I GROAN AS I come awake, jerking to a sitting position. My head protests with a vicious throb. Instinctively, I reach to pull the covers off and get to my feet, but find I am too weak to move. I manage to open my eyes and find myself face-to-face with Jack. If his concentrated expression is anything to go by, I am in serious shit.
“Cole?” I ask immediately, because not a day has gone by since his birth that he isn’t my first thought when I wake up in the morning. I remember the sound of gunshots and Cole’s high-pitched wails in my ears and I ask more frantically, “Where is he?”
Jack shakes his head. “He’s fine, he’s fine. Ben has him walking the halls so you could rest. He wasn’t hurt.”
I try to sit up again, but a piercing ache in my arm nearly has me doubled over. “Shit,” I gasp. “What happened? Why does Ben have Cole?”
“You were shot. Don’t you remember?”
“I remember someone shooting at me, but I didn’t see who it was. It all happened so fast. All I could think about was getting Cole safe.” I raise a hand to my head. “I think I hit my head.”
“You did. Real graceful-like, according to the nurses. You lost a lot of blood.” Jack leans his head down over our clasped hands. “Scared the shit out of me, Livvie-girl. I can’t believe I almost lost you.”
“I’m sorry, Jack.” Tears pool in my eyes, and I clear my throat.
“No, don’t be. I’m just so fucking glad you’re okay. All you need to focus on is resting, getting better. Logan is making sure they’re interviewing everyone.”
My brow creases. “Logan? Is he even allowed to do that? Wait, does he think it’s related to the break-in?”
“He said we shouldn’t rule it out. Besides, it can’t just be a coincidence that your house gets broken into and then you get shot at. Fuck, Livvie. Someone wanted to kill you.”
I shake my head and instantly regret it. “No, no, that can’t be right. I’m no one. I’ve got nothing. Who in the hell would want to do that?”
“We don’t know, but like I said, Logan’s on it just to be sure.”
A hard, heavy weight presses in on my chest. Tears cloud my vision. I can’t catch my breath. I don’t understand what Ben is doing at the hospital. The fact that he’s wedging himself so firmly back into my life is almost too much to handle. I wipe my eyes as the tears fall and try to pull myself together. “I need to see Cole.”
He kisses my brow then lays his forehead on mine for a few heavy moments. I am grateful. Grateful to the family that had given me up. Grateful for two generous, loving hearts. Grateful for the family I didn’t deserve, but loved me anyway.
After he left, I broke down; I couldn’t help it even if I tried. The fear and panic came flooding back and, coupled with the sense of relief that my baby was safe, it mixed and poured out of me in tears.
And the guilt. For every moment I wished I could go back to the single girl I’d once been. Even if they were only fleeting. What would I have done if he’d been hurt? I can’t even fathom how I could repair that hole. It would have been my fault for not protecting him, not keeping him safe.
The thought crosses my mind that maybe he still isn’t safe. What if Logan is right and I’m putting him in danger? How can one little person face so much adversity in a short time?
By the time Ben appears with Cole snoozing in his arms, I’m a wreck. My face feels raw with grief, and my eyes are so bleary I can’t even see straight. The ache in my head has only intensified, leaving me feeling worse than I’m sure I look.
“Ben,” I choke out. “I need to hold him.”
His face is stony, resolute. I’ve never seen him so closed-off before—including our most recent interactions when I couldn’t read him at all. He places Cole in my arms without a word and I’m thankful. I’m not sure if I have anything left after my crying jag to fight with.
Cole’s face is slack with sleep, and I pull him as close to me as I can get him without aggravating the wound on my side and in my shoulder. Fresh tears spill, though even they have lost their strength.
I trace his lips with a finger, silently mapping the landscape of his face. The relief that he’s here and safe in my arms is overwhelming. I don’t know how long I sit there, but when I look up, Ben hasn’t moved from his post beside my bed.
“Do you know if he’s eaten?”
“I called Sofie. Luckily, she knew you were pumping milk for daycare and was able to get some and some of that special formula he needs from your house. It took a few tries, but yes, he did. He didn’t like it much, but after a few hours, he seemed to get the hang of it.”
I sigh, feeling one of the weights on my shoulders ease. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
My head begins to throb more insistently, so I rest it on a pillow. I don’t even know where to begin to process what happened.
I hear Ben moving around in the room, but I can’t summon the energy to investigate. The bar lowers on the side of the bed and I feel weight shifting beside me. He settles next to me on his side, one arm carefully strewn across me so he doesn’t hurt me or disturb the baby.
“What are you doing?”
Ben takes my free hand in his. My fingers automatically cradle his in my palm. “Give me this, please. I just need to be close to you both right now. Let me hold you.”
I’m too tired to resist, and if I’m being honest with myself, I need him to hold me, too. The last thing I feel before I slide into the depths of sleep are his strong arms around my waist, holding me close to his side.
“Local art teacher Olivia Walker will be released from the hospital today in stable condition after a vicious attack Monday morning. The shooter, identified as an individual wearing dark clothing and driving a white sports utility vehicle, remains at large. Her son, the other victim in the attack, did not sustain any wounds and remains in the care of his father, war veteran Benjamin Hart. Stay tuned to WTVB, your station for breaking news.”
Ben pauses in the doorway, his eyes glued to the T.V. even though the anchor has moved on to another topic. I’m likewise frozen, my good arm hovering over my bag, clutching a handful of dirty laundry.
All of the things that we’ve put off while I was recovering hang between us. We lock eyes over the hospital bed and I fumble with the clothes I was attempting to sort neatly. Instead I dump them in a tangled mess and feign interest in my toiletries. The pain in my side is, thankfully, curtailed by a cocktail of drugs and luck, but that doesn’t help, as the bathroom proves to be more of a trap than an escape.
“We need to talk,” Ben says from the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I know.” I don’t turn to face him. I can’t. Instead, I hobble to the sink to grab my toothbrush. Keeping my hands and mind busy is easier than facing him.
His footsteps sound behind me and I can feel his warmth against my back. I close my eyes, my entire body freezing at his touch. It was easier to be mad at him. I almost prefer it. Being mad at someone is a whole hell of a lot better than being raw and open to them. I open my eyes and find Ben watching me in the mirror. His hand covers mine on the sink.
“I’m sorry.” He maneuvers my body gently so that I’m facing him. “I’m so damn sorry, Liv.”
I fumble with the toothpaste. “Um, what do you mean?”
“For leaving you.”
Unable to look him in the eye, I stare at the tile floor. “Don’t be sorry for that. You didn’t leave me. I don’t blame you for any of it. I shouldn’t have kept Cole from you for this long. When you came back, I fully intended on telling you before you left for your next assignment. I understand what it must have looked like, coming home to see me with a kid.”
He wraps his arms around my waist. One hand on my thigh under the first bullet wound, careful not to touch me. The other splays across my back. I’d be lying if I said the heavy weight of his touch wasn’t reassuring.
“That was all me,” he says. “I don’t want to get into what happened to me, but I was raw.
It was a bad time and I overreacted. It scared me more than I want to admit to myself to come home and find that you’d almost been hurt. Now you have been hurt and I can’t help but feel like it’s because of me. I should have been there for you.”
I feel like I’m in a dream because the words coming out of Ben’s mouth are too good to be real. They are everything that I’ve dreamed of hearing from him, although I don’t feel like I deserve them. And instead of happiness, I am overcome with guilt for keeping the truth from him for so long. “If anyone should be sorry in this situation it’s me.” My shoulders bow under the weight of shame. “I should have told you about Cole a long time ago.”
His hands cup my chin and bring my eyes to his. “We’ve both made mistakes. When I saw the news, I thought you were dead. I thought I’d lost you. Him. Before I’d given either of you a chance. That’s a weight I’ll always have to bear. I don’t want to make that same mistake again, Olivia.”
A lone tear trails down my cheek. “I-I don’t know what to say.”
Ben wipes the line of salt away with his thumb. “There’s nothing to say. Let’s just focus on getting the both of you home and safe. We can worry about everything else later.”
We both jerk away—with a hiss of pain on my part—when a knock comes at the door. I leave Ben in the bathroom as I hobble back into my hospital room. Sofie stands in the doorway, her rounded eyes locked on Ben in the doorway. She turns to me and mouths “Oh my God” although I ignore her.
“You didn’t have to come down. I told you on the phone I was okay.”
She waves a hand. “Since when do I listen to you? Besides, I had to make sure my best friend had a ride home.”
“I got her, Sof,” Ben says as he comes behind me.
Sofie purses her lips. “We’ll see about that. Jack has Cole downstairs when you’re ready.”
“Thanks, Sof,” I tell her. She nods, her eyes still assessing Ben. I give her a stern look and she shrugs her shoulders and leaves, mumbling something that sounds like ‘Bout fucking time on her way out the door.
Though the second I’m alone with Ben again, I wish she hadn’t left. Now that the truth about Cole is out there, I don’t quite know what to do with myself. Where do we go from here? Do we pick up where we left off? Do we raise our son as friends? My body says one thing, but my brain reminds me that I have a son now. A son with health issues who leaves very little time to deal with my tumultuous decade-long roller-coaster of a relationship with his equally complex father. I remind myself that I had been seeing Chad some lately, however, Chad is simple. And I know that Ben would be anything but simple.
“Um, I’m finished here. I’ve got some paperwork to do for release. Maybe if you wanted to come by sometime—not that you have to or anything, I just thought—”
“I’ve already talked about it with Jack. I’m going to take you guys home and check out your house. Logan’s got a couple of his off duty guys coming by every couple hours just in case.”
I blink rapidly at him. “You don’t have to do that. Jack told me they were taking care of it. I’d hate to put Logan out, too. Plus, we had that security system installed after the break-in.”
“It’s already taken care of. You just focus on taking it easy. Do you have everything here?”
The past week has sapped me of absolutely all energy, so all I can do is nod. Once I settle in at home and can wrap my mind around what has happened, I’ll deal with Ben.
I send him a tentative glance as we leave my hospital room. From the determined set about his eyes I have a feeling he isn’t going to be so easily swayed.
I nearly stumble over the pair of duffle bags heaped in front of my front door. Considering I’m recovering from a gunshot wound that almost killed me, it would have been sad if I returned the same day I was released from the hospital with new injuries.
“I’ll get those.” Ben moves around me, Cole in tow, and grabs up the bags, depositing them a safe distance away from the front door. Since my release from the hospital, those are the first words he’s managed to speak to me that didn’t have to do with my recovery.
I look at the bags, then at him, then back to the bags. “Uh, is there a reason why they’re here? Those aren’t mine.”
“Nope, they’re mine.”
“Oh!” I say. “Did Jack leave them for you or something?”
“No, they’re for while I’m staying here.”
I blink, certain the blood loss affected my hearing. “Come again?”
“You didn’t think I would let you stay here alone, did you?”
“Let me?” I echo. Apparently, I’m having a great deal of trouble with comprehension. Maybe that blow to the head did more damage than the doctors realized.
“Hold that thought,” Ben says as he bounds up the stairs with a fussy baby.
While he’s gone, I hobble into the living room and beeline straight for my couch. I’d requested my rattiest, comfiest yoga pants and my dad’s old USMC shirt for my ride home with the sole intent of making a nest on the couch and never leaving. It is safer here, I reason. No one had shot at me here. Yet. At the very least, the new security system I had installed will give me a warning.
Sure, someone had broken into the sanctity of my home, but I still wasn’t quite convinced that both incidents were related. It could just be the shittiest run of luck in this decade. Not that I wasn’t taking either threat seriously. The first chance I have, I’ll make it my personal mission to learn the ins and outs of the new security system. Again.
I also decide it’s time for me to take Jack’s offer to keep one of his guns on hand. My father had always been about gun safety, so when Jack and I were old enough we’d learned how to handle them properly. I have a healthy respect for weapons but up until now, I’d never seen the need to keep one in my own home.
The fact that I feel the need to arm myself frankly pisses me off. Even more so, the memory of Cole’s frightened screams motivates me like no other.
I ease myself down, careful of the wound in the fleshy part of my waist. There hadn’t been much internal damage, just an entrance and exit wound that hurt like a bitch. The bump on my head had gone down a great deal, thankfully. The skin there had already patched together for the most part, and I’m able to cover the unsightly bald spot with the rest of my hair. The gunshot wound to my shoulder was the worst, and the sling I had to wear was decidedly uncomfortable. I would be in for a few months of physical therapy to regain full movement in my arm.
Despite all of this, every time I look at Cole, I’m grateful it hadn’t been worse.
Ben returns with a handful of stuff, which he sets on the side table. He had barely said two words to me while I was recovering unless it was related to my care or to Cole. He only left my side to fetch me contraband food or sneak in the baby. He was worse than Jack and Sofie put together, and that’s saying something.
“The ride must have put him to sleep. There was no waking him,” Ben says offhandedly.
I’m unsure how to respond. This new Ben is completely foreign to me, even more so than usual. The elephant in the room has made any interaction with him decidedly uncomfortable.
“I doubt that’ll last long.”
Ben makes a noncommittal sound as he opens a pack of gauze.
I eye it suspiciously. “What are you doing?”
“You need to change that dressing. Lie on your side for me and take off your shirt.”
Once upon a time, he said similar things to me. Soft whispers in my ear about how he wanted me to act for him. How much he liked the way I undressed for him. Things that not only lit my body on fire, but made his eyes go dark with need. Unfortunately, this is neither the time nor the place and those moments have long since passed, no matter how much my body protests to the contrary.
“I can do it, Ben. You don’t need to stay. Really.”
He doesn’t respond, merely presses against my uninjured shoulder, so I ease down on the couch. He pulls my shirt up for me, careful
not to touch the bandage.
I bite my lip and keep my eyes averted as he removes the old dressing. I’d made the mistake of looking while one of the nurses changed it before and, truth be told, I could do without seeing it again. I don’t know how I’m going to manage when Ben leaves, but I’ll figure something out. If the last year had taught me anything, it’s that I’m stronger than I think.
He applies cream to the wound with the gentlest hands, and I use the distraction to study him. When he showed up at the party, I hadn’t known what to expect. How could I? I still don’t know what I’m going to do about him. After Dad died, I had hoped to keep things in their assigned boxes.
His brow furrows as he concentrates on applying the new bandage. His blonde hair has gotten longer at the top, but he still keeps it sheared short on the sides. To make matters worse, he’d grown out his beard. His strong jaw wears it well. And, from the kiss the other night, his beard is surprisingly soft. So much so that I had to resist the urge to cup his face in my hands and feel just how soft.
Ben pulls my shirt back down and stands. I cough to dispel the sudden tension that clogs the room and makes my skin run hot. He leaves the living room with my old dressing. Feeling vulnerable and oddly morose, I bundle up in an afghan and curl into a ball on my uninjured side.
I’m deep in thought when Ben comes back. He snags the remote from the TV stand and comes to the sofa. Lifting my torso, he slides in between me and the couch then rests my head on his lap.
“What do you wanna watch?”
“Erm, I thought we’d had the conversation about you not having to stay. Besides, I thought you were pissed at me. You have every right to be.”
“We didn’t have any conversation because you don’t have any say-so in the matter. And yes, I am pissed. For the time being, I’m going to be here until I’m certain that you and my son are safe. That’s the least you could do considering what you’ve put me through.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. I try to sit up so I can express my objection, but his insistent hands keep me pinned to the couch. “Ben, I’m so grateful to you for stepping up with Cole, really. I’m really happy that you want to be in his life. But like I told you before all of this happened, I don’t think we should—”
Warrior (First to Fight #1) Page 12