words and let the truth of them soak in. Beth bit her lip. “You have your shit figured out?”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. “Yeah, babe. I do.” He stepped forward and kissed her cheek. “But you don’t. So think on it. Realize what you know.”

  “Realize what I know…” she repeated.

  He nodded. “I’m headed over to check on Cash and see what the plan is to get home.”

  “Um…” But Beth lost her thought when his fingertips traced her jaw. He pushed her hair behind her ear, drifting his touch over her cheeks. What did she know? Starting small, working her way up—that seemed like a plan. “I hate my condo.”

  “I would too.” He sat back on her bed. “But you’ve already told me that. We already know what we’re doing about that.”

  Yeah… yeah, they did. She was moving in with him. If he didn’t toss her aside for being nuts and having some kind of PTSD reaction to him risking his life. “I’m sorry that I’m all over the place. It’s just—”

  The door flew open. Mr. Jasper stood there, red faced and narrowed eyes. He came toward her as if he were planning to tear her hospital-gown-clad ass out of bed and drag her straight to Langley. “Miss Tourne.”

  “Whoa! Hey, buddy.” Roman jumped up and moved between Jasper and Beth when the door flew open again.

  Jared this time. “Jasper,” he growled, “you and me, in the hall. Now.”

  “Go away, Westin.”

  “Try the fuck again,” Jared snapped.

  Jasper glared at her. “Everyone out. I need a word with Miss Tourne.”

  “Out?” Roman’s hostility was nearly palpable. “Recalibrate your approach, asshole.”

  Jasper tried to step around Roman. “Excuse me.”

  What a mistake that was. Roman caught the man by the shoulder, fingers flexing into Jasper’s pressure point. “Tone it down, or you’re out.”

  Jared stepped next to Roman, creating a two-person-wide fence of muscle. “You already know how I feel about bureaucratic, pencil-pushing wannabe spooks, Jasper. She’s on my clock. She’s my girl, so you take it up with me.”

  Roman let go, and Jasper rolled his newly released shoulder.

  Beth swung her legs off the side of the bed. “What is going on?”

  Roman barely turned his head. “Nothing now.”

  Exasperated and exhausted, she tried again. “Then what was going on?”

  “I lost a good man,” Jasper said.

  “No, asshole.” Roman’s face twisted. “You lost a bad handler who left serious questions you need to be looking into.”

  “The Agency will deal with its own business,” Jasper said. “Beth, you’re with me. Get dressed.”

  “The hell she will.” Roman puffed out his chest.

  She got to her feet and put her hands on her hips. “You—”

  Jasper cut her off. “We’ve been through your role, Miss Tourne. Pretty, partying, piece of ass. Get dressed—”

  Roman’s fist flew, catching Jasper’s jaw, before she could tell the man to go to hell.

  Jasper rebounded, snarling at Jared with his perfect white teeth. “Get your bulldog on a leash.”

  Bulldog? Greg had said that, Evan had said that, now Jasper. She found it curious, for such a specific term.

  Boss Man shrugged. “More like a pit bull, but I see nothing wrong.”

  Beth stepped forward. “Excuse me.” Jared moved aside, and she was face to face with Jasper. “You never got me from day one.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You have a job. You do your job.”

  “I deserve respect.”

  He chuckled. “You drink cocktails and suck dick for foreign secrets. I’m not sure where you—”

  She slapped Jasper. “Try again.”

  “Bitch.” Jasper’s retaliatory hand went up but stopped. He eyed Roman and Jared. “When you get back to Langley, report to the mail room.”

  “You’re a chauvinistic waste of space. Put me in the mail room, and I’m done.”

  “Not much of a market for socialite intelligence officers.”

  “I’m done. My resignation letter will be delivered.” She pointed at the door. “Get out of my hospital room.”

  Jasper cackled. “You’re a joke is what you are. Unskilled—”

  “I’m off the charts in every testable spectrum and then some. You lost out.”

  “She does have a hell of a resume,” Jared added.

  Jasper stood his ground. “You don’t just leave the Agency, Miss Tourne.”

  “She does when there’s a job offer.” Jared walked toward the door. “Beth, I think you have this handled. I’ll touch base with you later.”

  She turned back to Jasper. “No matter what my next move is, I know it’s not with you. Get out of my room.”

  “You’ll regret this.”

  “I already regret too much in life to give a flip. Out.” She jabbed her finger at the door again.

  The veins in Jasper’s neck protruded, his face reddening. “This won’t be the last word on this incident.”

  “Out!”

  He turned and left. As soon as the door shut, she sank back on the bed.

  Roman clapped slowly. An I’ll-be-damned smiled played on his face. “Nicely done. And I think you just got a job offer from Titan.”

  Flopping back on the pillow, she stared at the ceiling. “Maybe a temporary thing while Nic’s out.”

  “You okay?”

  She looked up at him. “I didn’t do anything like that for the job.”

  “I know.” Roman plopped down beside her on the bed, kicking his legs up. “Scoot over.”

  She did then ducked under his arm and let him hold her. “Do you want to start over? Just… start everything over?”

  He leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “You mean like, ‘hi my name is… nice to meet you’ bullshit?”

  “Yeah.” Because if they started over, if he could forget about how she’d cried over Logan, cried over the future, over them… if he could just see her as a normal woman with a normal job who had fallen for her hero, then maybe they’d have a real future.

  “Nah.”

  Confused, she tried to read his face. “Why? This has been… messy.”

  “It’s been fun.” He tilted his head, running his hand over her arm.

  “Fun?”

  “I jump out of planes and kill bad guys for a living. You think I wanted a paint-by-numbers kind of girl?”

  “I think the problem is I was that kind of girl.”

  “Not a chance. You were deep cover and let it get too far for the wrong reasons. I think we’ve both peeled back the layers and found you. Maybe found me, too.”

  She looked away. “Maybe…” She loved him. He loved her. She was willing to risk it all again. “You still want to move in together? That was one of those in-the-moment ideas. Rushed? Impractical?”

  Roman smiled in a way that made the dimple on his chin deepen. “When you know, you know. That’s far from impr
actical.”

  “And you know? Like know-know?”

  He nodded.

  “How?”

  “It’s pretty simple. I just know.”

  “I just know, too.”

  “Wild, right?” He squeezed her again. “I’m going to marry you one day. Just you wait.”

  Her eyes went wide. She’d already had the whole white-dress, walk-down-the-aisle thing, and she didn’t want that again. But… she did want him. Forever.

  Roman added, “But I’ll take it one step at a time.”

  “I… could do that.” The idea worked its way around in her head. The more she thought about it, the more she liked it. “What if…”

  “What if what?”

  “We really did one day?”

  “Already know it’s going to happen.”

  Oh? Maybe she did too, and what was the point of waiting for waiting’s sake? “I don’t want a ring. Or an engagement. Or anything. Just you.” She held her breath. “When you know, you know. So…?”

  His eyes narrowed. “So? Like now so?”

  She nodded.

  “Nope. Nuh-uh.” He shook his head, letting out a harsh laugh that nearly made her panic. “No way did you just ask me to marry you. I’m a bit more of a traditionalist than that.”

  “So… you think I’m nuts?”

  “I think you’re perfect.” He pulled her against his chest. “But I don’t think you’re going to get to do that. Fuckin’ trying to propose to me. Shit.”

  “So you do it.” She nudged him.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  Beth shook her head. “You’ve been right about us. About everything.”

  “Right now?”

  She nodded.

  “Fuckin’ serious?”

  “Totally.”

  Roman stood then dropped to one knee. “Beth Tourne—”

  “Holy. Shit.” She’d almost died today. And now this? She couldn’t wrap her head around her life. God, she loved him, in a major, bleeding heart kinda way.

  He laughed. “Love your crazy and your freckles. Love how you taste, how you kiss. How you drive me to the edge of sanity. Life’s wild with you. Wild. And I love it, like I love you. I want my ring on your finger, my name on your name. Marry me, babe.”

  “Oh, God…” That was quite possibly the most perfect, most Roman thing she’d ever heard.