Page 45 of Silver Hills' Christmas Miracle

There really was no escape.

I closed my eyes briefly.

I was tired.

Cold.

My limbs were weighted down by weights I couldn’t see.

I just needed a moment to catch my breath.

Then I would look again. I would yell. Scream. I would make sure someone heard me.

I just needed a moment to rest.

Just… one moment… and then I would…

“Kitty!”

Warmth that was so painful I jerked my head away suddenly cupped my face. I opened my eyes—how long had they been closed—to see Rook right in front of me in the water.

“Kitty, open your eyes. That’s it. You’re okay, I’m right here, baby. I’m right here!” Rook swept me up into his arms, but while I could see that I was moving, I strangely couldn’t feel the warmth or pressure of his arms around me. I was soaked and frozen to the bone. Behind him, bright lights shone down into the hole I was trapped in and I distantly heard Melanie sobbing out my name.

Rook climbed out of the hole, refusing to let me go, and I saw the painful glare of flashing blue lights.

Then I saw Aaron huddled under some tinfoil with his glasses slanted on his face.

So he was okay. He made it.

Prick.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” The nurse pressed a few buttons on the machine I was hooked up to, then turned to me with a kindly smile. “Anything at all?”

She hadn’t been this nice to me when I first arrived at the hospital. She must have read my file and worked out who I was.

“I’m okay,” I replied, wincing slightly as the words burned up my throat. “Really.”

“Alright, well if you need anything, then you just hit this blue button and I’ll be here.” The nurse smiled brightly, then she gave Rook the same smile as she passed him while she was leaving.

Rook didn’t smile at her. He didn’t look at her. His eyes had been on me from the moment he pulled me from that hole and they hadn’t left.

He stood at the bottom of my bed, just watching. He hadn’t moved even when another nurse came to take care of his torn up hands and wrap them in bandages. He’d torn up his palms and his fingers while digging through the rubble to get to me. The nurse claimed they looked worse than they were and he just needed to keep them covered for a few days, but it broke my heart to see the scratches and gouges.

And deep down, part of me liked it. He had clawed at all that wreckage to reach me. He’d torn his very hands open to find me, and if that wasn’t romantic, then I didn’t know what was.

I waited until the door closed, then I patted the bed beside me. “Rook.”

He didn’t move.

“Rook, I’m okay. Now come and sit beside me, please.”

Thatpleaseseemed to be the key because he moved immediately and came to sit next to me on the bed. His usual expressionless face was replaced with a constant deep frown, and his lips were pressed so firmly together that I could barely see them.

“I’m okay,” I repeated, laying my hand on top of his bandaged ones.

“No, you’re not,” he replied. “They’re still running some tests to make sure that muddy water didn’t make you sick. And you…” His voice tightened. “You were like ice when I pulled you out.”

“I was only in there for twenty minutes.”

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