Zander

Zander only had flashes of memories from their harrowing rescue. Foil blankets. Yellow backboards. Paramedics. Flashing lights. Sirens. The shrill beep of medical equipment. But the one thing that was crystal clear was Megan, returning for him, moments before she collapsed.

He’d wanted to go to her and his body raged against its inadequacy. People were hovering over him, fussing about his injuries, but what about her? What about Megan? She’d been his last conscious thought, and as he blinked the world back into focus, she was his first.

Zander could make out the sterile walls of a darkened hospital room. He tried to sit up but his body resisted. He looked down to see a thick white bandage wrapped from thigh to shin. He felt around gingerly, assessing his pain, but only found a dull ache. He must’ve been pumped full of some powerful drugs.

Growling with effort, Zander gabbed the edges of his hospital bed, tugging himself into a sitting positing.

“Whoa! Steady on, mate,” coaxed Devon’s familiar voice.

Zander turned toward his voice, startled to see his friend rise from the chair stationed at his bedside.

“Okay there?” Devon asked, concern in his eyes.

“Devon?”

“That’s right.” Devon grinned, putting a steady hand on Zander’s back. “Christ, are ye a sight for sore eyes, mate?”

Zander tried shifting his legs.

“Go easy. You’ve got quite a few stitches in that knee a yers.”

Zander ignored Devon, still struggling to prop himself up. “Megan? Where is she?”

“She’s fine. Sam’s in her room with her.”

Panic ripped through Zander and a nearby monitor began to beep. “She’s in the hospital?”

“Yeah, just a few rooms down.”

“I need to see her.”

“Zander, Megs is fine. She’s being looked after.”

“I need to see her!” he bellowed.

Megan

Megan was clutching Sam’s hand, reliving the traumatic ordeal she and Zander had suffered when she heard a roar fill the hall. A group of nurses rushed past her room and Sam jogged to the door and peered after them. When she came back her mouth was in a grim line.

“Zander?” Megan asked, already knowing the answer.

Sam nodded.

“Can you take me to him?”

Sam smirked, already pulling the wheelchair over to Megan’s bed. “I’m pretty sure that’s the only way we’re gonna keep him in that bed.”

Megan felt fine. The doctors were just being overly cautious due to her history of asthma and the hypothermic conditions she’d suffered. Her body was depleted from her ordeal. She felt like she could sleep for a month and no matter how many blankets Sam wrapped around her, Megan couldn’t shake the memory of cold from her bones.

The IV she’d been hooked to didn’t help either. It was replacing her fluids but Megan felt like it was dripping pure ice into her veins. Sam expertly unhooked it and helped Megan into a robe before letting her climb into the wheelchair.

As Sam wheeled Megan down the hall, the ruckus from Zander’s room grew louder. She could hear him screaming orders and obscenities at the hospital staff.

“I don’t care about yer God damned policies. I want to see her now!” Zander roared. “I’ll buy this fucking hospital wing if I have to!”

Megan called Zander’s name when Sam finally wheeled her into his room, but he didn’t hear her over his own shouting. Sam let out an ear-splitting whistle that silenced the melee and Zander locked eyes with Megan.

Tears sprang to his eyes and his face cracked with a mixture of agony and relief. Megan was out of the wheelchair in an instant. She ran to his bed and threw her arms around him. Zander pushed the bedrail down and hoisted Megan onto his bed, crushing her to his chest while he kissed her face over and over, whispering her name like a chant.

They’d made it. They’d truly survived. Until that moment, it hadn’t seemed real. And until Zander finally wrapped Megan in his embrace she hadn’t felt whole. But as his warmth poured through her and his heart beat against her chest, she felt hope flood through her. They’d made it out together. And that was enough.

“Let’s give them a minute,” Sam said ushering Devon and the shocked nurses out of the hospital room.

Zander

When they were finally alone, Zander took Megan’s face in his trembling hands, kissing away her tears. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“Zander, stop. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“But I do. I put ye through hell.”

“But we made it out,” she said. “Together.”

Tears slid down Zander’s cheeks and Megan wiped them away.

“Ye say yer not the girl that fixes people, but ye do. Ye fixed me, Megan.”

She huffed a laugh. “I’m pretty sure I broke you. Look where you are,” she said gesturing to his hospital room.

Zander smiled into her raven hair. “Maybe ye did, but I don’t know what I’d do without ye in my life.”

“You might act a little less crazy toward the hospital staff?” she teased.

He grinned. “Ye do make me crazy, woman.”

“You’re really bad at this, you know?” Megan smirked. “I save your life and now you’re calling me crazy.”

Zander pulled her tighter to his chest. “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. I’m crazy about ye and I should’ve told ye from the moment ye stepped off that plane. Yer stubborn and impulsive and strong and funny and braver than anyone I’ve ever known, and the only thing I know for certain is that I want ye in my life. I need ye in my life.” Zander took a deep steadying breath. He suddenly felt like he was about to leap off of a cliff. “What I’m failing miserably at saying, is that I love everything about ye, Megan. I’m in love with ye. And it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever felt. But I’m even more scared to stop.”

“Then don’t,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his. “Because I love you, too. And I’m never going to stop.”

Joy ripped through Zander more powerful than any drug the doctors had plied him with as he wrapped Megan in his arms, kissing her with a lifetime of unbidden love—obliterating all thoughts of maybe.