her hands together under the table. “How will you explain wanting to talk to me without the recorder on?”
“I’ll tell them the truth, that you’ve been my CI and you’ve given me what information you had that’s pertinent to another investigation. They won’t like it, but they’ll have to accept it.” Anger blazed in his expression. He said fiercely, “The only reason I’m not biting your head off right now is because you look like shit.”
“Likewise, because you do too,” she muttered. Her gaze fell and skewed left to the new scar, and sudden wetness blurred her vision. “How are you walking around after an injury like that?”
“Magic. My coven called in a trauma specialist who arrived in Atlanta this morning.”
She folded her arms and gripped her elbows tightly. “But how are you standing upright? You shouldn’t be out of the hospital, not after an injury like that. I don’t care what kind of magical healing you’ve had.”
“As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I’m still in the hospital.” He planted his fists on the table and leaned forward, the knuckles showing white. “What the hell are you doing here? You’re weeks early.”
A fine tremor shook through her. Pulling out her phone, she activated the screen, scrolled to the call log and held it up at an angle that allowed him to see but obscured the view from the camera mounted high in one corner. “Two days ago, you woke me out of a sound sleep around four a.m. Then I couldn’t get in touch with you. All I got was an error message.”
His hot gaze dropped to the phone, and the muscle in the side of his jaw tightened. She must have dialed Josiah’s number a hundred times, only to listen to the same message over and over.
The number you are trying to reach is not in service at this time.
The phone trembled in her hand. He looked like he might leap across the table at any moment. He said tonelessly, “I lost my phone in the crash.”
“Hospitals have telephones.” She whispered so she wouldn’t shout. She wanted to hit him. “You didn’t call. Not even to leave a message.”
His expression tightened. “I couldn’t. I wasn’t conscious until this afternoon. When I got back to my place and looked through my work emails, Frank had emailed to say you had called and were on your way back to Atlanta. I got here as fast as I could. You shouldn’t have come, Molly.”
She had been eviscerated two days ago. Now her raw emotions spilled out. “Your accident made national news. Did you know that? I scoured every online news service I could find, but none of them offered any real updates. All they said was that Atlanta’s district attorney was fighting for his life after being in an accident involving multiple vehicles. Staying away was not an option.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” he hissed.
Her lips went numb. “Somebody tried to kill you?”
“That’s why you shouldn’t have come back.”
The words blasted her. Feeling buffeted, she flinched and then jumped up to pace erratically. “I don’t care. I don’t care. I’m done with this shit. You woke me up. You were trying to say something. Then your presence settled on the bed, and I could see the outline of your body. You looked like you did in New Orleans when you would lay beside me, only you were transparent.” Backing into the corner underneath the camera’s pitiless lens, she shouted, “I thought you had died!”
He sprang up, knocking his chair back, and launched at her. Pushing her against the wall, he leaned the length of his body on hers. Tears spilled over as she felt his taut, muscular length pressed against her. His scent was strange, overwhelmed with something antiseptic.
She knew so much more now about how to read a person’s Power and physical state, and she used those skills to scan him. His Power was seriously depleted, his body under tremendous strain as he recovered from massive injuries.
But his heart, that sturdy, good heart, was still beating strong.
He buried his face in her neck. “You didn’t catch what I said?”
Her arms locked around his waist. “No,” she said hoarsely. “I was sound asleep, and whatever it was shot by too fast. By the time I had woken up enough to figure out something had happened, you’d fallen silent. Then you faded away.”
“I said I love you,” he whispered. “I should have said it before. I shouldn’t have waited until