Mackenzie
I stood outside the ICU and stared into the room where tubes and cables came out of the body on the hospital bed. And I stood there alone, quiet and disbelieving, my heart as heavy as a sack of potatoes in my chest.
My eyes dropped to my shaking hands in front of me.
“Miss Eden?” A female detective appeared at my side. “We’re ready for you.”
I glanced at her and then back at the body on the hospital bed. There was some doubt he would survive. The doctors said the bullet had entered through his temple and grazed a part of his brain, and now it was a waiting game.
Biting back my nausea, I followed the detective to a small room off the corridor. Inside, was another detective, male.
“How are you feeling?” He asked.
I slowly lowered myself into the chair, feeling vague and dizzy.
“Is he going to die?” I asked, finding it hard to form words over the lump in my throat.
The detectives glanced at one another before the female replied, “The doctors say it’s still too early, but it doesn’t look good.”
I nodded, waiting for the relief that didn’t come. I should want him to die. It would mean this would all be over.
“You’ve been through quite the ordeal,” the male detective pointed out. “You’re lucky.”
I didn’t feel lucky. I felt numb.
“How did this happen?” I asked, feeling blindsided. “How did he get out?”
“There will be an investigation. But it appears he had stopped taking his medication a week or so ago, and was able to escape.”
I wanted to be sick but swallowed back the spit that filled my mouth.
“Are they sure?” I asked in disbelief.
The male detective nodded. “They found more than a week’s worth of medication stuck into a hole in his bed mattress.”
My fingers curled around the armrest of the chair. If Derek had been off his meds for a week or so, then he was in a full-blown psychosis when he’d found me. I shivered and tried to calm the palpitations as my heart beat wildly in my chest. After he’d raped me, he would’ve killed us both—I just knew it.
“You’re quite lucky your friend showed up when he did,” the female detective said.
She didn’t need to tell me, I already knew that.
“Is Jake okay?”
“Do you want to see him?” The male detective asked.
My head shot up. “He’s still here?”
He nodded. “We’ve questioned him and he’s free to go but he won’t leave until he can see you.”
When the female detective left the room, the male detective then turned to me.
“You’re free to go, too, Miss Eden,” he said.
Good because I needed a long bath and a massive glass of wine. And by massive, obviously I meant the whole fucking bottle.
The door opened and Jake walked in. I didn’t hesitate, I jumped up from my chair and went to him, throwing my arms around him. Big hands held me against a broad chest and I buried my face into the warmth of him, fighting back a sudden wave of fatigue and tears.
When I pulled back, he pressed his hands into the side of my face. “Are you okay?” Judging the urgency in his voice he was more than concerned. He was faltering and panicking. His eyes dancing all over my face.
I nodded quickly. “I’m okay.” I reached up and touched his face to calm him and I saw him relax, but only slightly.
“We’ll leave you to it,” the female detective said, appearing behind Jake. “You’re both free to go but we will need to see you at the precinct tomorrow.”
When they left the room, I turned to Jake and hugged him again. When we finally stepped back I looked up at him.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“When you mentioned the Philly Penguins. At first I thought you were simply mistaken but then I realized there was no way you would get something like that wrong. No way in hell.” He sucked in a deep breath. “I knew something was stopping you from opening that door and that you were trying to tell me something. Truth is, I had no idea what was happening on the other side of that door, but I knew it wasn’t good.” I watched his Adam’s apple deepen in his throat when he swallowed. “I was outside your apartment building when it occurred to me. Christ, Z—I’ve never run so fast in my life.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck again and breathed in the familiar and comforting scent of him. Engulfed in his warmth and with his strong arms around me I was calm. Immediately, my body relaxed against him.
Then remembering the game and the fact that the Fury had won the Cup, I gasped and stepped back.
“Oh, my God, Jake! You won!” I said with wide eyes.
He nodded, but it lacked excitement. “Yes, we did.”
I grabbed his hands, my head dizzy with everything that had happened. “You really won!”
His smile was big. “We’re the Stanley Cup champions, baby.”
I laughed but took a sudden step back when I realized he should be with his team and not here with me. “I’m so sorry. You should be celebrating with your teammates. Not here with me, caught up in my mess.”
Jake had overcome a lot, put in the hard work, moved cross-country, sank a lot into the championship campaign, and won. I was taking his moment of glory away from him.
But Jake simply pulled me back to him and wrapped those big, strong arms around me again.
“There is no other place I’d rather be, Z.” He pressed another kiss into my hair, and again I melted against him.
“But you’ve worked so hard for this,” I murmured against his warm chest.
He waved it off. “I’ll celebrate twice as hard when we win it again next year.”
I couldn’t see him but I knew he would be smiling.
I looked up at him, calmed by the simple fact of being with him.
“So what happens now?” he asked.
I pulled away from him a little and said, “I guess that all depends on you.”
His perfect eyebrows rose. “Me?”
I dropped my gaze as I struggled to find the words. But Jake gently lifted my chin to look at him and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
“Why does it depend on me?” he asked softly.
I took a step toward the edge of the cliff. And for the first time in my life, I jumped.
“I’m in love with you, Jake. You’re all I want,” I said quickly. And, damn, tears started to well in my eyes. I exhaled as a profound regret burrowed deep into my chest. I needed him to understand just how badly I missed him. How badly I needed him. “Nothing else matters. Because all I do is miss you, do you understand that? All I do is ache for you. All I do is think of you and try and control the overwhelming need to be with you.”
Jake looked up at me through a furrowed brow. “You sound like a Dire Straits song.”
I couldn’t help but look crestfallen. “You’re totally killing the moment.”
Jake gently raised my chin to so I had no choice but to look at him. “Did I mention how much I like Dire Straits? Especially that song . . . what is it? Juliet something?”
His grin made my chest burst with love. “I’m so sorry, Jake. I never meant to hurt you.”
Those vibrant eyes of his found mine. “I know.”
“You know?”
The rough pad of his thumb grazed my cheek. “I always knew. I was just pissed. And proud. And maybe too stubborn for my own good.” A small smile tugged at his mouth, then he scraped his white teeth across his bottom lip and sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Spellbound by his words and his beautiful, beautiful face, I couldn’t look away. Almost trance-like, I blurted out, “You make me want to have babies and learn how to bake cookies.”
His smile was as bright as a floodlight as he chuckled slightly.
I went to open my mouth to say something but he leaned down and closed it with a deep and purposeful kiss, bringing his hands up to cup my face as his mouth moved sensually over mine. I couldn’t stop the moan that rose between us. For weeks this was all I had dreamed about. To feel his mouth on mine again, to feel his warmth surrounding me, knowing he still wanted me.
He pulled away with a groan.
“Come on. Let’s go home,” he said, taking my hand in his. “I can’t promise you babies right away, but we can sure get a head start on trying.”
* * *