I was lying on my back when I woke up.

My head was turned to the side, and my eyes were facing an unfamiliar wall.

Where am I? I thought as a low beeping sound filled the dark room. Where was that coming from? Was it the smoke alarm?

Beep… Beep... Beep…

Lord, tell me Hope hadn’t burnt toast again. Nothing smelled as bad as burnt toast. Well, except maybe burnt popcorn.

Both were disgusting in my book.

Beep… Beep… Beep…

I parted my lips to call out Hope’s name but stopped when I realized how dry my mouth was. The inside of my cheeks and palate were rougher than sandpaper, and my throat felt drier than the Sahara.

What in the world?

Blinking my heavy-lidded eyes, I lifted my head an inch or so—it’s all I could manage—from the pillow, and focused on the space surrounding me. White walls. White tiled ceiling. White, scratchy sheets. White bed rails.

Wait, a minute—was I in the hospital?

One look at the blue and white bracelet on my wrist and the IV line attached to the back of my hand answered my question.

I was so confused. Why would I be in the hospital?

I tried to rack my brain, tried to think… but then the pain hit me.

I whimpered, and nausea swamped me as my head pounded. It felt like a hundred woodpeckers had taken up residence in my skull. Physically, it was the worst pain I’d ever experienced. After taking a shuddering breath, I attempted to lift my hands to press my fingers against my temples.  

Except, I couldn’t move my hands. One was attached to the IV—which I was terrified of ripping out—and the other was being held down by something.

Something big, rough, and warm.

Slowly, I rolled my head to the left. I closed my eyes when the fluorescent light from the bathroom met my eyes and caused bolts of sharp pain to shoot through the right side of my head. Moving my head faster, I rested my left cheek against the cool—albeit flat and useless—pillow.

When the sharpness skittering through my brain ebbed, and the pounding resumed, I took another shaky breath and opened my eyes.

My heart seized.

My lungs froze.

My world stopped turning.

Messy black hair. Tanned skin. Broad shoulders.

Hendrix…

The sound of the monitors next to me began to speed up, completely in sync with my rapidly increasing heart rate.

I had to be dreaming. I mean, he couldn’t be here. He’d left me, walked away. Never answered any of my calls, never replied to the emails I’d sent him.

Yeah, I had to be dreaming. That explained it.

I wasn’t really in the hospital, wasn’t really lying in bed with an IV in my arm. But I didn’t normally feel pain in my dreams. Terror? Yes. Pain? No.

So why the heck was I feeling it now?

’Cause you’re lucky like that, the voice in my head whispered.

Blinking once, I lifted the two fingers that he didn’t have clasped in his hand and ran them down the side of his cheek. It was as far as I could reach.

The stubble coating his jaw tickled my skin and a warmth spread through the center of my chest. I missed him so damn much. I traced my fingers down the length of his cheekbone and over the hollow of his cheek where I knew a dimple appeared every time he smiled. I lightly touched the corner of his mouth and a memory flashed before my eyes.

Head tilted to the right, and with a firm hold, he gave me my first kiss.

Hendrix Cole. My next-door neighbor. My best friend. And the cutest boy I’d ever seen.

He. Was. Kissing. Me!

What I’d give to go back to that moment, just to experience it one more time. Long as I lived, I’d never forget the way my heart stalled in my chest the moment his lips touched mine or the way the world below my feet seemingly dropped away as his hands clutched my hips.

Looking back, I think that was the moment our souls claimed one another.

My fingers continued to lightly move along his warm skin while my eyes soaked up every inch of his handsome face. I wanted to memorize every little detail so that when I woke up, I wouldn’t forget that for just a moment in time, he came back.

My fingertips scratched his stubble for the second time when his cheek twitched. I stilled. No! Please don’t wake up! Every time I dreamed of him, I always woke up the moment he saw me. I wasn’t ready for it to be over. Not yet. I needed more time!  

I held my breath as his eyelashes fluttered. Please keep sleeping.

My stomach rolled when his eyes popped open and in one quick movement, he jerked his head up.

Whiskey brown eyes met mine. It was about to be over, and when it was, my heart would once again shatter into a million jagged little pieces.

“Maddie…” Tears filled my eyes. I’d missed his voice so dang much. “Fuck, baby, don’t cry.” He jumped up from the chair he was sitting on, lowered the rail on the bed, planted his big hands on both sides of my body, and leaned over me.

Moments passed.

Seconds ticked by.

His eyes darkened. “You have any idea how long I’ve waited for this moment?” I didn’t respond. Between my lead filled tongue, sandpaper mouth, and pounding heart, I couldn’t have uttered a single syllable if my life had depended on it.

“Goddamn it, Maddie,” his face moved closer, and his minty breath danced across my face, “where the hell have you been?” I closed my eyes. His nearness, his intensity, it was all too much. “Uh-uh, open those beautiful eyes for me, baby.” Even when dreaming, I couldn’t disobey him. Our eyes met, and the specks of gold dotted across his irises seemed to glow. “That’s right, look at me, pretty girl.”

Pretty girl… My heart skipped a beat—or two.

I inhaled, and his scent invaded my nose. He smelled like home.

For so long, Hendrix was home.

“I’ve looked everywhere, asked everyone.” He shook his head. The muscles in his neck were corded. “All this time you were in the next county.” The vein in his temple protruded. “Six years I’ve lost,” he paused, “and you were only thirty goddamn minutes away.” Wait one dang minute. He’d lost six years? “But no more. No goddamn more. You’ll be lucky if I let you go to the bathroom alone from now on.”

His words repeated on a loop in my pounding head.

Then it hit me… This wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a dream at all.

Every single bit of it was real.

Hendrix—he was here, his big body hovering above me, his beautiful face inches from mine.

He. Was. Here.

And if he was here, that meant that I really was in the hospital.

I lifted a shaky hand to touch my head.

When my fingertips met soft bandages, Hendrix grabbed my wrist and yanked it back. “Don’t touch it, pretty girl.”

More tears filled my eyes, and I ignored the bolts of pain that ricocheted through my skull as I shook my head back and forth.

This wasn’t happening.

He wasn’t here.

I wasn’t hurt.

“Maddie talk to me. What’s wrong?”

My chest cracked wide open as he looked down at me with those soulful eyes that I used to love so much. That I still loved so much.

Just seeing him hurt.

So many emotions coursed through me but I could only process one—anger.

I opened my mouth to speak, to yell, to curse him to the end of the earth and back. I wanted to smack him, wanted to hit him, wanted to grab him by his damn hair and shake him until his eyes rolled back in his head.

But I couldn’t do any of that.

I was angry because he left me, but I was more pissed that he was back.

Why the hell now?

Six years he’d looked for me? I didn’t believe it. He could have found me if he’d tried. After all, I’d practically stalked him for over four months when he first dumped me.

I called.

I emailed.

I texted.

Every. Single. Friggin’. Day!

And I got nothing in return!

This selfish son of a bitch! How dare he? How friggin’ dare he walk out of my life and turn his back on me when I needed him the most—I blew out a breath—and then come back when it was convenient for him!

If I could’ve told him to go fuck himself, I would have.

But I couldn’t so I just glared.

If only I could punch him… I’d never hit anybody in my life, but at that moment, Hendrix Cole made one hell of a tempting target.

More tears rolled down my eyes, and that just pissed me off more.

I was so sick of crying!

“Baby, please quit crying.” He wiped away the tears and my skin burned from his touch. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

I needed him to move, needed him to get away.

I closed my eyes and parted my lips. “Hurts.” My voice was small, quiet, barely a whisper, but I managed to push the word out.

Hendrix nodded once before reaching for the remote attached to the hospital bed. “I’ll get the nurse in here to give you some meds.”

The big dummy! I wasn’t talking about physical pain—even if it felt like someone was ripping my heart straight from my chest—I was talking about emotional pain. The same emotional pain that he’d caused.

With long, skilled fingers, he pushed the call button on the side of the bed, and a woman’s all too chipper voice came over the speaker. “How can I help you?”

Hendrix’s eyes never left mine as he replied, “Madelyn Davis in room 417 is awake. I need her doctor to get in here, and I need the nurse to bring her something for the pain.”

The voice replied, “I’ll let them know right away.”

“They’re coming, pretty girl.”

Suddenly, I hated that name. I’d love it my all my life, but not anymore.

Hearing him say it now, after all these years, made my stomach churn.

Pretty girl, my ass. If I was such a pretty girl then why did he stop loving me in the first place?

Hendrix lowered his brows as I glared at him. He didn’t say anything, but I hoped that he was receiving the message that I was trying to send loud and clear: I may still love you but I sure as heck don’t like you, asshole.

Seconds later, the door to my room opened, and a man wearing plain green scrubs and a woman wearing pink scrubs decorated with penguins—no, I’m not kidding—breezed into the room. “It’s nice of you to join us, Miss Davis,” the man, my doctor I assumed, said as he reached over my head and retrieved a flashlight looking instrument from the wall. He tapped it on the palm of his left hand twice before asking, “How are you feeling?”

I didn’t have a chance to try to respond before Hendrix spoke up. “I think she’s having a hard time talking.”

The doctor nodded. “I’m sure her mouth and throat are dry. Cindy,” he looked over at the nurse who was standing on the opposite side of my bed, “can you get her some ice chips to help with that? If she does okay with the chips, then we’ll move on to other fluids.” He leaned over and placed the flashlight looking thing inches from my face. “I’m just going to check your eyes.” Holding my eyes open with his fingers, he shined the light over my pupils.

Instant friggin’ pain.

“I’m sorry, Miss Davis, I can imagine your eyes are a bit sensitive right now.” No duh. Ya think, doc? He held open my second eye and repeated the step. I couldn’t hold back my flinch. “Eyes look good. Pupils are responding appropriately.”

I could feel Hendrix’s eyes on me, but I didn’t look in his direction.

I was still angry at him, but I knew that wouldn’t last. Before long the rage would morph into soul-crushing agony. It’d happened before, it’d happen again.

The doctor continued examining me as the nurse slid a syringe into my IV line. “This will help with the pain,” she said with a smile on her face.

Hope it’s a horse sedative. That’s the only thing that will help me right now.

The doctor stood straight and leaned his right hip against the rail of my bed. “Overall, you look good considering the events that landed you here.” He paused before continuing. “Do you remember anything that happened?” I shook my head.

He nodded once. “At this point, that’s completely normal. You’ll eventually remember.” After seeing the confusion that I felt plastered on my face, he continued. “Miss Davis, you’ve suffered a skull fracture,” he pointed behind his ear, “right about here. Luckily, with a combination of three different medications, we were able to keep your cerebral edema under control—there should be no lasting effects. However, you may experience frequent headaches and an acute sensitivity to light, coupled with intermittent nausea over the next couple of months.”

I didn’t understand. “How?” My voice was hoarse, my throat raw as I spoke.

The dick, AKA Hendrix, was the one to answer me. “You were attacked outside of the shelter.”

“Who?” A million different questions bounced around in my head. Who would attack me? I wasn’t a confrontational person, and I never caused anyone any problems.

“Colin O’Bannon.”

Oh no! Clara… The boys…

Hendrix must have read the look on my face because he continued, “They’re safe, Maddie. Colin didn’t get to them.” Thank you, God. “Won’t be getting near them again either.” Huh? “Evan shot him, baby. He’s dead.”

The pounding in my head lessened, and my eyelids grew heavy as the pain medicine took effect. “Dead?”

“Dead as dead can be.”

Right or wrong, I smiled.

They were safe. Clara, Liam, and Declan were safe.

Feeling weightless, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.