door on the left,’ the woman replied. ‘Good luck. You’re going to need it.’
After pausing beside the open door to draw a deep breath of air into her lungs, Miranda crossed the threshold and took an inventory with her eyes. He was sitting on the end of the bed, frowning at a navy T-shirt as he tried to find a way of putting it on one-handed. Under normal circumstances her gaze would have snagged on his bare chest and marvelled at the sight of smooth skin stretched over taut muscle. Instead it was drawn to the squares of gauze taped to his upper arm and below his shoulder. If the second square had been a few inches lower the bullet would have punctured a lung.
She swallowed the jagged lump in her throat to ask, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
His gaze lifted, a brief flash of surprise crossing his face before his voice rumbled, ‘It’s called escaping. You of all people should know that. How did you get here?’
‘Lewis brought me. I didn’t give him a choice.’ She crossed the room and set her bag down on an empty chair. ‘And you’re not going anywhere. What did the doctor say?’
‘That they dug out the bullet, replaced the blood I lost and stitched up the holes.’
‘And that you should rest, right?’
‘Look, I get what you’re doing but if you want to do something useful you can get me the hell out of here before my family comes back. If I have to endure another candlelit vigil around this bed I’m gonna jump out that window. My mother is this far away...’ he raised the hand holding the T-shirt to demonstrate the distance with a small gap between his thumb and finger ‘...from getting Father Mike to drop by and bless me.’
‘They’re worried about you,’ Miranda argued in their defence, ignoring his obvious frustration.
Tyler lowered his hand, frowning at the T-shirt again as he held it at arm’s length and tried to shake it straight. ‘If it wasn’t for one of Danny’s ESU buddies flapping his jaw none of them would have known.’
‘Well, it’s nice to know I wasn’t the only person you didn’t think merited a phone call.’
His hand dropped onto his lap. ‘Miranda—’
‘If the doctor says you’re supposed to stay in bed—’
‘I can do it at home.’ He looked up into her eyes. ‘I don’t need anyone’s approval to check out. They can put a note on the form to say it’s against medical advice if they’re worried about covering their asses.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why do I get the impression this isn’t your first visit to a hospital?’
‘Me and Father Mike go way back—broken leg when I was nine, first concussion when I was twelve...’
She arched a brow. ‘First concussion?’
‘I read a lot. When I was a kid it made it feel like I had something to prove when it came to sports. Get me out of here and you can examine every inch of me for scars.’
‘Promises, promises,’ she muttered before accepting the inevitable. There was no way he was staying put, but if she couldn’t stop him leaving she could make sure they took every possible precaution. ‘You’re not leaving until I’ve talked to your doctor and he’s prescribed pain medication.’
Tyler stood up. ‘I don’t need any.’
Again with the something to prove, but the lines of strain at the corners of his eyes and the rigid set of his jaw suggested otherwise. She folded her arms. ‘I have a vehicle and a driver who can take you straight home. Do you want help to escape or not?’
Surprisingly he took a moment to mull it over, his gaze searching the air before he lifted his hand. ‘You can start with helping me put on a T-shirt. I’ve been swearing at this thing for the last five minutes.’
Miranda noted the way he avoided looking at her and got the sense he wasn’t happy with her being there. It hurt that he wasn’t—especially when she’d been so desperate to see him. But she wasn’t there for totally selfish reasons—she wanted to be there for him. If he’d let her...
‘In order for me to do that you have to sit back down...’ She looked at the T-shirt as she took it from him, noticed something behind it and shook her head. ‘Let me guess. You gave up swearing at the button on your jeans five minutes ago.’
Determined she could touch him impassively while he was injured, she stepped forwards and folded the