by James, Marie
Hound
“Fuck.” That’s what I try to say, but even to my own ears I know it comes out as nothing but a garble before I start coughing.
My body hurts. Every fucking inch of it, as if I’ve been set on fire and then pelted with shards of glass.
“It’s okay,” a deep voice assures me.
I want to grab whoever it is by the throat for spewing shit he has no idea about. The pain radiates from every joint, every muscle. I cough, and the agony increases tenfold.
“Jesus,” I hiss.
“You had a punctured lung,” an unfamiliar voice says as harsh hands press down on my shoulders. It’s only then that I realize I’ve been fighting. What, I’m not certain, but the only cognizant thought I can manage is to move, to get away from the fire burning over every inch of my skin.
“I’m burning,” I scream. “Get me away from the flames.”
“It’s the morphine burning off.”
“Hound.” I stiffen at the sound of Kincaid’s voice. “Calm the fuck down.”
“Hurts,” I mutter. “Make it stop.”
A deep chuckle meets my ears “Don’t be a pussy.”
“Daddy!” I freeze at the sound of Gigi’s voice.
I try to force my eyes open, but they don’t budge, the heaviness of them too much to fight against.
Everything comes rushing back. The pleading in Gigi’s eyes as I begged her to push, the first cries of my baby girl as she entered the world. The pain of losing a friend in a shitty country when the mission went to hell. The harsh burn as the bullet penetrated my vest.
“Daddy?” Her voice is pleading this time, her fear enough to calm me even with the scorching heat from my injuries.
“Keep talking to him, Georgia,” Kincaid commands.
“Please,” I beg as the hands holding me down loosen up.
“Our daughter is beautiful,” Gigi assures me with a sob. “She has your gorgeous eyes.”
I smile through the pain.
“Mr. Rawley?” It’s the unfamiliar voice once again. It’s marked with such a heavy accent, I know I’m still in South America. “I’m Dr. Cardoso. I need you to open your eyes.”
I nod but wince when fire lights up my chest. Attempting to take a deep breath, an attempt to gain the strength and courage only leads to more coughing, heavier hands against my shoulders.
“I’m here, Jameson. Stay calm. Do it when you’re ready.” I want her hands on me. I want to spank her ass for traveling to this shitty country with my newborn daughter.
“Take it easy, Dad.”
“Izzy?” What the fuck is she doing in Brazil?
I hate the harsh weakness in my voice. I know what I’m trying to say, but my ears only register a gruff jumble of sounds.
“Eyes,” the doctor urges again.
I fight the pain. I fight the heaviness until my eyes open to the smallest of slits, only when I shift my head searching for Gigi and Isabella, all I find is Kincaid’s smiling mug and the mocha latte skin of a man I’ve never seen before.
“Where?” I begin before I have to take a shallow breath and swallow past the sandpaper filling my mouth. “Where are my girls?”
“Still in New Mexico,” Kincaid says before holding up his phone. “They’re safe.”
My eyes open wider, taking in the gorgeous sight of Gigi, holding our daughter and Izzy sitting beside her, so half of her is in the frame.
“Hey, gorgeous,” I whisper, my voice gaining strength at the sight of her.
She smiles wide even though tears mark her cheeks and her shoulders jerk with sobs.
“I’ve missed you,” she finally manages.
“How l—”
“Almost two weeks,” Kincaid says.
I look at him over the top of the phone before dropping my eyes back down to the screen. It’s then that I notice the background. She’s in my room in the clubhouse. Baby things we’ve collected surround her, lining the walls to the point that moving around in there is an impossibility.
“You deserve a castle, not a tiny room,” I muse, more to myself than anyone in particular.
“Yes, she does,” Kincaid agrees, but with humor rather than irritation in his voice.
“Why are you here?” I ask him, my eyes fluttering with exhaustion already.
“You’ve met my daughter, haven’t you?” He smiles. “I was on a plane down here before I met my granddaughter. I knew she wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Good man,” I whisper.
“We’ve had you on video since the day Amelia was born,” Izzy says, playfulness marking her tone.
Gigi smiles, a nod of her head confirming. “Why are you so obsessed with me?”
She laughs, and the sound washes over me, precious enough to make some of the pain in my body dissipate.
“Because I love you. I miss you, and I need you to get better so you can come home and do the nighttime diaper changes like you promised.”
“I can’t wait,” I answer honestly.
“You owe me a million dollars in data usage,” Kincaid adds from my bedside.
I smile, wondering if he knows about the bonus Merlin had deposited in my bank account after shit went down in D.C. months ago. I’d offer it gladly if seeing me, even in a comatose state calmed even an ounce of Gigi’s fear.
“So sleepy,” I pant. “Hurts so badly.”
“He needs his rest,” the doctor says. “Mr. Rawley, I’m going to give you pain medicine in your IV. You need to rest.”
I shake my head. Sleep, although I can tell it’s what I need, is the very last thing I want. I know the deed has been done as my pain numbs to something more bearable and my eyes grow even heavier.
“Love you,” I whisper before darkness beckons me and I give into the call.
***
“Goddammit,” I grumble as Kincaid’s strong arms help ease me off of the bed.
It’s been days since I first woke, but even with threats of violence, Dr. Cardoso won’t release me until I can walk on my own and am able to get the spirometer up to the fucking smiley face and hold it there for five seconds. He’s an evil bastard, and I know he’s been sent to do nothing but fucking torture me.
“Today’s the day,” Kincaid says in an unfamiliar timbre.
“Since when did you go all soft and nice,” I hiss, but make it to standing.
“I miss my fucking wife,” he complains. “And Georgia says I can’t leave until we can make that fucking plane ride together.”
I chuckle, the pain not as acute in my chest.
“I can ride on a fucking plane. Let’s just leave today.” I try for conspiratorial, but the words rush out with over-exertion just from fucking standing near my bed.
“And have your lung collapse mid-flight?” he growls. “I promised her I’d deliver you safely, not some fucking corpse, but if you could speed up your recovery, that’d be awesome.”
“Doing my best here, Gramps.”
His grip tightens on my arms. “I told you not to fucking call me that.”
“Make you feel old?”
“Says the guy who can’t get up and take a piss without coughing up a lung and taking a two-hour nap afterward.”
He’s such an asshole, but for some reason, I’m smiling.
“I can’t wait to get home. Can’t wait to hold my baby girl. Can’t wait to press my lips against your baby girl. Feel her skin against my lips.”
I wince when his fingers dig into me. “I’ll fucking drop you right now,” he threatens.
I laugh, not only at getting a rise out of him, but realizing we’ve already made it to the bathroom. It’s taken half the time it did yesterday. The day before that he had to practically carry me in here.
“Wanna give me a hand?” I ask.
“Fuck no,” he grumbles, but doesn’t back away completely, still afraid I’ll fall from the exhaustion I’ve always felt when I make it this far.
“Gigi would hold my cock if she were here,” I tease, but the
growl he releases makes me wonder if I took things too far.
“Say one more thing like that about my daughter, and you won’t have a cock to hold.”
I laugh when I hear him mutter ‘asshole’ as he closes me in the small bathroom.
Even though I know he’s pissed, he’s waiting outside of the door when I pull it open.
“I’m ready to go home,” I lament as he helps me back into the bed.
He clears his throat, and I expect him to rage on me once I’m settled on the mattress, but I look up to find softness in his eyes I’ve only ever seen when he looks at Emmalyn.
“I wanted to say thank you.”
“For making you feel old?” I smile, trying to lighten the mood.
“For living. For loving my daughter more than I ever could’ve asked for.” Emotion clogs his throat, and he clears it twice before talking again. “Georgia would’ve never forgiven me if you didn’t survive.”
“I could never leave her. Couldn’t leave Amelia or Izzy either. I had no other choice. Surviving was the only choice I had.”
“You have my blessing.” He smiles at me. It’s weak but not in a bitter way. It’s a smile I imagine I’d have when the day comes with either Izzy or Amelia when I have to trust their heart and happiness to another man.
“So I’m getting married now?” I joke, but warmth wraps around me at the thought of his daughter having my last name.
“I don’t think Georgia will have it any other way.”
I smile, trying to hide the fact that I’d proposed to Gigi shortly after I told her I loved her the first time, but she refused. She slapped me and told me that there was no way she was marrying me when she was a ‘fat cow.’ Her words, not mine. I spanked her ass until it was bright red for insulting herself while my child grew in her womb. She came four times that night, and I never broached the subject again.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out, and it starts with that.” I point to the spirometer on the side table.
Kincaid smiles and hands over the device that holds my future in its little plastic grasp.
“Get to work, Hound. I need my wife.” I smile at him before my lips hit the mouthpiece. “Say one dirty word about my daughter, and I’m on the next plane out of here without you.”
“I wasn’t,” I argue, but my smile never leaves my mouth.
“You were, too.” His words are harsh, but the twitch in his lips tells me he wants to smile. “I can’t handle it.”
“She’s a grown woman,” I remind him. “She’s a mother.”
“I still can’t handle it.” His head shakes.
I laugh as he backs a few feet away from the bed.
“You have to let her grow up.” Getting him worked up over Gigi is the second-best thing to seeing Gigi on video chat.
“Yeah?” His grin grows. “So now would be a good time to tell you about Izzy’s boyfriend?”
“Bullshit,” I hiss. “She’s too fucking young.”
“Then I won’t tell you that he’s been to the clubhouse several times.”
I groan when I sit up straight in the bed. My body is so fucking tight from lying here for weeks.
“Or that he stays the night, on the couch of course.”
“I’ll fucking kill you.” The gleam in his eye is unreadable.
“You’ll have to catch me first.” He angles his head toward the forgotten spirometer in my hands.
His chuckle as he leaves and the little, yellow piece of plastic floating in the spirometer is all I can hear.
Chapter 40
Gigi
“Where have you been!” I snap as soon as Facetime connects.
I frown down at the blacked-out screen and feel bad for waking Amelia with my raised voice. I cradle her, rocking her gently until she sighs and falls back asleep.
“That’s a silly question, gorgeous. Where else would I be?”
I love hearing his voice, but hate that I can’t see his face. This last week, reception has been spotty at best and more than a few of our video calls have been just a black screen when I wanted nothing more than to see his bearded face.
“You haven’t called all day,” I grumble. It’s now after midnight, but that doesn’t matter. He’s been upset he’s missed so much the last couple of weeks, he has me call when I wake up at night and nurse. He wants me to call when I bathe Amelia, when I miss him. That means I’m constantly calling. Dad warned me that he needs his rest to gain his strength so he can come home, but he insists I call him. Who am I to deny him?
“I’ve been resting.” Only now do I hear the exhaustion in his voice.
“That’s it,” I say with renewed energy. “I’m coming to Brazil. Amelia is three weeks old now, and I read online about people who travel with newborns all the time. We’ll be fine.”
He chuckles, the sound warming me and sounding closer than it has in weeks.
“I miss you,” I complain.
“Going to Brazil would be a waste, Gigi.”
“I need to be with you,” I argue. “I need to hold you, kiss your lips, and trim that out of control beard.”
He laughs again. “You love my beard.”
“I love everything about you. Going to Brazil is what I need.” I look down at our sleeping daughter. “Amelia needs to meet her daddy.”
“You sure you’re willing to put her in my arms?” I nod, a lone tear rolling down my cheek. “I hear you’re spoiling her by holding her all the time.”
“Babies are supposed to be cuddled.” I trace her lips.
“She looks so good in your arms.” I smile wide, grateful that even though I can’t see him, that he can see us.
“She’d look even better in yours,” I counter.
“You sure?”
I jerk my head up at the shuffling sound near the door, and my breathing stops. Worn, a little tattered, but still as handsome as ever, Jameson is watching me from the open doorway.
“You’re here?” Sobs wrack my body as I sit, unable to make my body cooperate and go to him.
“I’m here.”
He doesn’t bother with his phone as it drops to his feet when he closes the distance that’s been between us for far too long.
All but collapsing he falls to the bed, back against the headboard.
“You’re here,” I repeat, stunned but happier than I’ve ever been.
I turn to him, head resting against his hard chest as I cry. Every second since he’s been gone has felt like a million years. It’s been a lifetime since I could touch the warmth of his body, feel his heart beating in sync with mine, that I honestly never thought I’d be able to feel those things again.
Amelia wiggles between us before the room fills with her shrill cries. I move back, allowing her room and giving Jameson the chance to see his daughter unaided by technology for the very first time.
I rock her, trying to calm her as his rough finger trails softly down her tiny cheek.
“She’s beautiful.” I nod in agreement. “She looks like you.”
Fingers trace over her full head of hair, and my tears are renewed as she blinks up at him, instinctively knowing that her family is together and safe.
“You should’ve told me you were coming home,” I complain. “I would’ve cleaned up. Would’ve bathed.”
Personal hygiene and trying to impress people with my looks hasn’t even been a consideration since being discharged from the hospital. At first, I was exhausted, from childbirth and wondering if Jameson was going to survive. After he woke up, I focused on him and taking care of Amelia. I’m exhausted, and even though I’ve had multiple offers of help from others, I’ve refused every one, knowing this is something I had to do on my own, if only to keep my mind and my hands busy.
His fingers tilt my chin up, bright green eyes finding mine. “You’re beautiful.” He watches my mouth, and that familiar tingle that’s been absent for so long returns with a vengeance. “So beautiful.”
A harsh breath rushes through my nose when
his lips meet mine. Everything is apparent in his kiss. Love, lust, and a longing I’m suffering right along with him is evident in the grip of his fingers when his arm wraps around my back.
“Don’t cry, gorgeous.” His fingers sweep my cheeks, but they’re only replaced by new ones.
“I’ve missed you so much.” I’ve said it so many times in the past weeks, but it’s only now, confessing it against his lips that the words aren’t accompanied by a pain in my chest.
Amelia wiggles again, getting upset that she doesn’t have his undivided attention.
“You’re as needy as your momma,” he coos down at her.
I laugh, a genuine laugh that fills the room for the first time since I came home. “You have no idea.”
“You’re here.” We both look up to see Izzy standing in the doorway.
He opens his arms to her, and she runs right into them, apologizing when he winces.
With eyes squeezed tight, he holds her, rocking her back and forth in his embrace as she sobs into his neck. I look down at Amelia, giving them a moment when I see a tear break free from the corner of his eye.
“All of my girls are here.” He clears his throat, but the emotion doesn’t leave his face when Izzy pulls back and sits near his feet on the bed. He glances at all of us, spending long moments looking all of us in the eye before he focuses on Izzy. “Tell me about this boy that’s been hanging around?”
“Huh?” Izzy looks as confused as I feel.
“The boy that followed you here from Arizona.” She tilts her head to the side before her brows furrow, and she glances over at me.
“There’s no boy, dad.”
“Kincaid said—” He sighs before turning his eyes up to the ceiling. “I’m going to kill him.”
“I’m so confused,” I mutter.
His laugh fills the room even though it’s not as strong as I remember. “Don’t worry about it, gorgeous.”
He presses a soft kiss to my forehead.
“I’m going to go back to sleep,” Izzy says giving us each a hug and planting a soft kiss on Amelia’s head. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She lingers near the door, never taking her eyes off of her dad as if she’s afraid he’s going to be gone by the time she wakes.
“Get some rest, Iz. We’ll see you in the morning.”
