CADEN SAT IN the waiting room facing his aunt Taffy and Mia’s aunt Nancy. They sat side by side, their bodies leaning into each other. Looking at his aunt now, he saw her in a whole new light. Sometime over the last year, she’d started smiling more. She talked about her good friend Nancy with enthusiasm and an interest he’d never heard from her about anyone else. He thought it great she’d found a friend. Someone to do things with, share experiences and conversations. Someone to make her seemingly solitary life less lonely. In the last year, his aunt had traveled to places she’d always wanted to go, done things she’d never even thought of trying, and enjoyed her life so much more since her “friend” Nancy came into her life.
All the things they did together were great, but nothing compared to the love he saw in his aunt’s eyes when she looked at Nancy and the same love was reflected back. He saw it now. His aunt was happy and in love. Her life had changed for the better having someone special to share it with.
Caden wanted some of that. He’d had a small piece of it at dinner with Mia. He wanted more, but he wasn’t sure Mia would give him another shot. Not after what he put her through tonight.
Aunt Taffy took Aunt Nancy’s hand and held it tight. “She’s going to be okay.”
Aunt Nancy smiled softly, her eyes filled with concern. “I know. I just need to see her for myself.” Aunt Nancy turned her watery gaze on him. “I’ve been her mother since my flighty sister bailed on her when Mia was just sixteen.”
“She told me at dinner.” It made him sad to think about how devastated and alone Mia must have felt. He couldn’t understand why any mother would leave their child, but especially a beautiful, bright, wonderful person like Mia.
“Mia’s tough. She can handle just about anything in the moment. But my girl, she has a soft heart. She feels things deeply. She’s okay on her own, but she hates to be alone. You know?”
Caden felt the same way.
Mia had held it together through everything last night, right up until it was all over. Then she’d let the tears fall and held on to him. In the ambulance, she’d rallied again, trying to make him feel better, but he saw the fatigue and desperation for this to be a distant memory in her eyes.
He didn’t think he’d ever forget seeing her blood run down her chest and arm after Marco sliced her. It sent a chill through him even now.
“She’s always expecting people to leave her behind. You saved her tonight. You got her out of there alive. I will never forget that, Caden. You have my undying gratitude. As long as I live, anything you need, I’m happy to give.”
He wanted only one thing. “I just want her to be okay.” He glanced at his aunt. “And for you to keep making my aunt happy.”
Aunt Taffy eyed him, her mouth open in surprise. “You know.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it until now. I didn’t because I’ve been so caught up in work that . . . ” Caden ran his hand through his hair. “I feel like I’m missing so much in life with my focus so narrowed on work.”
Aunt Taffy stood and took the seat next to him. She placed her hand on his clasped ones between his knees. “Caden, your work is important. What you do is so vital and necessary.”
“And tonight it almost got Mia killed. It dragged Beck back into the fray when he needs to stay as far away from the action as possible right now.”
“Those things are not your fault. You kept Mia safe. You eliminated the threat. You took down a drug dealer and ensured a ton of drugs won’t make it to the streets and into the hands of children. You save lives, Caden.”
He did, but right now all he could think about was the one woman he hoped the bad things in his life never touched again. Maybe it was too dangerous and selfish to ask Mia to be a part of his life. No matter how badly he wanted her in it.
Aunt Taffy frowned. “You can’t expect to have a full life when you shut people out. All it does is keep you unfulfilled, alone, and isolated. Work is not enough, Caden. Everyone needs to be loved and accepted for all they are by someone special.”
He knew she was right, but it was asking a hell of a lot of Mia to take a leap of faith and believe that they could have a life together where his work didn’t interfere. It would. He could only hope not in the way it had tonight.
Caden squeezed his aunt’s hand, leaned over, and kissed her soft cheek. “I’m so happy you found that for yourself.”
Until he spoke with Mia, he didn’t know if they’d even see each other again.
Unable to sit and do nothing any longer, and not wanting to talk about him and Mia anymore, he stood and paced.
“Special Agent Cooke,” someone called from the door.
Caden spun around and approached the doctor. “Yes.”
“Mia’s been asking for you. First, I’m to ask if you had your head examined.”
Caden appreciated she worried about him when she’d been hurt far worse. He ran his hand over the back of his head. “One of the doctors in the ER checked me out.” Agent Bennett insisted when Caden refused, too obsessed with Mia’s condition and wanting to stay with her. “Nothing but a small laceration and some swelling. No concussion.”
“Mia didn’t fare as well.”
Because he hadn’t been able to stop Marco sooner.
“She has a mild concussion and five stitches in her head, though she still had her wits about her when she threatened to break my nose if I cut her hair to stitch it up.”
Caden smiled along with the doctor. “She has beautiful hair. And she can break your nose.” Her defensive tactics still surprised him.
“I know. The X-rays on her hand came back. No fractures but some seriously bruised bones and a sprained wrist. We’ve given her a removable brace to immobilize it while it heals. She’ll need to wear it at least three weeks. I suggested she lay off the kickboxing classes during that time. She mentioned something about needing to work on her running endurance and said that would make you laugh.”
Caden shook his head, unable to believe Mia’s resiliency. “Is that all? Can I see her now?”
“Other than the stitches in her arm and a few in her chest where she was cut, she’s got some bumps and bruises, but nothing that won’t heal with time and rest.”
“What about the stab wound to her back?” Caden still quaked on the inside with dread just thinking about the scissors sticking out of her and the awful pull and flowing blood when he plucked the scissors out of her shoulder.
Aunt Taffy wrapped her arm around him in comfort. Aunt Nancy held his aunt much the same way.
“A surgeon did some minor repair to the muscles and stitched her up. That’s why it took so long for me to come out here and update you all.” The doctor smiled at the aunts standing next to him. “She’ll need to be careful moving that arm for a few days, but the wound wasn’t deep or particularly traumatizing to the muscle and tissue. All in all, after all she’s been through tonight, she’s very lucky.”
Yeah, she could be dead. The thought stopped his heart and made it drop into his gut with a sickening thud.
The doctor clamped his hand on Caden’s shoulder. “Are you okay? You look a bit pale.”
Nothing inside him, from his sour stomach to his aching heart, felt right. “I really need to see her.”
“She’s in room three ten. I’m afraid after the minor surgery and the pain meds we’ve given her, she’s not likely to be awake or very coherent.”
“I don’t care. I just want to see her.”
“I assure you, she’ll make a full recovery. In fact, if she’s up to it, we’ll release her tomorrow evening.”
“So soon?” Aunt Nancy asked, relief in her eyes and words.
“She’ll probably recover at home more quickly than in the noisy hospital.”
Caden shook the doctor’s hand, more grateful than he could express to know the doctor had patched her up and eased Mia’s pain. “Thanks for taking such good care of her.”
“That’s my job. From what she told me, you saved her life.”
If she forgave him for this, accepted him and the job and life he thrived on and gave him purpose, and she wanted to stay with him . . . “She just might save mine.”