you might think you could someday love me as much as I love you, then my answer is yes.”
They were in the middle of an emergency room. A nurse had just put Gillian’s legs down after doing a rape test, and Trigger was overwhelmed with her bravery.
“I love you. When I realized you were missing, it felt as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest. It only started beating again when we got word that you’d been found and were alive. I want you to live with me so I can see your smiling face every day. So I can feed you coffee and doughnuts every morning and hear your sigh of contentment. I want to laugh with you and argue as well…simply so we can make up afterward. And yes, I want to keep you safe, but eventually this hard time will pass, and I’ll still want to wake up to your gorgeous face every morning.”
“Damn, that was beautiful,” the nurse mumbled as she busied herself off to the side, preparing slides for the labs.
Gillian huffed out a laugh. “I’m not quitting my job. I’ve still got events to organize and finalize.”
Trigger frowned, but nodded.
“How about this—I finish with the events I’ve got planned right now, then I switch my focus to the Killeen area. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop working in Austin, because I have a lot of contacts here already and repeat clients, but I’ll do my best to stay closer to home.”
“I’d move if I could,” Trigger told her honestly.
“I know. But what you do is important, and you have to be as close to the base as possible.”
She hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true, but it still smarted. He nodded.
The doctor came back into the room. “How do you feel, Ms. Romano?”
Gillian shrugged. “I’m okay.”
“On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the most pain you’ve ever felt in your entire life and one is no pain whatsoever, where would you put yourself right now?”
“Three?” Gillian said with a shrug. “My head and throat hurt, but that’s about it.”
The doctor nodded approvingly. “You’ll need to talk to the detective when he arrives, but I don’t think there’s any need to keep you overnight. Your pupils are still a bit dilated, but other than not remembering what happened, you don’t seem confused or disoriented.”
“I’m not,” Gillian told him.
“Do you have someone who can stay with you?”
“Yes, she does,” Trigger said immediately. “She’s going to be staying with me. I’m in the Army and have enough medical knowledge to watch over her. I can bring her to the hospital if her condition or pain level changes.”
The doctor nodded again. “Good. I hope they find whoever did this to you.”
“Me too,” Gillian said.
Then the doctor smiled distractedly and spun on his heels and left the room, his attention already on his next patient.
Trigger knew they needed to wait for the police detective to get there, but he wanted nothing more than to wrap Gillian up and take her home. He was well aware that he’d almost lost her. He had no idea what happened, but he had a gut feeling it had to do with the hijacking. Someone wanted information, and they’d decided to snatch one of the people who might have it. He made a mental note to call the FBI agent and make sure the other passengers were on high alert.
Gillian had been kidnapped, probably questioned, then given something to make sure she didn’t remember anything before being dropped off at a random location, largely unhurt and unmolested. It was more than odd, and it didn’t make sense…which made it all the more worrisome.
The rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent talking with Gillian’s friends and making sure they knew she was all right and where she’d be living for the foreseeable future. The detective also arrived, and it was painful and frustrating—on all their parts—to have to listen to Gillian say over and over again that she didn’t remember anything about her abduction.
The detective left with no more information than they’d had before. He’d also confirmed Trigger’s suspicion that if they didn’t get any DNA from her clothes, and if she hadn’t been assaulted, there wouldn’t be much the police could do to find the perpetrators unless Gillian remembered something.
Trigger knew she was frustrated and exhausted, and when the doctor finally signed her discharge papers, he couldn’t get her out of there fast enough. She was