by L A Cotton
“He was moved three days ago. He didn’t tell you?”
“No, he didn’t.” My brows furrowed, dread swimming in my stomach.
“Give me two seconds.” She disappeared behind the desk and typed into a computer. “You’ll find him on the second floor, room twenty.”
“Okay, thank you.”
I didn’t understand. He hadn’t said a word about moving rooms.
Ten minutes later, after getting lost twice, I arrived at the rehabilitation ward.
“Can I help you?” A woman peered up at me over her glasses.
“I’m looking for Maverick Prince, the nurse said he’s in room twenty.”
“That’s correct. Last door on the left.” She pointed to the corridor over her shoulder.
What the hell was going on?
I found his room with ease but hesitated at the sound of deep laughter beyond the door. Peering through the window, my shoulders relaxed at the sight of Miller talking with Maverick. He spotted me and beckoned me inside.
“I see you found us then.” Miller grinned.
“I would have found you a whole lot easier if Maverick had told me about the room switch.” I failed to keep the irritation out of my voice.
“I wanted it to be a surprise.” An uncertain smile tipped the corner of Maverick’s mouth as he looked up at me. His hair was all mussed up, falling over his eyes, giving him a boyish appearance.
The sight of him made my heart ache.
But then he and Miller shared a strange glance and I was reminded that he’d shut me out, again.
“What’s going on?” I eyed the wheelchair in the corner of the room. “Why are you down here?”
“And that’s my cue.” Miller pushed off the windowsill. “I’ll be a buzzer away, okay?” He gave Maverick another strange look. “It’s nice to see you, Lo. Listen, do me a favor and go easy on him.”
“I... okay.” I had no idea what was happening.
Miller left, pulling the door closed behind him.
“Maverick?” I said, inhaling a sharp breath. He was sitting upright on the bed, freshly shaved and in one of his favorite Lakers jerseys.
“Come here?” He patted the edge of the bed. I perched there, letting him take my hand in his. “I love you. You know that, right?”
Emotion clogged my throat as I nodded.
“I know how hard this has been on you, and I know that I haven’t always handled it the right way. But knowing everything we could have had and then waking up and being told it might not be a possibility anymore... well, it changed something inside me, Lo. But do you know what didn’t change?”
“What?” I whispered, the quiver in my voice betraying me.
“You, you didn’t change. The way you love me so completely and irrevocably.” He reached for my cheek, wiping away my tears. “Every day I didn’t feel anything new, every time Miller brought me down here for rehab and I didn’t feel even a flicker of sensation, it killed a small part of me.”
“Maverick...”
“Let me finish. The way I feel about you... it’s hard to put into words. So I want to show you something instead. Bring the chair over here.”
“Wh- what?” I blinked at him.
“Just trust me.”
Gingerly, I got off the bed and went over to the wheelchair, bringing it alongside the bed. “Okay, I need you to pull it back here a little.” Maverick indicated to the space beside him and I rolled it into place. “Now back up a little.”
I moved away, watching through wide eyes as he sat up and began shuffling forward. “Maverick, what are you—”
“It’s okay, I’ve got this.”
Pride and disbelief swirled inside me, overwhelming me in the best possible way as I watched him manoeuvre himself into the wheelchair.
“Oh my god,” I breathed, cupping a hand over my mouth as tears flowed down my cheeks.
Maverick lifted his legs with care and precision, sliding them on the chair and into the footrests. It wasn’t a quick process and he grunted and cussed with pain and exertion more than once, but the end result was breathtaking.
“Surprise.” He gave me a coy smile, and everything started falling into place.
“There was no stomach bug, was there?”
“I’m sorry I lied to you, but as soon as I realized I could feel—”
“You mean.... you’re getting feeling back?”
He nodded, his own eyes glossy with unshed tears. “Come here.” Maverick crooked his finger at me. I went over to him and he took my hand again, guiding it to his knee. The second my fingers touched his skin, he sucked in a harsh breath. “You wouldn’t believe how good that feels.”
“This is unreal, I don’t know what to say...”
“Say you forgive me. Say you’ll be by my side every step of the way. I’m sorry I pushed you away and let you think I didn’t need you. I do. I need you so fucking much...”
I dropped to my knees in front of him, looping my arms around his neck and touching my head to his. “I forgive you.” My eyes shuttered as I let the moment wash over me.
“Thank fuck, because it would have made this all kinds of awkward otherwise.”
Easing back, I looked at him. “What do you—” My eyes flickered to his hand, doing a double take, as the air rushed from my lungs. “Maverick, what is that?”
“I waited too long to do this, Lo. Time and time again, I’ve been ready to say the words and then someone or something got in the way. But I’m done waiting. Life’s too short to wait for the perfect moment. I love you, Eloise Stone. I love your heart, your strength, and I love the way you always put everyone else first. You deserve the world, Lo, and I want to be the one to give it to you.
“So what do you say, London? Want to marry me?”
“Yes, yes,” I cried, flinging myself at him. Maverick’s smooth laughter filled the air as he held me close, curving his hand around the nape of my neck.
“I love you and I’ll spend my life showing you.”
Curling my fingers into his jersey, I stared up at him and smiled. “I love you too, so much.”
“So that's not all. The accident…"
“You remember?” I gasped.
“I do.” He stroked my cheek, setting off a flight of butterflies in my stomach. “I was going to take you to our spot down at the beach, where it all started. I would have gotten down on one knee and told you how you’d saved me, how I would spend my life loving you. And then I would have done this...” Rick took my finger and gently slid the ring over my knuckle, fitting it perfectly into place.
“It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful, Lo, and mine. All mine. Forever and always.”
Running my nose along his, my tears falling between us, I grinned. “I like the sound of that.”
Maverick
Everything hurt. My stomach muscles, my spine, my obliques. Muscles I didn’t even know I had, burned. But ever since waking up that morning to discover I had sensation back, I’d worked my ass off to get to this moment.
Miller had warned me I was moving too fast, but when I told him I also had hazy memories of that fateful night, that I remembered I was on my way to propose to Lo when it happened, he understood my sense of urgency.
So we’d worked tirelessly together to get to this point. The doctors were impressed with my rate of improvement. I still had little control and movement over my legs, but, in time, it would come. I knew it would.
But all the long days, agony, and frustration was worth it to see the smile on Lo’s face when I finally put my ring on her finger. She held it up, inspecting the white-gold, princess-cut diamond ring. It was an exact replica of the one lost in the accident.
“I love it,” she said, careful not to lean too forcefully against my legs. “I can’t believe you did this. I came here thinking you wanted to discuss me going back to college.”
“Shit, Lo, I never meant to make you doubt us. I just wanted to do the right thing.”
“
The right thing is us being a team, together. No matter what happens.”
“Yeah, I see that now.” I pressed my lips to her forehead. “I have a ton of making up to do, huh?”
“Yeah,” she trailed a hand up my chest, toying with the neckline of my jersey, “you do.”
I wanted to fist punch the air when I felt tingles zip down my spine and straight into my groin. I still had a long way to go, a fucking marathon ahead of me by all accounts. But nothing was going to ruin this moment.
Not a single thing.
Until a voice said, “Can we come in yet?”
“No,” I grumbled. They were early. I’d had Kyle round up our family to celebrate with us, but I should have known the fucking idiot would have wanted to crash our party for two.
“Come on, Prince, put my cousin down and let us get in on the action.” He slipped into the room, holding a balloon that said ‘get well soon’. My brow quirked up and he shrugged. “It was either this or ‘congrats on your new baby’.”
“Trust him,” Lo chuckled into my neck.
“Get over here, cous.”
The rest of our family filed into the room, but it was Lo’s dad who caught my eye first. “A little heads up would have been nice.” He gave me a pointed look.
“I’m sorry.” I ran a hand through my hair, feeling the weight of his stare. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to get everyone’s hopes up in case it was a false alarm.”
“You’re lucky my daughter loves you half as much as she does...” Robert winked. “Congratulations, Rick. It’ll be an honor to welcome you to the family.” He smirked.
“That’s going to be a little confusing for people to get their head round.” Mom joined us. “I’ll be Lo’s mother-in-law, and her step-aunt?” It came out a question.
“It could be worse, Momma P,” Kyle piped up. “You could be her step-mum and her mother-in-law.”
Kyle exploded with laughter while the rest of us watched on. Summer and Macey had Lo wrapped in a hug, the three of them crying. After I’d told her my grand plan, Macey had arranged to fly home to be here. She was only staying a couple of days, but it meant a lot that she'd come. Gentry stood quietly off to the side, watching over his family like the patriarch. When he finally caught my eye, a faint smile tugged at his mouth. Sometimes you didn’t need words to say everything you needed to say; sometimes all it took was a simple glance. But his respect meant the world to me. Not only because he was Lo’s uncle, but because he was the kind of man I wanted to be when I was older.
The kind of man who did whatever it took to protect his family. A man who loved and laughed and enjoyed life.
“Okay, I’m here.” Laurie burst into the room. “Did I miss it?”
“Babe,” Kyle stalked over to her, “he wasn’t doing it with us in the room.”
“But he did it, right?” She found Lo and beamed. “Eeeek! Let me see it.”
“You couldn’t have just waited another thirty minutes, could you?” I grumbled to Kyle who waved me off.
“This is a big deal. We wanted to share in your joy.”
Laurie’s high-pitched squeals ushered us into silence. “Is she okay?” I asked my stepbrother.
“She gets like this when she’s excited. Babe,” he yelled. “Did you bring the stuff?”
“Oh yeah, I got it.” She opened her huge shoulder bag and pulled out a bottle of champagne and some plastic cups. “It’s the good stuff too.”
“You snuck alcohol into the hospital?” Mom’s eyes almost bugged.
“Relax, Momma P, we’re not giving Rick any. It’s for the rest of us.”
“Oh, well then, that makes it perfectly acceptable. Gentry, please talk to your son and his wife about—”
“Relax, darling.” He wrapped an arm around her. “It’s a celebration. And Kyle’s right, it could always be worse. We could be here celebrating the birth of our first grandchild.”
Robert burst into laughter as I searched for Lo across the room. Her eyes collided with mine, filled with so much love and happiness, I knew we were going to be okay.
Because she was right, whatever the future held...
We’d face it together.
Always.
Chapter Eighteen
Two weeks later…
Maverick
“Thank you, Miller, for everything.” Lo leaned in to hug him.
“I’m warning you, man. Keep your hands off my fiancée.” God, I would never tire of saying that... well, at least until I could call her my wife.
The last two weeks had flown by. Now I had sensation back, we’d been working hard on getting me used to being independent in a wheelchair. Turns out, getting home to Lo was a strong motivator because I’d smashed all Miller’s targets for me to the point where everyone on the ward liked to call me his star pupil.
“I can definitely see why you decided to keep her.” He shot me a playful smirk and I flipped him off. “I’ll see you next week, okay?”
“You got it. I owe you, man.”
“Nah, this was all you. Although I think the incentive of getting home to your fine—”
“Do not let those words come out of your mouth.” I growled. “I might be in a chair, but I could still take you.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He grinned, holding out his hand. I took it, knowing it would never be enough to show him my gratitude for everything over the last few weeks.
Miller had seen me at my worst. He’d seen me—a grown man—cry into my hands because I couldn’t do it, because I didn’t believe things would ever be better. He’d heard me cuss and grumble, he’d heard me call him all the names under the sun, but he’d never, not once, given up on me.
“Now go on, get out of here. Take good care of him, Lo.”
“I will.”
I glanced over to find her swallowing her tears. “Come here.” Reaching for her, I threaded our fingers together. “Are you ready for this?”
It wasn’t going to be easy, and I knew there would probably be more rough days than easy ones, but I was so fucking stoked to finally be going home.
“I’m ready. Just let me grab your bag.” Lo double checked we had everything before moving for the door. I followed behind, wheeling the chair with ease. It had taken some getting used to at first, but I was already stronger thanks to all my sessions with Miller.
“Your mom is meeting us downstairs. Uncle Gentry too.” Lo called for the elevator.
The doors pinged open and she ducked inside, giving me a chance to check out the curve of her ass in her jean shorts. Fuck, I couldn’t wait to get her home and figure out all the ways we could play. Miller and the doctors had briefed me a little on what to expect in that department, but I didn’t care about me. I just wanted to touch her. To trace my lips over Lo’s skin and reacquaint myself with her curves. I craved it like an addict craved his next high.
Although after everything, just lying next to her in bed tonight, her body curled into my side, would be enough.
Lo’s hand found my shoulder, squeezing gently, as we waited for the doors to open. The second we reached the main foyer, my mom and Gentry were there, wearing smiles so big they had to hurt.
“There you are,” Mom beamed. “Gosh, it’s good to see the two of you like this.” She leaned down to kiss my cheek before enveloping Lo in a big hug. “Our boy is finally coming home.”
The two of them wiped the tears from their eyes while Gentry came and shook my hand. “We’ve been waiting for this day a long time, Rick. We’re proud of you, son.” We shared a long look.
It was a hot summer’s day, and I felt beads of sweat roll down my back as I wheeled behind them. It was harder than it looked, but nothing compared to the thought that I might never be able to do it.
Mom and Gentry went on ahead, disappearing into the sea of cars in the parking lot, while Lo remained at my side.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“What? Nothing.” She smirked.
“You’re hidi
ng something.” I swatted her ass.
“Maybe.”
A brand-new Toyota minivan pulled up alongside us, and Gentry climbed out.
“Lo, what did you do?” My voice was tight as I watched the rear door slide open and a ramp extend out onto the sidewalk.
“Well, I’ve been looking at cars for a while now, so it made sense to get something accessible.”
“You got this... for me?” I’d been prepared for my mom and Gentry to pick me up in an accessible rental.
“Technically, I got it for me, since it’s my car.” Lo grinned down at me. “What do you think?”
“It’s... wow.”
“There’s space for a wheelchair now but as you become more independent, we can add the seats back in.”
“It’s top of the range and came highly recommended.” Gentry joined us, dangling the keys at Lo. “Ready to take her for a spin?”
“More like ready to take him for a spin.” Her smile grew.
“Who do I need to thank really?” I whispered to Gentry. There was no way Lo could afford something like this.
“Robert wanted to do this for you. For both of you.”
It was too much, and I’d find a way to pay him back as soon as I could, but right now, I’d graciously accept the gift because the smile on Lo’s face was worth swallowing my pride for.
Gentry gave me a knowing look and said, “Seems like you weren’t the only one with a surprise up your sleeve.”
Lo
“Take the next right,” Maverick said from behind me. It felt strange being the one to drive with him riding in the back, but it was a small price to pay for having him here.
My heart had almost burst when he’d finally realized the minivan was ours.
I’d been casually looking at accessible vehicles one day when Dad had suggested we go take a look at some. I hadn’t expected him to offer to buy me one. And I certainly hadn’t expected it to be a brand-new top-of-the-range model. But he’d said he wanted to do this for me.
For us.
“Right?” My brows crinkled. “That isn’t the way to your mom’s place.”