Edge of Forever: Rockstar Romantic Suspense

by Cari Quinn

  “She’s on the third floor, room 309.”

  “Thanks for patching me up.”

  “Don’t tell anyone I was nice to you. I have a reputation to uphold.”

  Logan huffed out a laugh. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  “Good. Now get out.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Marra.”

  He hit the door running. Caught Zeke’s gaze as he nodded toward the elevators. He met him at the doors.

  “All patched up?”

  “Yeah. Even better, I have directions to Izzy.”

  “Lead on, brother.”

  When they got to the third floor, Logan hung a left out of the elevator and strode down the hall. There was a lean, tatted-up guy sitting in a chair in the hallway. At first glance, he looked relaxed and even complacent, but his eyes scanned the space and each face as they came near the door.

  “Mr. King.”

  Logan glanced at the kid. He didn’t look over twenty-five. “Are you with Roth?”

  He nodded. “Marcus is inside.”

  Zeke flashed him a raised brow and followed Logan in. He halted in the doorway. Her hair was pinned back and gauze was wrapped around her head from forehead to ear. A gossamer thin layer covered thick pads over her eyes.

  Her hands were wrapped in similar gauze. Her elegant hands were bright pink and spread on little wedges to hold her fingers apart. A blanket was pulled up over her torso and half a dozen tubes and wires were attached to her.

  Logan backed out the door and bent at the waist. He hadn’t been prepared for that.

  “Hey, buddy. Breathe.”

  Logan sucked in a breath through his nose and then out his mouth. “I’m all right. I just wasn’t prepared to see her like that.”

  “She’s okay. The doc said she’s a fighter, right?”

  “Right.”

  He stood up, straightened his shoulders, and walked in again. The blow to his gut was no less vicious, but he took it. Forced himself to walk forward and sit down next to her.

  Dammit, he wanted to touch her and everything about her looked fragile. He drew one long, dark lock of hair away from the white gauze. “Hi, baby.” He brushed a light kiss against the crest of her cheek. “You come back to me Izzy, mine. If you think you’re getting away with saying yes to marrying me and skipping out on the ceremony, you are sorely mistaken.”

  She didn’t answer.

  Not even a blip on that stupid machine counting out her heartbeats.

  Five

  The beeping was back.

  Loud.

  Annoying.

  Voices this time, too. Logan?

  It sounded like him, but didn’t smell like him.

  Why couldn’t she see him? Why couldn’t she open her eyes?

  She turned her head and the red came back and then the black.

  So heavy.

  Logan?

  Why couldn’t she see him?

  Six

  Somewhere between dawn and noon he’d crashed in the chair beside her. They tried to kick him out, but Dr. Marra had taken pity on him.

  She was still so damn still.

  The nurses checked her vitals, kept changing out some sort of special blood bag, redressed her hands, but wouldn’t answer any of his questions. Especially about her eyes.

  He stretched and winced. His six-two frame was not built for these chairs. Even the one that was supposed to be a sleep chair.

  It was too far away from her anyway.

  The only way he’d been able to get a little sleep was when he’d passed out with his hand on her upper arm. One of the few areas not burned, cut, or bruised. He pressed his forehead to her shoulder and breathed her in. Jasmine lingered under the acrid soot and the clinical hospital scents. It was the same smell he looked for at night, and the one that filled his head as he opened his eyes each day.

  Marcus ducked his head in and gave him a c’mere gesture. Logan dropped a kiss against her forehead. She jerked, and he stopped.

  “Iz?”

  Her heart rate spiked and she rolled her head toward him.

  “Baby?”

  “Mr. King, back up.”

  The harried nurse pushed him aside and pushed a needle into her IV bag. Izzy calmed and her face went slack again.

  “Doesn’t the doctor want her to wake up?”

  As usual the nurse ignored him, made a mark in Izzy’s chart then left again. Logan tipped his head back with a disgusted breath and followed her out the door. She’d be out for hours again. Whatever they juiced her with always took four hours to come around from.

  Even if they didn’t let her stay awake, dammit.

  Tattoo guard duty had been replaced with a mountain of a man wearing a hideous Hawaiian shirt in teal and white.

  “Logan, meet Felix Sanchez.”

  Felix nodded. “Sir.”

  “What happened to the other guy?”

  “That’s Bishop. They rotate out every six hours.”

  “Good.”

  “How is she?”

  Logan sighed. “I don’t know, man. They keep pumping her full of drugs.”

  “Probably because of the burns. One of the guys on my team got third degree burns out in the field—it was awful. No other pain like it. They had him sedated for the first few days while he started healing.”

  Logan’s stomach lurched. “Then no, I don’t want her awake for it.”

  “I talked to the WFPD and their initial findings were faulty wiring.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Hang on.” Marcus held up a hand. “They agreed to bring in the state Fire Marshall. Especially since there were casualties. I’ve got my people digging into her financials to see if there’s a money trail. So far, nothing.”

  Frustration climbed up into his shoulders and neck, tightening already abused muscles. “Do you have eyes on her at least?”

  “She’s making it easy to do that. If I see one more selfie with her and that dumb as a brick hockey player, I’m going to shoot her myself.”

  “Go ahead. Save me the trouble.”

  Marcus’s eyes sharpened. “That is not an option, Logan.”

  Logan crossed his arms, but said nothing.

  “Do not make this a revenge thing. We don’t have the proof and you will go to jail. Somehow I don’t think your pampered rockstar ass would do well there.”

  Logan’s nostrils flared and he clenched his jaw.

  “Seethe all you want. You hired me to do things right. Roth Defense may skirt some laws to get things done, but we aren’t mercenaries. Ever.”

  “If something else happens to Isabella, there is no place on this earth that Aimee Collen can hide. I will find her and I will kill her.”

  Marcus’s face went stony. “Then let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

  “Contact me when you have something.” Logan turned on his heel to return to her room. He found the change of clothes and new phone in the sleep chair. The Zeke fairy had come through.

  He went into the small bathroom in her room and peeled out of his clothes. He took a few minutes to brush his teeth and washed up. He was willing to hand over his royalty check for the month for a shower, but didn’t want to leave Izzy that long.

  When he returned to her room, Dr. Marra was checking on Izzy’s hands.

  “Hey, doc. How’s she doing?”

  “Good. She’s tried to wake a few times, so that makes me very optimistic.”

  “They keep drugging her as soon as she comes around.”

  “I’m going to lighten her meds today and see if we can get her to come around. If she’d had no movement, I would have worried. I’m sorry I didn’t make myself clearer.”

  “And her eyes?”

  “She had some minor scratches to her corneas from heavy glass debris. I’m here now to take off the bandages. You’ll see a nurse every two hours for drops. Eyes are amazingly resilient, but not if they’re dry.”

  “So she’s not blind?”

  “No. She’ll look li
ke she was on a weeklong bender, but then again so do you.”

  Logan couldn’t help but smile. Relief took a few of the bricks off his chest that he’d been carrying around. “I think they’d frown on me smuggling beer into the hospital.”

  “You’d be surprised.” She pulled out scissors that had an odd angle to them and started snipping the fine gauze. She gently pulled away the socket-sized pads and dumped everything in the biohazard bag.

  Izzy’s face had a little extra pink to it, like she’d been out on the water for an afternoon, but otherwise she only had some minor cuts. Dr. Marra pulled out drops from her lab coat and quickly checked her eyes and did the drops at the same time.

  “Healing nicely.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Her hands will take a little longer. It was a flash burn. We got to her in time that I don’t think she’ll need skin grafting, just a lot of careful bandaging for a few weeks.”

  “I’ll make sure she has it.”

  Dr. Marra gave him a quick look, but didn’t comment. “We’re pumping her full of platelets to get that liver back in shape. Be patient. The fact that she’s alive is pretty much a miracle.” She moved her blanket aside and checked the bandage along her right side.

  Logan swallowed. “I know. Her best friend wasn’t so lucky. I couldn’t get to her.”

  “I wasn’t aware that rockstar equaled superhero. Must have been a different movie.”

  “Nic was literally ten feet away.” He sighed and brushed away a lock of her hair. “I could only get to her.”

  “I’ve seen the footage of that explosion. We’re lucky there were only a few casualties. If her store had been full of people, it would have been far worse.”

  Logan lowered himself into a chair beside Izzy on the other side of the bed. “No one was supposed to be in the store.”

  Had it been on purpose? Had whomever set the explosion done it because Izzy had gone back to the store? Or had they done it counting on the store to be empty?

  Right now, it didn’t matter to him.

  Isabella had gotten hurt, regardless. But it could help figure out motive. Had Aimee just wanted to scare him into compliance again? Or had she wanted Isabella dead, period?

  The fact that she’d been behind the counter was the only thing that had saved her.

  Logan swiped his hand down his face.

  “I’ll be in to check on her tomorrow morning. The nurses will page me if anything happens.”

  He nodded.

  “You should go home and get some rest.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to.”

  “She’ll probably be moved into a regular room tomorrow. Our ICU isn’t that large and she’s definitely out of the woods.”

  “I’ll talk to the hospital about a private room.”

  “I wouldn’t guess anything less,” she said with shake of her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. King.”

  He collapsed against the back of the chair and stared at the drop ceiling above him. Between the uncertainty of what Aimee was going to do next and worrying about Izzy, he couldn’t settle.

  Tired didn’t cover it.

  Exhaustion was child’s play. He was used to that from a tour. Hell, even from trying to juggle a relationship with his fiancée and the tour—that was exhaustion.

  This.

  A whole new animal.

  He swiped his hand over his face and the scraggly beard he was sporting. He should probably just shave the whole thing off. Go from head to neck and buzz the lot of it. He didn’t even want to think about what the fire and smoke had congealed into.

  “Dude. Shower. For the good of all.”

  Logan huffed out a groan. “Reading my mind?”

  “No, I could smell you as I walked in.”

  “Fuck off, man.”

  Zeke waggled his eyebrows from above him. He held up a bag. “I come bearing Valentine’s turkey club.”

  His stomach roared.

  “Impressive. I figured you had done nada for food. How’s Bellamina?”

  “Improving.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. She’s much less…bandaged.”

  “Yeah, the doc came in.” Logan sat forward and took the bag. He juggled out a quarter of the sandwich and stuffed half of it in his face. “Dee is a goddess.”

  “She likes being told that as well.” Zeke held out a cup of coffee. “This is an Americano only because I love you.”

  Logan rolled his eyes and popped off the top. “I’m not going anywhere, so I might as well be caffeinated.” Nectar of the gods.

  “Has she woken up?”

  “No. Not really. They knock her out pretty quickly when she comes around.”

  “Well, if she doesn’t know you’re here, then go and take a shower at least.”

  “I’m afraid once I get in there, I’ll never get out.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  Logan sipped his coffee and met his friend’s gaze. “I don’t want her to find out about Nic from anyone but me.”

  “Ah, fuck. I don’t know how you’re going to tell her, man.”

  Even if there was a slim chance that she’d come around, he wanted to be the first face she saw. He was going to destroy her. And God forgive him, it was his fault. How could he ever make up for that?

  Seven

  She was drifting.

  The black and the red mixing into a pretty bit of marble glass. Like it was a shell around her. Each time the red touched her, the black made it disappear.

  I don’t want her to be alone.

  Logan?

  She turned to his voice.

  The perfect caramel smooth tones of it. Like when he woke her in the morning. Rumbly and sleep-coated.

  She wanted to roll under into his voice.

  In his arms.

  She tried to move her arms. She wanted to hold him.

  The red was back.

  I don’t want anyone to tell her but me.

  Tell her what?

  In the black and the red, there was his green.

  The pale, spring green of his eyes.

  She frowned.

  Why was he so sad? His eyes so lost.

  She tried to reach for him.

  He slipped away.

  Eight

  Logan stood, his chair skittering away. “Izzy?”

  “Do you want me to get the doctor? A nurse?”

  He hovered over her, his knuckles denting the bed beside her shoulder. “Baby?”

  “Don’t be sad,” she said in a voice that was more breath than tone.

  “Izzy?”

  She made a humming noise then her breathing went back to the deep sleep he’d been listening to for hours on end.

  Logan touched his forehead to hers. “Dammit.”

  “Rest is the best thing for her, Lo.”

  “I know.” The quick flash of her topaz eyes had gone through him like lightning. Just a hint of them between her heavy lashes. Then she was gone. He wanted to hold her hand, wanted to touch her, but everything was a war zone of danger signs.

  Frustration lit through his blood.

  He straightened and paced away.

  He was going to lose his damn mind.

  A light knock at the door had him snarling. “What?”

  “I can come back.”

  Logan closed his eyes. “No. I’m sorry, Christian.”

  His bandmate came in hesitantly, ducking his head. “If you’re sure.”

  Emerson followed him in, slapping his back. “We come with gifts.” A bag from a drugstore hung on his index finger. “And I have come just in time. You do not want your girl to wake up and see you like that.”

  “Thanks, everyone,” Logan deadpanned. “I’m so glad that each and every one of you have come to tell me I look like baked shit.”

  Emerson made a so-so gesture with his hand. “More like burnt shit.”

  “Jesus, Em,” Zeke said on a groan.

  “Too soon?”

  Logan dr
agged his hand down his face. “Give me that.” Emerson had never been the tactful one of the group, but he was a master at giving people what they needed. He opened the bag to find two shot-sized energy drinks, a toothbrush, travel-sized mouthwash and shampoo, and a bar of Irish Spring—Christ, he didn’t even know they still made that.

  “You have the tact of a ninety-year old geriatric patient with Tourette’s, but you always come through.”

  Emerson’s teeth flashed out of his dense beard. “I try.” He glanced at the bed. “How’s our girl?”

  “Getting there.”

  Morgan came up the rear with a huge vase full of purple flowers of every variety. “At least our girl can wake up to something pretty instead of your mug.”

  “I’m glad you’re all saving her from my repulsive self.”

  Zeke leaned on his shoulder. “It’s all for her well-being.”

  “Loud.”

  Logan turned and dropped into his chair. “Iz.”

  She licked her lips. “So loud. Can’t you see I’m sleeping?”

  He laughed and cupped her cheek. “Ah, babe. We’ve been dying for you to wake up.”

  Her eyes were blurry and she definitely wasn’t focusing on him. “Thirsty.”

  “Shit.” He twisted around. “Ice chips?”

  “On it.” Christian bolted from the room.

  Emerson placed his hand on Logan’s shoulder. “We wanted to make sure you saw the good-looking ones when you woke up.”

  She made a humming sound and her forehead wrinkled. “Hands.” She looked down at the immobilizers she was strapped into. Frustration clouded her gaze. “Why?”

  Logan cupped her jaw. “Easy, Iz. You were hurt.”

  “The store—” She tried to sit up and the machine went haywire and she curled into herself.

  “No. Isabella!” He turned to Zeke. “Get someone.”

  Before Zeke could get to the door, Nurse of the No Answers came barreling through. “All right. That’s enough—too much excitement for Ms. Grace. Everyone out.”

  His band shuffled out with promises to return, but he couldn’t rip his gaze off of her. Logan lowered his head to hers. “Easy, baby. Shhh.”

  Her eyes were wild with pain and dawning reality. “Logan.”