Forever Devoted

by Virginia Nelson

  The broken heart because of his rejection was her problem, not something he could or should have to fix.

  “I’m great,” she finally answered before pulling back.

  For a moment, the room swung—she’d moved too fast—and Gray’s hands locked under her elbows as if he anticipated it, bracing her until she regained her balance.

  “Better every day,” she added.

  “She’s a fighter, our girl,” Gray agreed. Close to her ear, he whispered, “You okay?”

  Pinching her eyes closed, she hoped they’d all blame her inability to immediately answer with him that close on her injury rather than her aching heart. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Doc said the dizziness should be tapering off, and she’s been doing great at all the therapy. As fast as she’s coming back, they’re not overly concerned about muscular atrophy. Her outlook is great.” Gray sounded more enthusiastic than she had, which seemed to be the trend lately.

  Moving away from them, she refused to sit in the damned wheelchair while her boys were there. “Sit! I want to hear how the baby is doing. You brought me new pictures, right?”

  “Sure did.” Rowdy’s grin was infectious, and she returned it easily. “I’ll bring her over to see you again, once the snow clears out a bit.”

  “What are you idiots doing out on these roads, anyway? You could have….”

  Gray stopped speaking, rubbed at his chin scruff and abruptly left the room, not finishing his sentence. Silence filled the room, and neither of the other guys met her eyes either.

  “Seriously? He was going to say car accident. You can say it. I don’t even remember it.” And she didn’t. The doctors said it might come back. It also might not. Either way, it was hard to be traumatized by something she didn’t even remember. “I’m doing better. I don’t know what I’d do without Gray, but—”

  “Liar,” Twinkles inserted. Plopping next to her, he slung an arm across her shoulders, tugging her closer. “He’s driving you bat-shit crazy because he’s hovering. You don’t have to lie to us. Yes, yes, Gray is a martyr and should be sainted, but you wanna kill him, right? Me and Rowdy were betting on it—”

  “You’re not supposed to tell the person the bet is about that we’re betting on them, douche nugget.” Rowdy bookended Twinkles’ movement, taking up her other side and warming her. She’d not even realized her skin felt cold until the heat seeped in, her chill probably from not moving around much for the past hour or so while she considered the Nurse Gray situation.

  “Bullshit,” she answered. She punched Rowdy in the arm—a weak hit, not nearly as damaging as she should have been able to do—then he crumpled as though she’d actually injured him, moaning for effect.

  “Anyway, we’re betting on whether or not you kill him before they set you loose again.” Twinkles grinned. “My money is on you, toots, so if you could kick his ass, I promise to buy you a root beer.”

  Chapter Five

  February

  He hadn’t realized a human being could literally get used to not sleeping. However, Gray was pretty sure he’d mastered the ability to run on little to no rest since Robbie got in her accident. First, trying to stay by her side in the hospital, constantly hoping she’d wake up, so he couldn’t dare try to catch forty winks for fear she’d awaken alone. Then, once he’d realized her healing rest might last for a while, he’d started working in small bits before returning to his bedside vigil.

  Once she’d waked, she hadn’t stayed awake long and dozed off again unexpectedly—for days. The horror of that time, of the fact that she seemed unable to answer him and, when she did manage to string words together, the sheer nonsense of most of them…not to mention the few times she seemed coherent but confused while he repeatedly explained she was safe? Not a lot of time to catch up on his beauty sleep in those weeks.

  When he’d fought to free her of the medicinal prison, he couldn’t have guessed bringing her home would leave him equally restless, yet he’d not managed a full night’s worth of sleep in longer than he could remember. Rubbing his eyes, he nudged open her bedroom door so he could peek in on her.

  The really disturbing thing about her sleeping was the similarity between her sleeping face and the one he’d stared at for so many hours when she’d been unconscious while her brain healed. So very still, so very peaceful looking that it jarred him, leaving his nerves jangling in almost audible dissonance.

  Looming above her, he watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest, relieved by the slight flicker of her eyelashes as she dreamed. The movement of her eyes, like some silent promise she wasn’t comatose, comforted him a bit.

  Until she started thrashing in the bed. Worried she’d hurt herself—perhaps even throw herself to the floor adding on another head injury, which would be the exact opposite of what she needed at that point—he said her name, hoping she’d wake naturally from whatever hells she faced in the land of dreams. When that didn’t work, he moved to restrain her, another uncomfortably familiar action that reminded him of her stay in the hospital.

  “Robbie. Robs! Wake up.”

  With a start, her eyes flashed open, just visible in the crack of light leaking through the door he’d left ajar.

  “Gray!” she shouted. Her hands came up, locking on his arms as they held her shoulders down. “Oh, it was just a dream….”

  Her words tapered off as reality hit her. “It wasn’t a dream.”

  Tears leaked out of her eyes, so he shifted his position to lay alongside her. Tugging her body close, he whispered, “Shhh.”

  “I remember. Oh, it was awful. I rolled—the truck rolled. Everything was so loud and crunchy….” Her voice broke on a sob, and he didn’t correct her wrong word. She meant crunching, as she’d told him before. The accident had been loud and crunching, seemingly in slow motion, and she remembered every second like a photograph recorded in her mind. He wasn’t sure what was worse, her blow-by-blow recital of the events in the truck that night or the times when she didn’t remember the accident at all.

  He’d experienced both with her, time and time again over the past couple weeks or so. The doctor told him not to remind her when she didn’t remember the details of the accident and to simply comfort her when she did.

  The mind was a complicated machine, and hers was recovering from a blow that could have killed her. Knowing the facts, the science behind her memory gaps, didn’t make it easier to watch her shrug off the accident as something she couldn’t remember when he clearly recollected holding her while she whispered every gruesome detail, sometimes only hours prior to forgetting it again.

  “Why are you here?” she whispered.

  He wasn’t sure if she’d forgotten her nightmare or questioned his presence in her room…or worse, if she didn’t know why she was with him at all, something else that happened more often than he liked. “I’m always here, my Robbie. Remember?”

  Kissing her forehead, he stuffed down his own emotions. The absolute worst moments were the ones when she looked at him and didn’t recognize him at all. Having to watch her struggle to put a name to his face? Hell. Sheer and unrelieved hell.

  “I mean in my room, asshole.”

  He snorted in laughter and buried his face in the curve of her neck. “I was checking on you. You started having a nightmare, and I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Of course.” Shoving at him, she turned her back to him. “You can go now. I’m awake again.”

  But he didn’t want to go. Tugging her close again, he spooned her feminine curves into his body. Holding her like that—touching her at all—left him hard more often than not, but he was a man, not a boy. He could get past his needs, as inappropriate as they were considering the circumstances. He couldn’t bear, however, to leave her alone to face her personal demons and the memory of the accident. “Do you remember what you dreamed about?” He phrased the question carefully, just in case she’d already forgotten again.

  Tears
dampened his arm under her head. “Yeah, the accident. I didn’t forget it at all, did I?”

  Kissing her neck, he was pleased when her fingers clamped down on his arm, holding him close to her. “No, you didn’t forget it. Sometimes you remember. The doc says it will keep getting better, as time passes and as you continue to heal. In the meantime, I’m here, baby. We’ll get through it all together.”

  “What else have I forgotten? No wonder you can’t see me as a woman anymore.”

  Closing his eyes, he searched for the right answer to her question and fought down the urge to scream at her. Of course he saw her as a woman. He couldn’t resist seeing her as a woman and damned himself for exactly that more than ten times a day. “Not much. Like I said, you’re getting better every day.”

  Her snort was comforting, another sign of her personality battling its way free of the chains of her injuries. “Nice. Answer the easy part and ignore the half that might get touchy or upset me. Sometimes I think you’re paying more attention at my gazillion doctor visits than I am, Nurse Gray.”

  She called him that sometimes, a slip since she’d admitted in one of her lucid moments that she hated Nurse Gray and wanted her Gray back. It was her version of an insult, calling him a nurse when she didn’t want a nursemaid.

  He longed to tell her that she might never get her Gray back. That he’d been as changed by her accident as she’d been. That he wanted more than what they’d had before, so likely he’d be unable to pretend differently once she’d gotten better. That he’d realized he loved her, really loved her, and losing her once meant he wasn’t willing to risk ever doing so again….

  But, although he’d said some things he regretted out of frustration and been lucky that she’d forgotten them, he’d managed to keep that little secret from her. So far, anyway.

  “I wasn’t ignoring it, Robs. I see you as a woman. I see you clearer than I ever did before.”

  “You see me broken.” Her jaw-popping yawn interrupted the sentence and removed the sting from her words. “Don’t leave?”

  “Never. I’ll never leave you.” It was the one promise he could make without hesitation.

  She snuggled closer to him, and he breathed in her scent. Holding her close was the only time he didn’t worry she’d slip away. The only time he felt truly sane since the whole mess started, peace attained in the knowledge he’d keep her safe so long as she stayed in his embrace.

  He’d never make the mistake of hesitating to protect her again. Guilt swamped him, his mind determined to remind him there were a hundred ways, at the very least, he could have protected her from what happened and failed her.

  “I love you, Gray.”

  “Love you, too, Robs.” More than you’ll ever likely know....

  ***

  Her teeth nibbling at his shoulder wakened him, and he blinked in shock to see daylight filling the room. He must have slept through the night—rest he wasn’t used to anymore—yet he still felt exhausted.

  Gripping her closer, he tried to force down a wave of unwanted lust. “Whatcha doing, Robs?”

  “I said your name, but you didn’t wake up.” Her smile lit up the room brighter than sunshine, when she rolled to place her head on the pillow next to his. “So I bit you.”

  Hugging her, he chuckled. “Vicious. I like it.”

  “Hmm…can you hear that?”

  Pinching his eyes tightly closed, he rode out the fury that got his blood pumping and brought him fully awake. “Nope, hear what?” He didn’t know why he asked, other than to give himself something to do other than punching the walls. He knew what she heard.

  “That ringing? You can’t hear that?”

  Tinnitus, caused by the accident. If she didn’t remember why her ears were ringing, she’d likely forgotten a hell of a lot more than the reason she could hear it and he couldn’t. “Nope.”

  “Huh, that’s weird. Well, lemme go. I have to go to the bathroom.” Nudging free of his arm, he watched as she managed to sit at the edge of the bed before gripping her head and curling back into his waiting arms. “Oh, my head.”

  Kissing her temple, he then scooped her up to carry her to the bathroom. “I’ll get you some medicine in a minute. It’ll make it hurt less.”

  Snuggling into him, she whispered, “I still remember the accident. I just forgot why my ears were ringing for a second.”

  He stopped mid-step. Her words surprised him. She was more lucid than she usually was at waking. “Okay.” Swinging back into motion, he nudged the bathroom door open and slid her to her feet. His movements were slow and practiced to avoid moving her too fast, which made her dizziness all the worse.

  “Why aren’t you furious with me? I’m furious with myself.”

  Squeezing her, he helped her find her balance against the sink before meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I promise to be furious once you’re well enough to fight with me, okay, Scrappy?”

  She bit her lip, tears making her eyes go liquid with color. “Will I ever be, Gray?”

  Squeezing her shoulders, he kept holding her gaze so she’d know he meant his words. “You’ll be better. You’re already much better.”

  Her sigh was shaky, but he released her and left her alone for the moment. Closing the door, he leaned on it. She began humming, remembering he liked to hear she was okay, and he fisted his hands. She was much better. He wasn’t lying.

  But not well enough for his heart not to thud in his chest with worry.

  Chapter Six

  April

  Sneaking out probably wasn’t the best idea. Gray would worry when he realized she wasn’t still shut up in her room reading. Still, she was sick of him hovering around her as if she’d shatter or relapse or whatever the hell he waited for her to do. Her doctors seemed to have more faith in her over the past months than Gray had—even if he’d been unflagging in his support of her and in delivering his cheerleader cheer. It’d been almost half a year since her accident, though, and she was tired of being completely beholden to him for literally everything.

  Once she was earning a paycheck again, she’d buy him some goddamned pompoms to go with his constant rah-rah attitude. Speaking of paychecks....

  The sight of the glass door left her breathing through a wave of vertigo. Her favorite doctor—Doc Pirate as she’d dubbed him because of his one glittering gold earring—told her the vertigo, headaches, and tinnitus would likely continue to crop up whenever she felt stressed. He’d cleared her to work, said she could try to find something if she felt ready, yet Gray wasn’t willing to let her try moving forward.

  It seemed he constantly worried. She could either listen to him or go ahead with her life…. Her hand shook, still poised on the door, as she remembered the repercussions from the last time she didn’t listen to Gray. No, dammit, I’m a grown fucking woman. I can’t let one bad decision control the rest of my life. I’m not dead. I’m allowed to move on past the accident.

  Firming her jaw and resolve, she pushed on the door and only startled a little when the bell jingled.

  “Hey, hot stuff, didn’t know you were coming by today!” Twinkie tugged her into a hug while she worked to control her breathing. He’d been around enough during her recovery to know it took her a second to acclimate to new surroundings, but she hated that she needed him to make that accommodation. She would reclaim her life. One piece at a time, if needs be.

  “Hey, handsome. It was an unplanned exodus, the first of its kind. I wanted to talk to you alone, though, without Nurse Gray playing the helicopter parent. You have a minute?”

  The noises and smells of the grocery store flooded her with sensory information. Before the accident, a grocery store wasn’t a big thing. After? Like everything else, it wasn’t easy. But it would become easy, like walking had over the past few months, if she simply kept trying.

  It had to.

  “I’m shocked you made it out from under his wing long enough to walk here. He’s going to shit w
hen he realizes you’ve flown the coop. C’mon, we’ll talk in my office.”

  Office was a lofty word for the seventies-era desk and checkerboard-tiled closet where Twinkie counted money and did whatever else the owner of a store did. Robbie sank gratefully into the metal-legged chair opposite his desk. She might be better at walking than she had been, but sitting still felt safer. Once Twinkie sat down, she pinned her gaze to his.

  “I need a job.”

  Laughter filled the room—Twinkie’s, not hers. “Sweetie—”

  “Don’t sweetie me, damn you. I’m a grown-ass woman. As a matter of fact, I cosigned the loan on this building when you bought it from your future father-in-law. I had a car accident, yes. I fucked up, but I’m not dead or a child. I want neither your pity nor your condescension. I’m coming to you for a job because—”

  She swallowed twice and licked her lips before she could continue. “I’m not fit to do much work, not to mention I’ll need short shifts to begin with, just until I get used to working again. I might even have to call off because of the headaches once in a while, so you should know that going in. My balance isn’t great still, I occasionally slur or mangle words if I’m tired, and I panic in stressful situations. I’m still awkward around people, never sure if they’re actually a stranger or if I’ve just forgotten them today. All that said? My doctor says I’m well enough to work, and like the rest of my recovery, I’m only going to be able to move on by climbing steadily back out from the hole I dug myself. If you hire me as a cashier—”

  “I get it.” Twinkie’s eyes looked both serious and sad at once. “I do, Robs, even if you don’t believe me. But if I hire you, Gray—”

  “Isn’t my flipper father.” Dammit. Anger wasn’t her friend, just another form of stress to twist her thoughts and tangle her tongue. She meant flipping or fucking, not flipper. Shaking her head, she gripped the arms of the chair, focusing on her goal, not her lapse. “Gray has been wonderful through all of this, and I honestly can say I couldn’t have come this far without him. Something everyone seems to forget, however, is that he’s not my parent, and I’m not a child. I don’t require his permission to get a job.”