Beneath the Stars (Falling Stars #4) - A.L. Jackson Page 0,133
others, and it’s our job to protect them. To take care of them. Even when it ain’t pretty. You understand what I’m tellin’ you?”
But it was her bravery that made her vulnerable. Her willingness to give and give. To sacrifice her safety for the benefit of someone else.
This sweet, good, beautiful girl.
And I prayed this was enough. That she would pass on that extraordinary belief. Live every single day to its fullest.
That she would spread those wings and fly.
Soar.
And if she ever found herself one of those cowboys, she wouldn’t settle for bein’ treated for anything less than the treasure she was.
For that, I would give it all.
Thirty-Two
Maggie
I was jarred up to sitting, gasping and shaken from the dream.
From the nightmare that had fear saturating every cell of my being.
Disoriented, I blinked through the disorder. Trying to see through the haze of pain laying siege to my body, to hear over the beeping of the machines, to find reality in the room cast in shadows, dark save for the small light above the hospital bed.
Hospital bed.
It only took a second for me to realize the visions in that nightmare were actually memories.
Being rammed from behind.
The car rolling.
The pain.
The pain.
That vicious, terrifying face, the same man from the bar all those months ago when I’d thought Rhys had lost it on a complete stranger, when it’d become clear that it had gone so much deeper than that when the monster dragged me from the wreckage of the car.
That tyrant who’d raged.
Torment clawed at my already aching chest.
Rhys had come. Had come to save me and his mama.
And he’d been…shot.
The air wheezed up my throat when the dream became a reality, and I flailed, the panic striking in a whole new way. I ripped and tore at the tubes and wires that I was hooked to so I could get up.
Find him.
Oh god.
No.
“No, no, no,” I mumbled frantically.
Please.
A sob burst as I fought to get free.
As physical pain tore through my shoulder and splintered down my right side.
As I felt my entire world collapse.
Then I froze when I felt the shift.
When that energy thrashed.
A shockwave of intensity.
Bright and blinding and the most beautiful thing I’d ever felt.
My attention shot to the door of my hospital room.
I squinted, praying that I wasn’t seeing things.
That a hallucination hadn’t taken me over because that hulking, beast of a man was there in the doorway. He wore a hospital gown over his massive frame and a soft, wistful grin on his face. “Whoa, there, darlin’.”
I choked over the sob, the sound shifting to a cry of deliverance. “Rhys. You’re okay. You’re here.”
He was here. He was here.
“Shh…” He hushed me as he pushed the door open wider, and he angled in pulling a wheeled vital-sign monitor that was hooked to the wires that weaved under his gown.
“Rhys.”
He lumbered across the room.
His pain palpable.
Slow and wounded but alive.
A whole, gorgeous, mesmerizing sight.
He wound around to the side of the small bed, and carefully, slowly, he crawled in beside me. Grunting and groaning as he went all while I couldn’t contain the emotion that crashed.
It banged the walls and sank in the most astounding kind of comfort into my soul.
Moisture overflowed my eyes and dripped down my cheeks, and I didn’t know whether to weep with relief or with the tragedy of it all.
“Rhys,” I whimpered as he wound those arms around me.
The two of us were nothing but tangled wires and beeping monitors and frantically beating hearts.
He tugged me against his chest, and he pressed his lips to the top of my head as he murmured, “It’s okay, Sweet Thing. I’ve got you. I heard you. I heard you in my dreams.”
A sob broke free, and he tightened his hold. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m so sorry I left. I should have known he was manipulating me.”
“Don’t apologize, Maggie. Know what you were doin’. Know you thought you were looking out for me. Protectin’ me.”
His arm curled fiercely around my body, and his words turned haggard, “That’s supposed to be my job, baby. You should have trusted me to be the one to stand in the line of fire for you. Turns out, you were standin’ in mine. Never wanted to put you in that position. Fuck…I—”
Determination shook my head, and I prayed that finally, finally he would understand. “No, Rhys…when two people love each other, they protect each other. They take care of each other. They are willing to sacrifice, and just like I know you’d willingly give