Page 226 of Hold Me Until Morning

My nod was weary, but I could.

I could finally stand.

But Cody?

He could not.

FIFTY-THREE

CODY

I blinked my eyes open to the murky darkness of the room, though the sun might as well have been blazing in through the window with the power of Hailey’s presence that burned in the small space.

Through the haziness, I searched, and I found her curled up in a big pink pleather chair that sat next to the hospital bed where I had to be hooked up to at least ten different machines, the quiet beeping and the soft heave of her breaths the only sound in the room.

It was sometime in the night, I realized, and flashes of what had gone down came battering back into me.

Maddie getting kidnapped.

The shots that had punctured my flesh.

The shootout on the drive to Wagner Ranch.

And Lolly.

Lolly.

Grief wrapped me in ten-thousand-pound chains.

Bows of sorrow and relief knitting me in a vise as I gazed at the woman who was right there, still at my side, safe and whole and undoubtedly cut through by the torment of what she’d lost. Of what she now knew.

As if she felt the weight of my stare, those blue, blue eyes opened to me. They were bold and bright in the night.

A gasp wheezed from her when she saw I was awake, and she bolted off the chair. In a flash, she was standing over me, my hands wrapped in hers.

“Cody.” My name broke on her lips.

“Shortcake.” My voice was rough and filled with regret. With shame and apology.

Her words fell frantic. “I was so scared. I thought…I thought…”

I lifted my arm, awkwardly since I had tubes stuck in my wrist, and I cupped her precious face. I gazed up through the torment at that beauty that never failed to knock me from my feet. “I told you I wasn’t going anywhere.”

The frenzied edge bled into softness, and she reached out and ran those tender fingers through my hair. “I knew you would find us.”

“I’m sorry that I didn’t do it sooner. That I didn’t do it better. That I didn’t get to?—”

“I’m the one who’s sorry, Cody. Sorry that I dragged you into all of this.”

“I was in it long before you know, Hailey. I—” There was no more hiding or denying it. I’d no longer carry that disgusting secret.

She pressed trembling fingers to my lips. “I know, Cody. I know everything. I know what you got involved in that summer. And I also know what you tried to stop. Why you left so suddenly.”

She splayed that shaking hand right over the clock imprinted on my chest. I pressed it closer to me, the pressure allowing me to feel the beat of my heart against her hand.

“I got this tattoo marking the moment your father told me I could never set foot in Langmire or see you again. Broke my fucking heart walking away from you that night. Never knew I could feel that way about anyone, even though I never even had you,” I confessed.

“It broke mine, too,” she whispered.

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