Travis

I forced my eyes open with a groan. It didn’t hurt as much as the last time. Softness caressed my fingers and I shifted my gaze to find my hand fisted in Christine’s cloud of dark hair as it spilled around her face. How long had she slept in the chair next to my bed? Makeup streaked her face, reminding me a little of the way she had looked smeared with soot. How long ago? I had no idea how long I’d been under, but from the sore and stiff muscles when I struggled to move, maybe a long time.

Memories of another hospital awakening, followed by long months in rehab, intruded on my current reality. No one had waited for him then. No one had slept next to my bed and stroked my hand.

Christine stirred and drew a deep breath. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she sat up, pushed her hair from her face. She arched her back and stretched like one of the barn cats, thrusting her breasts against the loose, filmy fabric of her dress.

For a few sensual moments, I enjoyed the view. A profound sense of relief followed, as a critical part of my anatomy stirred in response to the gorgeous picture of Christine waking up.

“Hello, beautiful,” I whispered. When she graced me with a slow, sizzling smile, I sighed. “What’s a guy gotta do around here to get a beer from the pretty bartender?”

Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them back.

“Hey, this is a no-cry zone.” Struggling to sit, I was dismayed to find myself knotted up in tubes and wires. I tugged on one. “What the hell?”

“Take it easy, cowboy.” With a gentle touch on my hand, she stopped my movement and used the controller in the railing to raise the head of the bed. “One step at a time. You’ve been in and out, all night and half a day.”

Damn. I flexed my hands. “Concussion?”

She shook her head. “Exhaustion and sedation.”

“Good. Then I can leave. I hate hospitals.” I squinted up at her. She sure was a mess. Beautiful, but a mess. And she was shaking her head. “And I meant it about the beer.”

Her smile looked less than understanding, as she held up a Styrofoam cup filled with ice water. “How’s your imagination?”

I eyed the cup with distaste. “Not that good.” But I reached for it anyway. A long drink eased the dry sensation in my throat. When the nurse came to check on me, I insisted the tubes and wires be disconnected. Refusing to utilize any sort of bedside facility, I made a very shaky trip to the bathroom, thankfully getting there before I embarrassed myself all over the floor. As I washed my hands, I glanced up, startled by the battered man peering back at me from the mirror. Shaking my head, I took stock. Two black eyes, a row of Steri-Strips closing a crescent-shaped cut on my cheekbone, and a road rash along the right side of my jaw. “Holy hell, I look like a frickin’ raccoon that got run over by a lawn mower.”

I staggered sideways, barely managing to catch myself on the doorjamb. Yeah, that would make a great impression on the love of my life. As if having the shit kicked out of me by the town bully wasn’t enough, wouldn’t it just make my day if she found me sprawled out on the bathroom floor? Spent, I stumbled into the hospital room and crawled back into the bed.

A nurse approached with an injection, murmuring soothing words about taking away the pain. “No.” I waved her off. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m just weak. How do I get out of here?”

“I’ll call your doctor.” The nurse tucked the blanket around me, checked my vital signs, and then hurried out.

Christine stood at the window with her back to me, apparently extremely interested in something on the other side of the glass.

“Hey,” I called softly. “Come back over here. I miss you.”

When she approached, I caught traces of shadows in her eyes, before she distracted me with an exaggeratedly sexy walk in my direction. Then she was close enough to touch, so I took her hand, laced my fingers through hers. “What’s on your mind?”

“Not a thing now that you’re back,” she said a little too casually as she perched on the edge of my bed.

She kept staring over my right shoulder. Frustrated that she wouldn’t look at me, I held on tight when she tried to extract her hand, refusing to release her until she met my stare. Then I almost wished I hadn't pushed things. Worry haunted her eyes but the rest of her face was constructed into a careful mask. She was hiding something.

“Don’t.” The word came out in a croak. “This is me, Christine. Tell me what’s wrong. Is it Dad? Grant?”

“No,” she said quickly, glancing over her shoulder toward the door. “They’re right outside. Do you want me to get them?”

Slowly I shook my head. “I want you to talk to me.”

* * *

Christine

I wanted to put it off, preferably forever, but at least until he was further on the way to recovery, maybe even at home.

“Christine.” His voice was hoarse, but his tone was no-nonsense and his green eyes, even behind twin bruises, were compelling.

So it was going to be now. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was suddenly bone dry. Something brushed my lips and I realized my hand hovered there. Was I hoping to push the truth back inside?

“Okay.” I straightened. I wouldn’t insult him by trying to play down the impact of what I had to say. It would be best to just rip off the band-aid in one quick motion.

“I told you I fell in love very quickly once,” I began.

A muscle working in his jaw was his only reaction.

“Nothing ever really happened. There wasn’t time. But it was going to. At least I thought it would, and I’m pretty sure he felt the same way. He said he did, anyway.” I paused, considering my next words. “I lived in L.A. at the time, and he was a firefighter. Trav, he was your cousin, Mac.”

* * *

Travis

I stared, unable to believe what I’d just heard. She continued to talk, explaining, rationalizing. I knew she was talking because her lips were moving, but everything past the bomb she’d dropped was just more blah-blah-blah. So I said nothing, partly because I didn’t know what I could say, and partly because the emotional sucker punch had rendered me without air in my lungs. Somewhere, some cosmic being had to be having a good belly laugh at my expense.

I forced myself to pay attention.

“I didn’t know until I asked Grant why Bull hates you so much, and he told me why you left home in the first place and where you ended up.”

“You’re saying Mac is your twenty-three-hour man.” I spoke with caution, keeping my emotions hidden, until I could process what she was telling me.

“I didn’t know, Travis. I wouldn’t have kept that from you.” Her eyes begged for my understanding. “We danced around the subject some, you and I, but we never got around to really talking about where we were before we met.”

I stared. I blinked. I searched for something to say. I had nothing. She was looking at me for reassurance, when every good thing in my life had just been uprooted, like a delicate plant plucked from the ground that sustained it.

Every self-inflicted wound surrounding my decision to run off with Mac had been systematically reopened. But her revelation took it to an all new level. Bluebell, part of the new beginning I thought I’d found, stolen from me by a past I couldn’t seem to leave behind.

Fiery pain exploded in my heart.

I’d suspected Mac was seeing someone, but I’d never met the girl. Christine didn’t seem at all like the type Mac usually went for. The thoughts continued to race through my mind, speeding up to the point where they no longer made sense. I wanted to ask what she felt about her revelation, but I was afraid of what I was already reading on her face.

And damn it! Why did it have to feel like I’d been poaching on Mac’s memory?

“Christine…” I shook my head. What could I say? “I, uh, I don’t think you were trying to keep anything from me.” I rubbed at my tired eyes, wincing as sudden sharp pain reminded me of my raccoon eyes, bringing me to full awareness of where I was and why. Damn Bull and his big ugly fists. “I’m sorry… my mind’s still fuzzy. Give me some time to absorb this, okay?”

She looked away, but not before I caught the spasm of pain. Then she took a deep breath. Her head lifted and she met my gaze again. “Okay.” She stood, straightened, and walked to the door, where she cast a glance over her shoulder. “I understand. Take all the time you need, Trav.” Then she was just gone.

Un-fucking-believable. In the space of less than a week, I’d finally walked away from my past, only to have it chase me down and ruin my future. I flopped back against my pillow and shut my eyes, waiting for memories of Mac to surface. But it wasn’t my cousin’s voice I heard.

“Travis, you can’t control what happens to you, but you can always control your reactions.”

“Mom!” I bolted upright, shooting glances around the room. Of course she wasn’t there. She couldn’t be. But those had been her words to me, on more than one occasion. They must have stuck in my head, waiting for just the right time to surface.

Impeccable timing.

Could I have handled things any damn worse? What in God’s good name was wrong with me? I didn’t know exactly what I should feel about everything, but I didn’t want her to leave.

“Christine!” I swung my shaky legs out of bed, cringing when my bare feet hit the frigid tile.

When the door swung inward, I sagged with relief. But it was my father’s tall, lanky frame filling the doorway.

“Grant’s takin’ your lady home.”

The room began a slow spin.

“Geez!” My father rushed forward and caught me around the shoulders, before I went down. “Let’s get you back into bed.”

“No. Get me out of here!”

“Settle down!” My normally easy-going father pushed me back toward the bed. “If you keep this up, they’re going to come in and sedate you again. Now, listen to me.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and held my hands up in surrender, taking a deep breath and forcing calm. “I screwed up. I promised I’d never want to leave her, and then I just sat here like a jackass when she needed me to tell her everything’s okay. There are things she needs to know —things I need her to understand, but I couldn’t talk to her.” Shit, I was twelve years old again, needing my father to help him make sense of life. I met my dad's eyes. “I can’t lose her, Dad. Please help me.”

“No one’s losing anyone, son.” Dad laid a weathered hand on my shoulder and squeezed lightly. “Christine flew in with you on the helicopter and never left your side. She told us you asked for some time and she’s giving it to you. That’s all. Grant’s taking her home to get cleaned up is all. She’ll be here when you get yourself together.”

“I am together, Dad. Maybe more than I’ve been for years. I was surprised by what she told me. But I—” I drew a deep breath and finished in a whisper. “Christine’s it for me.”

Dad smiled. He squeezed again, and warmth radiated from his touch directly to my heart. Dad got it. Sixteen years of lost time formed a knot of emotion in my throat. “I love you, Dad.”

When Dad’s arms closed tightly around me, another lock clicked open in my heart. The last time I’d felt my father’s hug, I’d been almost seventeen and nursing a broken heart over Jenny Valentine’s engagement to a boy she’d met at college. Grant had been right. Dad hadn’t been the one to set up the emotional barriers. With jerky movements, I returned the hug.

“Son, she’s not going anywhere, I promise.”

The words slammed into me like a truck. From out of nowhere, tremors rocked me. My breathing simply stopped. I was on the edge of mental instability and I knew it, but I had no idea how to keep myself from plunging into the dark abyss. Once before, someone had helped me cling to life when hope had seemed lost.

As if sensing my deep need, Justin held on tighter. “What is it, boy?”

I felt like I was being strangled. “I’ve heard it before. Heard the promises. She didn’t mean it and it hurt like fire, Dad.”

Justin stepped back with a frown, confusion clouding his eyes. “Who didn’t mean it? Christine?”

I shook my head. “It was in L.A., when Mac died.”

My father sat on the bed next to me, and I began to talk about my search for an angel.