Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake #5) - Rachel Caine Page 0,92

as I say it, I know it isn’t. Not unless I make it right. Now that I’m steadier, I’m also angrier. That anonymous driver meant to hurt me, and he also risked my baby, and rage shakes me hard.

Javier’s fighting back real tears. He kisses my hand, careful of the tubes. He’s angry, too, but he’s hiding it better. “Bet you hate this,” he says. “Being laid up.”

“No bet. It’s all I can do not to rip this needle out and go out the window.”

“You’d bleed like hell, and you’re on the third floor, so those are not good options.” He smiles, and it’s so beautiful it makes me lose my breath again. “You stay with me. Right here. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say, because I can’t do anything else when he smiles like that. It’s powerful stuff. “How was training? Where were you?” I never ask in advance, because he’s not supposed to say. But he’s back now.

“Deployed on a ship,” he says. “I caught a bird coming home. They dropped me at NSA Mid-South. I rented a car from there. Sorry I’m so late getting in.”

From a ship at sea to here? “You’re not late, baby. You’re just when I needed you.” I put my hand on his cheek.

He kisses my palm. “You’re on the good stuff, or you wouldn’t say that. Especially calling me baby.”

“Probably.” I feel ironed out flat. Warm and wrinkle-free.

“So what’s the damage?”

“Crack on the head in the crash, concussion, could have been way worse,” I say. “Cuts and bruises. One broken rib, but they’ve got it strapped. Did I mention the baby’s okay?”

“You did. So basically you need a dent popped out, some paint work, and you’ll be good to go,” Javi says. “Except I don’t want you going anywhere except home, Kez. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

“Who the hell were you chasing?”

“How do you know I was chasing anybody?” He just gives me a look, and I have to smile. “Bad guy. I think a real bad one. Hard to be sure right now. This case is like fighting fog.”

“You don’t fight fog. You stay the hell home until the fog goes away.”

“You’re cute when you’re all protective.”

“Kez.”

“You staying the night with me, or are you too tired?”

“This chair folds out,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere until you are, Corazón. Besides, you didn’t eat your dinner. They told me to call when you got hungry. Are you?”

I have no idea, but I feel like I ought to be. “Pudding is mine. Fruit cup? All yours.”

“Deal. I’ll have them bring it.”

I’ve drifted off again, and I wake to a tray being pushed in toward me. Javier uncovers dishes like a waiter looking for a 30 percent tip. “Madame, your very late dinner this evening includes Salisbury steak—allegedly—some random vegetables, iced tea, a fruit cup, and pudding. We both win. But you win less, because you got to eat the Salisbury whatever.”

“I don’t have to do anything, mister.” I don’t feel hungry, I realize. I just want to sleep. But he shakes his head and starts cutting up the meat and threatening to feed me like a child, so I take the fork and do it myself. It’s a little cold. It’s not good either. We both get to the dessert pretty quick, and take our time over that part.

“Congratulations,” he says. “That is way worse than a marine mess, and that’s saying something, because an army marches on its stomach but marines don’t march, so we don’t eat that good either.”

He’s lying, but that’s okay too. We debate what to watch—I choose a Project Runway marathon, over his objections—and sit together in contented silence until I fall asleep. Again.

It’s about two in the morning when I wake again, and I swim up out of the darkness only because I hear Javi talking. I know that tone. He’s not happy, and that brings me out of my cloudy haze fast. It’s two people at the door of the room, and Javier confronting them and saying, “No, man, you have to come back, she needs her rest—”

“I’m awake,” I tell him, and hit the control after a second of fumbling to raise up my backrest to a sitting position. I hit the room lights and blink as they blaze on. “Who is it?”

“Prester,” Javi says, and steps back so the shadows in the hall can step inside the room. “And some guy I don’t know.”

The second man is white, with blond hair; I don’t know him,