Chapter Twenty
Diana walked down the long, white hallway, trying to stifle the fear that threatened to overtake her. It had been that way since they first brought her to the hospital, and now her panic at the thought of losing Leo was inexorably tied to the fluorescent lighting and smell of antiseptic.
“Back so soon, Miss Barrett?”
She looked up, her eyes landing on a familiar nurse with blue hair and hot pink scrubs. “What can I say?” Diana asked. “I can’t stay away.”
The nurse winked. “Can’t say that I blame you.”
Diana laughed, the sound unfamiliar and strange as it emerged from her throat. It had been awhile since she’d laughed.
Two long weeks to be exact.
She continued past the nurses station, raising a hand in greeting as she made her way to the room halfway down the hall.
She stopped when she got to the door, taking a deep breath and reminding herself that Leo needed her to be strong. He was improving, and while the doctors said he had a long road ahead, he would survive. So why did she still feel the clutch of panic when she entered his room? Why did she still wake up in the middle of the night, alone in Leo’s flat, crying?
They were stupid questions. It didn’t take a psychologist to know that even thought she hadn't been on the dock in Algiers, almost losing Leo had delivered its own kind of blow to her psyche. She’d known as she waited at the safe house with the big soldier named Miller that she loved Leo.
She just hadn’t realized how much.
Not until she had to make the long drive to the military base in Tunisia where Leo was already being loaded onto a medi-flight. Not until she’d held his cold, still hand as they made their way back to London, looked at his pale face, wondering if he would ever laugh or grin or kiss her again.
Then she’d known unequivocally that she didn’t want to live without him. She’d spent every moment since — every second he was in surgery, every hour he was unconscious — praying to a god she wasn’t sure she believed in to make him well. Because now her life without him had been exposed for what it was: barren, lonely, so very dark.
She took a deep breath as she approached the door, then pushed it open with a smile on her face. And there he was, head turned toward the window, chest rising and falling.
She stepped quietly into the room and made her way around the bed, not wanting to wake him. His face was peaceful in repose, the masculine features she’d become accustomed to somehow morphing into the boyish ones she remembered. She watched him for a moment, her heart overflowing. Then she brushed back the stray lock of hair and kissed his forehead.
His eyes opened with a start. She was glad he didn’t have a gun. He undoubtedly would have reached for it.
“Shhhh,” she said, touching his cheek. “It’s me. I’m sorry to startle you.”
He sank back into the pillow. “You were supposed to get some rest.”
“I did.”
He smiled. “I bet you haven’t been gone two hours.”
“Almost,” she protested.
He laughed, then clutched the bandage on his chest. “Fuck. Will it always hurt to laugh?”
“I hope not,” she said. “You’e coming home tomorrow. And I plan to make you laugh plenty, so you better toughen up.”
He grinned. “That’s my girl.”
It had been a learning curve, teaching herself not to hover, not to show pity for him even when his face contorted in pain after the four hour surgery to repair the nick in his heart. She’d had to resist the urge to baby him, to do everything for him, to hiss at anyone who asked too much of him. It wasn’t what he wanted, and she’d quickly learned to hide her own fear, her own pain, behind a mask of indifference.
Of course, everything you’ll be fine.
Of course, you can do it yourself.
“Kane was here,” he said.
She sat down next to the bed in a chair that had become as familiar to her as the one she used to occupy at Abbott. “Really? What did he say?”
“They’ve intercepted six arms shipments in the two weeks since Beni Saf, I’m an asshole for taking Stavros out on my own… you know, the usual.”
“Yes, well, it takes an asshole to know an asshole,” she said.
He laughed, clutching his chest again. “You’re going to kill me.” He patted the bed. “At least comfort me before you do it.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “I don’t think Nurse Owens would approve.”
“Fuck Nurse Owens,” he said. “I want to feel you next to me.”
She sighed, then eased onto the bed beside him, laying her head gingerly against his shoulder. “Is this okay?”
He sighed, stroking her hair. “It’s more than okay. It’s perfect. Totally worth being shot for.”
She reached up, gave his face a light slap as she laughed. “Stop!”
He leaned his head against hers. “It’s true.”
She heard it in his voice. Felt the echo of it in her heart.
She didn’t know what the future held. Didn’t know how they would blend their disparate lives. Didn’t know if Leo would be able to continue working for Farrell Black, if she would ever be able to go back to the bank.
But as she lifted her face to his, she knew one thing was true: all those years, they hadn’t been running away from each other at all.
They’d been running toward each other.
And it was exactly where they were meant to be.