Shane shuffled around Charlie in the kitchen, carrying the juice one-handed and then returning for the glasses. Each time he passed her, as he had since they’d left the hospital, his gaze passed quickly over her body, assessing her. Was she standing steadily? Were her pupils tracking and with no dilation? He knew she’d vomited once before Scott had brought her into the ER, but that could have equally been from the shock as the head injury. Both had the potential to go bad very quickly, if he didn’t keep a close eye on her.

When they’d first gotten home, Charlie had been fussing about him, even trying to carry his stuff in from the car. Shane had put a stop to that before she’d even taken one step toward the apartment. He might be winged, but he was otherwise okay. She had a head injury, for fuck’s sake. He’d insisted that they both come back to her place, at least for the night. Thankfully, she didn’t question it. He wasn’t telling her about the call-out to his apartment. Not yet. He trusted the guys to take care of his place. One of them would have called already if there was something he needed to know urgently. Taking care of Charlie was more important than finding out what was up at his apartment.

She’d been walking and talking normally when they’d left the hospital, and even cracked a smile at his questioning before he’d let her close her eyes and go to sleep. Okay, so maybe asking her who the last five presidents had been and what she’d had for dinner last week had been a little overkill, but there was no way he was leaving anything to chance. Not after tonight.

Once he’d finally shut up and stopped badgering her, Charlie had fallen quickly asleep. Shane had set an alarm to wake up in an hour and closed his eyes. He needn’t have bothered. Instead, he spent the entire next hour lying awake and watching Charlie’s deep, even breaths move her chest up and down. When the alarm had beeped, he’d nudged her and said hi. She’d mumbled something that sounded like “Go away, you idiot,” and then rolled over. Then he’d spent the next hour doing that all over again, and the next. He’d stopped waking her after hour three, when it turned out she was more likely to murder him if he woke her again than she was to slip into a coma in her sleep, but still he couldn’t drag his eyes away. All his training told him otherwise, but when it was the person you loved lying there injured, none of that mattered at all. Normally, Shane was proud of his ability to keep his cool, even when one of the firefighters in his squad was injured. That was his job, and he did it well. But when it was Charlie? His pulse had gone into overdrive from the moment she’d walked into his hospital room, probably even before that, when he’d heard her voice, and it was yet to fully calm down. Even now, as he stepped past her in the kitchen, his pulse jerked and his heart hurt a little more at the sight of the bruising on her face.

His hand finally free, he moved next to Charlie, gently pushing her back from the microwave so she was facing him. He hadn’t been able to manage anything much more than cereal with one hand, and there was no way Charlie was doing anything other than letting him take care of her, and so frozen breakfast burritos it was. He’d attempted to argue against her even doing that, but at the look on Charlie’s face when she’d suggested he thought she wasn’t capable of standing there and pressing a few buttons, Shane had wisely decided to stop talking, so that he and his balls would survive the morning.

At least the burritos were homemade, ones that he’d cooked earlier and stashed in the freezer for when he was running late for shift, and so they were fairly healthy. Though now that he’d gotten through the night without any incidents, fading adrenaline was mixing with fatigue, and he’d eat just about anything. He was pleased to be able to offer Charlie something a little better than frozen fast food, though.

Watching her over the table, Shane felt his frown returning. He’d wolfed down two and would probably go back for a third, while Charlie had eaten less than half of her burrito, mostly picking at it with her fingers and spreading little bits of tortilla around the plate. “Are you feeling okay?” he asked her. “Any headaches?”

She narrowed her eyes. “A bit,” she admitted, then held up a hand as he raised up in his chair. “Sit down, Shane. I do not need to go back to the ER, and you damn well know it. A headache is perfectly normal after a concussion. Look at me. I’m awake, I know where I am, and I know you’re being an ass.”

He sat and reached out for her hand, stilling the tortilla shredding. “Charlie, I . . .”

“God, I’m sorry,” she said, interrupting. A small shudder went through her, shaking her hand in his. “It’s just . . . last night.” She looked up, meeting his gaze, and shrugged. “I guess it spooked me a little more than I realized.”

Shane didn’t say a word, just stood and walked around to her side of the table, never letting go of her hand. He tugged gently on her hand and when she stood, maneuvered them over to the couch. He sat her down on his right so she was on his good side. God, he wished he could draw her into his arms and just hold her. He was going to have to get rid of this sling sooner rather than later. He had enough training that he could manage the injury without needing the limb restrained.

Charlie turned slightly so she could meet his gaze, and his heart sank further when she reached up to swipe a tear away. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “This is just all so stupid.”

Shane lifted his hand up to press her head down onto his uninjured shoulder. He might not be able to enfold her in his arms, but at least he could still hold her close. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “This is the furthest thing from stupid there is,” he said. “You were attacked out of nowhere, all on your own, and had to fight your way out. Even if this isn’t the concussion talking”—his gaze locked with hers, refusing to give her the chance to duck her head—“which you know it very well could be, there is nothing to be sorry about. I’m just sorry as fuck I wasn’t there to keep you safe.”

Charlie’s hands were folded in her lap, her fingers almost tying themselves together in knots as she twisted them around. “It wasn’t your fault. You were hurt, in the hospital. Someone took advantage of that.”

Yes. He had been. But how the hell had her attacker known that? “Charlie, when did the text message come in?”

She stood and walked over to the kitchen counter, grabbed her phone and swiped over the screen. “Two twelve a.m.”

When he’d already been in the back of Rodriguez’s and Taylor’s rig on the way to the ER. “And they told you I was on scene, at Meadow Lane?”

She nodded and handed him the phone. As Shane scanned the text, tingles of cold assaulted his spine, setting every nerve on edge again. It was just words on a screen, nothing more, and yet they’d nearly meant Charlie’s death. Thank God she’d had the flashlight on her. Just how far would this guy have gone? Rape? Would he have killed her?

The man had known exactly where he was—and wasn’t—and that he’d been injured. Then he used that to trap the woman he loved. If he hadn’t already known it in his heart, seeing Charlie walk into the ER all banged up last night had made it brutally clear. He loved her. He’d probably loved her for years. And now someone was targeting her. Targeting her directly, or using her to get to him? With whatever the hell had happened to his apartment last night, Shane couldn’t tell, and he didn’t care. All that mattered was that Charlie stayed safe from now on. “Maybe you should take some time off. Just until the bastard is caught.”

Charlie sat back, her mouth falling open. “What?”

Shane picked up one of her hands, squeezing it. She didn’t smile or move an inch. Okay, so he was being an ass again, but when it meant potentially saving her life, he’d piss her off happily. “You believe the man who attacked you was Herman Langley?”

Charlie pulled her hand out of his and wrapped her arms around her middle. The rock in Shane’s gut settled in deep. God, he just wanted her safe, but that look on her face, the fear. He couldn’t bear it. He reached over again, taking her hand and ignoring the small flinch she made at the sudden contact. He hadn’t been there for her last night, and now he had to make up for that as best he could. How he felt had no bearing on anything until she wasn’t afraid anymore. “I just want you to be safe. I want you to be happy.”

She looked directly into his eyes, and Shane was prepared for the worst. Instead, Charlie smiled. A small smile, but still a smile. A breath huffed out of him as his muscles relaxed for the first time since he’d seen her the night before. “Shane, don’t you get it? I love my work. I love the guys at Engine 81. Even if I’m not a full-timer there, you guys are my favorite house.” Her cheeks heated, a gorgeous blush spreading across her face, but she didn’t look away. “I might even love you, you big idiot. Being at work, helping other people, that’s my happy place. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anyone scare me away from that.”

Shane couldn’t hold back any more. He leaned in, gingerly touching his hand to the less-bruised side of her face, and kissed the living daylights out of her. She opened for him and he slipped his tongue inside, tangling with hers. He could faintly taste the orange juice from breakfast, but the rest of her was pure, unadulterated Charlie, and she tasted divine. As his tongue thrust with hers, his hand smoothed down her cheek, cupping her behind her head and pulling her closer. Every part of him ached to touch her, brush his hands over her nipples, then her clit, until she was screaming his name. Instead he could only twist awkwardly to move himself closer to her and trail down her body with a single hand. He was getting rid of this fucking sling as soon as he possibly could. He couldn’t even pull her under him and . . . a vision of him lying back on the couch, Charlie straddling his thighs and riding him took over Shane’s mind, and his dick went rock hard. When Charlie pulled away and licked her lower lip, he nearly came in his pants like a teenager. He may have even let out a small groan, based on the grin on her face.

“See. That’s why I can’t let you be on shift with anyone else. Whatever would you do when that urge overtook you?”

Shane wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her into his lap. She grinned and climbed on, wrapping her arms around his neck and peppering little kisses along his neck. Damn, she made it nearly impossible to concentrate on anything other than the feel of her lips.

“Maybe . . . ugh, so good . . . you could hold off on some calls. Just the ones in that part of town or with male patients.”

Charlie shifted on his lap, rubbing her butt against his cock, and Shane groaned again. She leaned down and kissed him again, pulling back and smiling at him. “Shane, I love you, but I won’t change my life. Not for you, not for anyone. I’ve done it once before, and I won’t let that ever happen again.”

He cocked his head to the side, his erection forgotten. “What do you mean, you’ve done it before?”

Charlie shook her head. “Forget it. That part of my life is long over.”

She leaned down and captured his mouth again. Shane gave himself over to the feel of her and let himself be distracted. For now.