Nori's Delta (Delta Team Three #1) - Lori Ryan Page 0,60

twice. He ran from the room never wanting to be somewhere faster in his life. He needed to get to Nori. He needed to make it right and tell her what she meant to him. That she was more important to him than anything. Any mission. Any assignment. Even his career.

Chapter 39

Eleanor thought a hot shower would be a good idea. She was wrong. It turns out when you bawl your eyes out in a hot shower, blotchy doesn’t begin to describe what happens to your face.

Now she sat wrapped in a fuzzy old bathrobe in her room with a cold towel over her face. The nurse had thought she was crying over her frustration at the process of her recovery and she hadn’t tried to change that perception. Truth was, her recovery was going faster than she’d thought it would. She would go home in another few days. She would have outpatient physical therapy for weeks to come and she wouldn’t be running anytime soon, but she was up and moving around on her own now.

She should call a friend. She laughed. Was she kidding? She didn’t have a friend. Not any real ones. She and Beth were friendly at work and she liked her a lot, but they didn’t get together outside of the office. If Beth called her or she called Beth, it was to tell each other something about work.

Maybe she should get a Kindle. She could start reading romance novels so that she could at least see what a happy ending looked like even though she wasn’t going to live one anytime soon. She squeezed her eyes tighter under the cold cloth. She didn’t think she had any tears left but damn it, she was wrong again.

She was really getting tired of being wrong lately. Someone knocked on her door, bringing her up to a sitting position much too quickly. The rehab facility had a front desk and no one got in without a call up to let her know who was there. Not to mention, she almost never had visitors. Not unless it was someone from the office bringing her a file or something.

She looked down at her fuzzy robe and the cold cloth that was now in her hands instead of on her face. Fabulous.

She went to the door and looked through the narrow glass window pane at the side of it.

And then she yelped because Heath was standing outside her door.

“Nori?” he asked.

“Shit,” she muttered and stepped back. She was so not in any condition to see him.

It wasn’t only that she looked like shit. She just couldn’t do this. She couldn’t get up her hopes again and have them dashed.

For so long, she had put memories of Heath Davis behind her only to have him walk back into her life in a time and way she never could have imagined.

And it hurt like hell knowing he was even more incredible now than he’d been back in high school. He was a man of heart and strength and courage. A man who fought for his country and what he believed in. She’d never known a better man than him.

And she’d sent him away.

“I know you’re in there, Nori. I saw you.”

She pressed her lips together, capturing them between her teeth as though maybe she could somehow be quiet enough to convince him she wasn’t here.

“You realize I can get in there if I want to, right?” He paused and she could picture him assessing the situation. “I can pick the lock, of course. Or I could just take the whole damned door off its hinges.”

Her phone rang and she stupidly looked at it where it sat next to her bed like that would somehow tell her who was calling.

Heath went quiet on the other side of the door and she thought maybe he was trying to call her.

She crossed the room to lift her phone and looked at the screen.

It was Merlin. She’d given him her number when he visited.

“Hello,” she said quietly after swiping the phone to answer it and putting it by her ear. She was speaking as though she might still be able to play possum and pretend she wasn’t in the room.

“Eleanor, it’s Merlin. Heath is on his way there. I wanted to let you know you should open the door for him. He didn’t ask me to call, but you should know he left the base against orders to come to see you.”

He seemed to be waiting