“What did the doctor say?” Colin asked from beside my hospital bed.

It had almost been an hour since I’d seen him, and, from his still wet hair and new clothes, I’d say he’d had a shower. Now that all the blood had been washed away, it was easy to see the green and purple marks on his face.

“I have a concussion.”

I was hoping he wouldn’t press and ask the severity but Colin being Colin wanted all the facts.

“How bad?”

“A bad one. Tell me about your ribs.”

“They’re broken.” He didn’t elaborate further; instead, he wanted to know more about me. “How bad, Erin? Did they do a CT scan? An MRI?”

“Yes, I had a CT scan. I need to stay here overnight. I’ll have an MRI in the morning.”

“Where’s the doctor? I want to talk to him.”

“Colin, wait.” I stopped him before he could go for the door. “I’m fine.”

“The goose egg on your forehead, the cut over your eye, and the concussion say otherwise.”

“And . . . how are you?”

“I’m fine.” He waved away my concern.

“Right. So the broken ribs and black eyes you have make you fine. But a bump on my head makes me not?”

“It’s not a bump, Erin. I heard your head bounce off the floor. Heard it. You were so dazed you couldn’t move. Baby, that’s not a bump, that’s a fucking brain injury. And let’s not forget everything that happened before that.”

“Believe me, Colin, I can’t forget—any of it. Not the house exploding, the gunfire, men jumping out of helicopters, watching you get shot, then beat to a bloody pulp. I remember it all. Crystal clear.”

I hadn’t meant to snap at him, but I wasn’t stupid. The last thing I wanted to do was die here in the hospital of a TBI after all we’d survived.

“Erin—” His tone softened, and he cupped my cheek with his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t want to talk about my head right now. I just need you.”

The scrape of the chair on the linoleum floor made me wince and as much as I’d hoped Colin missed it, he hadn’t. He picked it up and carried it the rest of the way to the side of my bed. With his lips pinched together in a hard line, he sat but didn’t mention it.

“I’m not going anywhere.” His hands were warm when he picked up mine and inspected the bandage. “What happened here?”

“I guess the piece of plastic cut my palm when I used it to . . . you know.” He brought my gauze-covered hand to his mouth and gently kissed it. “I didn’t need stiches. A band-aid probably would’ve sufficed.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Kinda. I mean, I don’t, but I do. Shit, I don’t know what I’m saying. I think I just want to get it over with. Does that make sense?”

“It does. We can talk about anything you want. For however long you want to.”

I sat, trying to gather my thoughts. But the longer I remained quiet, the harder it was to get the words out. I wanted to spew everything out at once and never have to think about it again. It felt like I had a demon in my belly, and the longer it sat in there, the more venom seeped into my soul. I needed to exorcise it but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know if talking about it would make it better or worse.

Colin didn’t seem to be as tongue-tied. “I was so fucking terrified when the first explosion went off. All I could think about was we were out there all alone with no backup. If something happened to me, you’d be on your own.” His gaze zeroed in on mine. “That by itself gutted me. But knowing how scared you’d be if you were taken was worse. When I was hit, and darkness was pulling me under, all I could think about was how I’d failed the one person I wanted more than anything to protect.”

“You didn’t fail me. You jumped on top of me and covered my body with yours. You were willing to die for me. And I thought you were . . . I thought you were dead.” I almost choked on my words. When his body had gone limp, I thought for sure he was gone. I laid there under his heavy weight and wished I could follow. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life knowing Colin had died because of me. “Then I woke up in that room and you were chained up. I thought they’d hung you.”

“Did they hurt you while I was passed out?”

“No. I tried to fight, but one of them injected me with something and it was lights out. I’m not sure how I got the cut on my forehead, but I don’t think they hit me.”

“I’m so fucking sorry, Erin.” My chest tightened at the rawness in his voice.

“How did they find us?”

“I haven’t talked to my team yet. I waited for fucking ever for the doctor to come in. After the fresh out of med school kid looked me over, I took a shower and waited for the nurse to wrap my ribs and came straight here. Everything else can wait, you couldn’t.”

“Thank you. I saw my dad.”

“I did, too. How was he when he saw you?”

I’d been doing so well not crying but remembering the look on my dad’s face I lost it.

“He looked horrible. I’ve never seen him so angry and sad and horrified in my life. It hurt to see him stare at me with such anguish. He barely spoke.”

“You know he’s not mad at you, right?”

“He looked disappointed.”

“He is. In himself. In me. In the men who thought he could trust. He’s fucking angry at the world. At the men who dared to touch you. At every single person who was behind you being hurt. But the one person he is not mad at or disappointed in is you.”

“But—”

“No buts. He’s a man whose daughter was taken, threatened, and hurt. Someone will pay for what they’ve done. And they shouldn’t be afraid of Zane or me even. When your father finds the men responsible, hellfire will rain down on them like this world has never seen.”

“I thought they were dead, the men who took us. That Warren guy—”

“Hey. You’re safe.” Colin stood and sat on the bed next to me, forcing me to move over. He gathered both of my shaking hands in his and held on tightly.

“But if there are more—”

“Erin. I promise you, you’re safe.”

I didn’t believe him. Not when this wasn’t over. I’d thought it was, but it wasn’t. And, suddenly, I was more frightened than I’d been when I was locked in the room with a bloody Colin.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Tex is calling in. We need you,” Zane said from the doorway.

“Then you can come in here,” Colin answered.

“It’s not secure.”

“Then you don’t need me. I’m not leaving Erin. And before you ask, yes, it’s like that. And, no, nothing will make me leave this room. My woman is scared out of her head and there’s not a goddamn person that is going to drag me out of here.”

“Christ. Can’t any of you keep your—”

“Careful, Z.”

“I was going to say, emotions in check.” Zane cracked a smile, showing off his dimples, and I knew he was lying. He would have said something crass if Colin hadn’t stopped him. “And here I thought Jaxon and Leo were crazy. But you? You had to go and fall for the untouchable. Please tell me you’ve spoken to her father. The last thing I need is to lose one of my best operatives.”

“I did. I have his blessing.”

“Well, fuck me running.”

“What? You talked to my dad about what?”

I was getting whiplash trying to follow Zane and Colin’s conversation.

“I did.”

“You told him? About us?”

“If by us you mean I told him I was going to marry you, then, yes, I spoke to him about us.”

“Marry me?” I nearly inhaled all the oxygen in the room and didn’t exhale until I started getting dizzy.

“Can you give us a minute?” he asked Zane. When the door shut behind him, Colin turned back to me and took my unbandaged left hand in his and toyed with my bare ring finger. “Yes, sunshine, marry you. This is not how I’d envisioned this going, but I can’t wait. One day soon, when I can get down on my knee without feeling like a rib is going to puncture a lung, I’ll do this again. I want you to be my wife. I want you by my side. I need you by my side. When I thought I was going to die, you were the last thought I had. The only regret I had before my eyes closed was that I’d never gotten to tell you how much I loved you. How I wanted more time, more days, more minutes, hell, even more seconds with you. You made me believe in love, the kind that burrows deep and courses through your veins. The kind that never ends. I’m not the easiest man to get along with, but, sunshine, I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy for the rest of your life. I’ll support you every way I can. I’ll cheer you on. I’ll pick you up. I’ll celebrate and mourn with you. Anything you want. All I need is you.”

The giggles that bubbled up were not what he’d expected. But once they started, I couldn’t stop them, not even when he looked at me like I’d grown three heads. Thankfully, they finally subsided, but tears took over, still preventing me from answering. If I didn’t get myself under control soon, I was afraid he’d take back his proposal.

“Yes,” I finally sobbed. “Sorry. I don’t know if I want to cry from joy or laugh because I’m ridiculously happy, which seems like it should be impossible after everything that has happened. I don’t know what I should be doing, but my answer is yes. Yes! I want to be your wife. Yes, I want you by my side for all of those things. A hundred yeses. But, I get to be all of those things to you, too. I love you, Colin. I think I’ve loved you from the first time your bossy ass stepped into the White House residence and told me you were taking over as my personal detail.”

“Bossy ass, huh?” Colin smiled.

“Well, you did admit you’re hard to get along with.”

“I love you, sunshine.”

“I love you, Colin. What did my dad say?”

“He told me I had his blessing. He’s not a stupid man, Erin. Thinking back to the last conversation I had with him, he knew what he was doing.”

“And what was he doing?”

“He could’ve sent you anywhere in the world, hid you anyplace, but it was his call sending us to Texas together. My guess, he knew the more I was around you, the easier it would be for you to wear me down.”

“Wear you down?”

“Yeah, you know, get me to give into your wiles,” he teased.

“Colin!”

“I’m kidding, sunshine. I suppose I hadn’t hidden my feelings as well as I thought I had.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed silent and thought about how over the top happy I was. The knock on the door broke the spell and Zane, my dad, and the rest of Colin’s team walked in.

I didn’t want to admit it, but I was thankful Colin wouldn’t leave the room. I wasn’t ready to be alone yet.