Running. Always running. It’s what she did best.
“Ma’am.” The nurse’s hand on her shoulder made Brynn jump. The older woman smiled down at her. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
Brynn dropped her feet to the floor and shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Just waiting for visiting hours to start.”
She nodded at the door. “You’re all set. Doctor just finished with him. You can go in now.”
Wiping the bleariness from her eyes, she stood and thanked the woman, then moved past her and through Reid’s door. She had expected to see the same scene from the previous two days—darkened room, beeping machines, and a pale, sleeping Reid.
But instead, she was greeted with a lopsided grin and a gravelly voice. “Hey, sugar.”
Her heavy heart buoyed in her chest. “You’re awake!”
“So it seems.” He shifted higher on the angled bed, wincing
a bit. “How come every time you get near a weapon I end up in pain?”
Awake and sarcastic. She wanted to drop to her knees and thank the heavens. “’Cause you’re always standing too close to the bad guy.”
He nodded, some of the humor leaving his face. “So are you.”
She headed toward the visitor’s chair, but he patted the side of the bed instead. She sat on the edge near his feet, trying her best not to jostle him any. “How do you feel?”
He shrugged with his good shoulder. “Like I’ve been shot.”
“Right. Stupid question.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “I’m okay, I think. Doc said the bullet missed all the important stuff.”
“That’s good.” She wondered if the doctor had told him how close to hitting his heart it had been. Her breath left her thinking about the scant inches, the sliver of a miracle that had saved him.
Concerned eyes scanned her head to waist. “And you? Are you… okay?”
She nodded. “The welts are healing.”
He stared at her, as if trying to find the answer to his next question on her face. “Did he—?”
“No,” she said, cutting him off before he could say the words. “He was going to, after he finished the beating, but you got there before he had the chance.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Thank God.”
She grabbed his right hand and squeezed. “Thank you. You didn’t just save me from that, you saved my life.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “The nurse said Jace is all right?”
“Jace’s fine. Davis knocked him out, but he only had a concussion.”
“And Kelsey?”
She looked down at her hands and sighed. “The police intercepted Roslyn and got Kelsey to safety, but she’s been through a lot. Davis posed as the dom who was supposed to be training her and brought her to his cabin.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yeah, The Ranch assumed Kels was a no-show, but Davis had her on-site for three days—fooled her into his bed. She figured out he was lying when he started asking questions about the evidence. When she tried to escape, he hauled her off to stay with Roslyn at the lake house and came back to pursue me for the information instead.”
“Jesus, is she going to be okay?”
She twisted the ring on her right hand over and over. “Kelsey’s tough. Right now she says she’s fine. She’s even willing to cooperate with the police on both this case and the one with the dealer. But I think when she slows down, all this is going to hit her pretty hard.”
“And what about you?” he asked quietly.
“I’m just glad to be alive at this point.”
Reid released a long breath. “I thought I’d be too late again—that I’d lost you for good.”
She fought against the lump forming in her throat. She’d thought she’d lost him forever, too. The moment the second gun had gone off had been one of the worst of her life. “Nope. You still have to put up with me every day at work.”
His fingers laced with hers. “What if I want to put up with you for more than that?”
She stared at their locked hands, the simple connection both warming her and bringing sadness all at once. Her mouth twitched. “You’re pumped full of pain meds and not thinking straight.”
“No, I’m serious,” he said, the firmness in his voice making her meet his eyes. “I’ve been up since four this morning doing nothing but thinking. I’m sorry I deceived you about why I was at The Ranch. I needed your sister for the appeal, but I won’t lie, I also wanted to knock you down a few notches. Get back at you. It was an asshole thing to do. But Brynn, as soon as you kissed me back at the initiation, it’s like I was right where I needed to be. Everything that happened after that was a hundred percent real, at least for me.”
She chewed her lip, considering him. “For me, too.”
His hand tightened around hers. “Then give me another shot to get it right.”
Her heart picked up speed, urging her to grab on to what he was suggesting. But she knew better. Nothing had changed since their conversation in the bathtub. “We want different things, Reid.”
“I want you.”
She frowned and extracted her hand from his. “You know I can’t be what you need.”
He glanced down at her body as if remembering the scars beneath, and she had the urge to cover herself with her arms. “You are what I need, Brynn. I know you’ve been through hell and it’s going to take time to work through that. But let me be there with you while you do it.”
“What if I never work through it, Reid?” she said, her voice hardening. “What if every time you touch me, I can’t help but think of all the horrid things he did to me?”
He frowned. “We’ll figure it out, sugar.”
“What? You’ll just give up being who you are if I can’t handle it? Isn’t that why you got divorced?”
His jaw flexed. “I got divorced because I didn’t love her like I love you.”
Her lips parted, the unexpected words halting all her thought processes.
He captured her wrist and forced her to scoot up the bed, then reached to cup her cheek. “My world cracked open when I thought I might never see you again. Give us another shot, sugar.”
She blinked back the tears that welled in her eyes. “Reid…”
“Yes, I am who I am. You’re the one who tried to teach me that all those years ago. And if you’re looking for a guy who’s always going to be polite and gentle and politically correct, I’m not him. But you have to ask yourself—is that what you want? I know you’re scared. But I would never hurt you. Don’t let what that bastard did change who you are.”
She dropped her gaze, staring hard at the seam on the sheets. “I’m not the girl you used to know, Reid. Things do change whether we want them to or not.”
“Then who was the girl with me at The Ranch?”
“Who was the guy who said he was done with relationships?”
He released a frustrated breath. “A guy who was too afraid to admit he had fallen