Page 91 of Cross To Bear

“Hey,” I replied belatedly. “Where’s Bjorn? I brought you some soup and some really soft bread rolls.” My tongue tripped all over itself to get all of my thoughts out in a great rush, forcing me to snap my mouth shut, lest more come out. Take a breath, dickhead, I told myself, and think this through. “How are you feeling?”

“Better now that you’re here,” she said, reaching out to take my hand, but mine was out and grabbing hers before she got a few inches closer. “Bjorn just went to get coffees, but…” She stared into my eyes. “You brought me food?”

“Didn’t want you eating the shit they serve at hospitals.” Her smile widened. “Pumpkin and bacon soup. Made it myself from scratch, even the stock.”

“Sounds amazing—”

She was about to say more, but that’s when the old prick shouldered forward.

“Is this how you ended up in hospital?” He meant me evidently, jerking his chin my way. “Madeline, we raised you—”

“To be compliant.” Maddie’s tone was anything but, and I silently cheered at the sound of it. “To accept far less than I deserve. To think myself lucky to get whatever crumbs people choose to give me.” Her grip on my hand tightened. “Not anymore. Hawk, these are my parents, Phillip and Daphne. Guys, this is Hawk.”

“This is the bloke you were talking about the other night?” Phillip said, giving me the kind of once over I knew all too well. People that locked themselves into tight little boxes, who couldn’t see beyond their own fucking noses, they got real restless around blokes like me, unable to make head nor tails of me, my sleuth, or my lifestyle. I stared right back, making clear how little I cared about his good opinion. He took in the tattoos on my forearms that Bjorn had worked hard on, the t-shirt I was wearing with the garage’s logo on it and then frowned. “Looks just like that bloody Jamie boy.”

“Do you mean Jesse?” The bear was talking, not me, as I stepped forward. Phil’s arm went around Daph’s shoulders, tucking her into his side. “I think you’ll find that we couldn’t be any more different.”

“So you’ve learned nothing?” Phil snapped—at Maddie, not me—as if he didn’t see his own fucking daughter lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to way too many machines.

“Phillip…” Her mother said, but by the furtive look she was giving the room and hallway, I think it was more out of concern of causing a scene, rather than for Maddie.

“Yeah, Phillip.” I stepped forward, though I couldn’t go far. Maddie’s grip on my hand tightened. “You gonna check in with your daughter, make sure she’s OK, like any reasonable parent would, or am I gonna have to remove you from this room?”

“And who the hell are you to talk to me like this?” he asked, the prick meeting my gaze head on.

I had an answer, one he would not like at all, though I didn’t get a chance to respond, not when Maddie did for me.

“He’s my… boyfriend.” She had to pause to turn mate into a more socially acceptable word, one humans would understand. “Soon to become my husband.”

Fuck. That’s what I needed to hear since the moment I met Maddie. That. Joy punched through me with all the speed and violence of a gunshot, and I could barely breathe as I processed the words.

“They all are.”

“They?”

We all followed Maddie’s nod to where Bjorn stood in the doorway, holding two coffee cups and looking around the room in confusion.

“What do you mean, Madeline?”

I knew that pleading tone all too well, having seen a few people’s mothers play the same game. Daph was giving Maddie the opportunity to take her words back, to rephrase them in a more palatable way, but she wouldn’t. Somewhere in my gut, I knew my girl would stick by her assertions.

“Exactly the way it sounds,” Maddie told her. “Hawk, Bjorn, Cayden and Rafe are all my partners. They’ve been doing their level best to make clear how good it would be if I moved in with them, made a life with them.” Her father made a rude noise, but she charged on. “And I’ve said yes.” Maddie gazed at me, not her parents. “Yes to them. Yes to everything they’ve put on offer. Yes to a future, our future.”

The world went quiet then because I was fucking lost. She was a cliff I’d teetered on the edge of since the moment I’d met her, but it was only now that I leapt off. Into her, that was what it felt like. Into the love that I felt, throbbed so fucking hard in my chest. I’d love her forever, I knew that now, and I’d make sure she never regretted loving me back.

Starting right now.

Bjorn was of the same mind, dropping the coffee cups down on a small table before marching over to take his place on the other side of our girl’s bed. We were her guard dogs, ready to take down any fucker who dared try to invade her space, but we didn’t need to protect her right now, because Maddie, she was perfectly capable of defending herself and that was what she did.

“And if the first thing you have to say to me while I lay in a hospital bed is why did you find out about the accident from the neighbours not from me? Well, maybe the two of you need to go away and have a good think about that. I don’t care if you approve or not of the way I live my life.” She glanced up at the two of us. “Or who I spend it with.”

When her focus shifted back to her parents, I wanted to claw it back, but I should’ve trusted her. Maddie’s jaw firmed, right as her eyes flashed.

“I’ve gone no contact before. You remember that, I know you do. I don’t want to have to go back to that, but I will if you can’t accept that I’m an adult, making her own decisions.” She squeezed my hand and Bjorn’s. “I know which way my heart lies and it’s with them.”

Phil wasn’t about to accept this lying down, but when he sucked in a breath, no doubt to spew out some shit, Daph grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the door.

“I’m glad you’re OK, love,” she said to our girl. “We’ll catch up later, when you’re feeling a bit better.” She visibly steeled herself when she looked at the lot of us. “We’ll catch up with all of you.”

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