Page 27 of How Much For A Broken Heart?

“No.” Bringing Annie back into my life meant exposing her to my world, even indirectly, and what was the point in that?

“Doc Simmonds, you don’t know him, we call him Psycho, ‘cause he’s a psychologist, anyway that doesn’t matter. He said it might trigger a memory of her dad if she saw you,” he said and smiled, and a knife pierced my heart.

“She doesn’t even know me; I was barely there.” I was lying to myself. Every part of me wanted to see her, to hold her and tell her everything would be okay, tell her about her dad and how special he was, and how he’d loved her.

“August—”

“Promise me you’ll keep her away, tell her how James was the best dad, but don’t tell her about me. She doesn’t have to know me. Ryder, fuck’s sake, promise me.”

There was the longest pause as exhaustion tugged at me, pulling me back towards sleep.

His grip tightened enough for me to feel the extra pressure. “Okay,” he said, sounding confused. “I guess it can wait. Makes sense to wait. Yeah.”

“No waiting. I don’t want her to see me.”

I was so tired, and this time, I welcomed sleep. Annie was safe, and that was all that mattered, and the Ranger would keep her away from me.

I would never be in a position to see her hurt again.

Because Ryder promised.

* * *

I next woke to the soft voice, a confusion of words that didn’t make any sense, but sounded nice. Deep and grumbly and sexy. Was I in bed with someone? Was the man reading a book to me? Some action adventure thriller with a lot of gun sounds?

“… and the one in the corner with the mask held his gun, and I could see he was wavering, and that was something I could work with.” There was a soft laugh. “Do you think that is what we do, Navy? Do we slow everything down and assess our opponents like this? I wonder if we do, but it’s just instinct, looking for those tells. I’ve never really thought about it. Anyway, that’s enough Reacher today, we’ll see what he does tomorrow. I need coffee.”

Navy? He called me Navy, and it all flooded back in horrifying detail. My body ached.

I heard a chair scrape, humming, could sense the subtle shifts in the room, the faint sound of someone’s footsteps, a soft, squeaky shoe on a tiled floor. Diffused light filled the space as I stared at the stark white ceiling, counting tiles as far as I could turn my head either way.

Fuck, my neck hurt.

I wriggled my toes, my fingers, I could feel them, so that was okay. At least, I imagined they were moving, so my limbs were okay, my spine as well, and my neck might ache, but I could turn my head, although it felt heavy as hell.

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted through the air, a small reminder of normalcy, a hint of the world beyond the grip of pain and what I assumed was my recovery room. I blinked, trying to find my bearings, to piece together the fragments of everything. Pain was there, but it was a dull reminder of my injuries, manageable, a shadow of the searing agony I remembered. I was thirsty, and I was still cocooned in cotton, and there was humming, and coffee, and the ocean.

Awake, but still ensnared in the clutches of discomfort and irritation, I was not prepared for the overly cheerful intrusion.

“Well, hey there, Navy,” came a voice, so chirpy and bright it felt like an assault on my senses. I winced, closing my eyes against the sound. I wanted a moment more of peace, a brief respite from the pain, floating in cotton. But the owner of that voice seemed to have other ideas.

To my disbelief, he poked me. Actually, poked me. In my current state, it felt like an unforgivable transgression. “Nope, no playing possum on us now, nap time is over,” he continued, his tone so jovial it grated on me.

I snapped my eyes open, fixing the owner of the voice with a glare I hoped conveyed the full extent of my annoyance.

Ryder, the man who’d saved my life, who’d followed me back into the compound, the one who’d shoved at and packed my wound and told me to man the fuck up. In stark contrast to that miserable pushy fucker, this Ryder was all smiles and encouragement—the exact opposite of what I needed.

“Okay, Navy, good news-bad news time. You lived, but they had to amputate your cock. Joke! Don’t go rooting around your junk checking, it’s still there. Not that I was looking.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

Too much.

He was too much.

I closed my eyes again.

“Come on, August; it’s good to see you awake,” he said, still with the jarring cheerfulness. “You’re making progress. That’s something to be happy about, right? And you still have your cock.”

I grunted.

---