Have a cup of tea that morning instead of the usual coffee and bang! Because it took a minute longer to make than coffee, you end up in a car wreck.
Existence came down to making your choice and dealing with the repercussions, praying luck fell on your side and didn’t get you or someone you loved killed.
And then there were those souls who seemed destined to fall into the shit, no matter what they did. They fell fast, sank deep, and were mired before they knew it, on a path to destruction from the start.
Braun looked around the waiting room with a heavy heart. The space was filled with Avalon Masters and one pacing Mistress. His friends. Bodie’s friends. A support network unlike he’d ever known, circling the wagon around the submissive they’d come to love as much as he did.
Now more than ever, he was so, so fucking grateful he’d told Bodie he loved her every chance he’d had. His fists clenched against his thighs, wishing love had been enough to protect her while her bastard of a father battered her into pieces.
Atticus was right—there was a reckoning coming, and Braun planned to be at the head of the charge into battle. Fury bubbled under his skin, simmering away toward boiling point. When it hit its peak, Abraham McGee was going to rue the day he ever lifted a hand toward his daughter.
Connie dropped into the seat next to him, her face tight with worry. Her hand automatically rested on his fist, and with a sigh, Braun loosened it and turned it over to take hers. She was trembling, wound up so tight her curvy body was ready to implode. “They’ll be by soon,” she assured him, though her voice wavered slightly. “If they haven’t been to give us an update yet, it means she’s still fighting, Braun. She’s still with us.”
He ran his free hand through his hair, then studied the dried blood on his skin. Bodie’s blood, her life, staining his hands. He fisted it again, nails biting into his palm. “She’s strong, Connie. I don’t think she realizes how strong she is. I...I wasted so much time, thinking she was already dead, and she was holding on while I hesitated.”
She nudged his face toward her. Gray eyes brimmed with tears, but she didn’t let them fall. He thanked God for that; his own were precariously close to the surface. “Atticus told me what you walked into, Braun. That amount of blood usually indicates loss of life. He and Jasper assumed the worst as well. The main thing is, the three of you worked as a team and kept her alive long enough for the EMTs to get there. That’s what you concentrate on. If you hadn’t gone to help her when you did, she’d be gone. Twenty, thirty minutes later and there’d have been no hope.”
His lip curled. “She shouldn’t have fucking been there by herself!”
“Boadicea’s one of the most independent women I’ve ever met. She’s had to be. She hasn’t had a choice to be dependent on anyone but herself; living with you for a few days isn’t enough time to alter the habits of a lifetime, and you know it.” She shook her head. “That woman loves you, boss. She went there to close out a chapter of her life she hated so she could start a new one with you.”
Braun closed his eyes, breathed through the constriction in his chest. He was well aware there was no sense in flogging himself for not being there with her—choices and destiny, after all—but guilt was a tenacious bitch, savaging his heels with nasty teeth. “I could have made her stay with me until the plumbing was fixed. It wasn’t that important, for fuck’s sake. It would’ve waited until tomorrow. Now I don’t even know if she’ll see tomorrow.”
With strength he often forgot she possessed, Connie pulled his head down to her shoulder, wrapped her arms around him. “You bet your ass she will. You think she fought like hell to get here and then let it slide through her fingers? Don’t be an idiot. She’ll be sassing the nurses before she comes around from the anesthetic.”
He laughed, the sound perilously close to a sob. “Yeah, she will. God help them if they put a catheter in; I really don’t think medical play is up her alley.”
“Unfortunately, she’ll need to learn how to lean on people and let them do what they know is best for