Page 98 of Crave Me

“My son can be an idiot sometimes. All four of them actually. When they love, they can’t see the bigger picture, only doing everything they can in the moment. I’m not making an excusefor anything he has done; I don’t have any details. But I do know that he loves you.”

Not at all what I was expecting, I meet her eyes.

“It’s really much more complicated than that. I don’t know how to forgive him for what he’s done.”

“That’s up to you two to figure out. It doesn’t change the position you’re in now. That, I do have some of the details on. The hospital called Sawyer, because they didn’t have anyone else to call. We all know you are here alone. Dallas wouldn’t give us much more information than that. So this is what we’re going to do. Regardless of your relationship with my son, I want you to know that you’re not alone. We have loved getting to know you and you have all of us to lean on. So, when you’re discharged in the morning, you’ll be coming home with me.”

My mouth falls open as tears spring to my eyes, a hard knot in my throat, clogged with emotion. I go to speak but she stops me.

“You heard the doctor. Two weeks of bed rest and a six-to-eight-week recovery total. You need help and I want to help you. We have the space, and I have the time. You aren’t alone, sweetie.”

I break down, the tears and sobs uncontrollable. All I’ve ever wanted is to no longer be alone. I’ve had to claw my way through surviving this world by myself and to have such a beautifully selfless woman want to take me in to care for me is incomprehensible. Dallas and his siblings hit the jackpot with their parents.

“Thank you,” I choke out between sobs, “I’ve never had that before.”

“I know, sweetie. But now you don’t ever have to go without it again.”

She squeezes my hand and grabs the tissue box off the end table, handing one to me and taking one for herself.

“Look at us, a couple of blubbering messes. Get some rest. It was a long day for you. I’ll get everything sorted and we’ll make you comfortable.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hayes.”

“Amy.”

I nod and smile at her. Night after night when I was a child, I would lay in bed and wish for a mom who wanted me and cared for me. Dallas’ mom encompasses everything I had wished for. With half of my heart firmly gripping onto the feeling of a mother’s love, the other half is shielded by heavy guard, unwilling to let them down out of pure fear and a history of nothing but disappointment. But it’s so hard not to grasp onto her like a lifeline.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Dallas

“She’s coming home with me tomorrow for at least two weeks. She’ll stay in your old room on the bottom floor. She’ll be comfortable and I’ll take good care of her while she heals.”

“Like hell she is, Mom. I love you, you’re an angel, but she is coming home with me where she belongs. I need to take care of her. I want to take care of her. This is my fault. Mine. I can’t be away from her. I have to fix this, and she needs to know that I’m here for her.”

“I love you, my boy, but this isn’t about you. Sometimes you and your brothers are blinded by what you think is the right thing to do, which you get from your father. But you need to know when to let things fix themselves, rather than force it.”

“Mom, I don’t know how to do anything else. I love her too much.”

“And I told you I will take good care of her. What I didn’t do was tell you whatyou’redoing.” She gives me a wink and a pat on my shoulder before returning to the waiting room.

I walk back into Blaire’s hospital room to find her sleeping again. Today was hard on her. They removed her catheter, and she was forced to get up and start walking for the first timesince her accident. She bit her lip through every wince I knew was hovering right at the surface. But she pushed through and is healing more and more each day.

Blaire sleeps. And it’s torture. Seeing her bruised and battered body causes me a selfish pain that I can’t put into words. Guilt. It eats me alive every moment, but I welcome it. This is my fucking fault. I put her here. If I had never asked Wes to pull her background and dig up everything he could on her, we wouldn’t be here right now. She wouldn’t have to feel pain, she wouldn’t have had to fight for her life. She is such a warrior though. Her entire life she’s been surviving, and I’m so proud of her. I hate that I promised I would keep her safe from future pain only to be the one who caused so much of it.

I go back and forth between watching her sleep in a heavy slumber and watching her heart rate on the monitor. The bruises on her face have turned from black to a deep purple, but I know her physical pain is nothing compared to the emotional pain she’s been through in her life. She’s going to heal because she’s strong as fuck. I haven’t left her once. Haven’t showered and have lived off whatever food and coffee my family brings me. There’s no way in hell I would be anywhere else. She’s all that matters.

I pull the blankets up to her chest and lay a kiss gently on her forehead before taking my spot in the chair next to her. She won’t talk to me. The only acknowledgment I get from her is the deep sigh when I touch her. I know I calm her, steady her. I can see it in the way her shoulders relax when I’m near her, the way her eyes flutter closed when I kiss her forehead, the way her breathing settles when I grasp her hand. If she wants to sit in silence for the rest of our lives, and all I do is calm her nervous system, then so fucking be it. I will give this woman anything she needs. Even if it kills me.

There’s a knock at the door and I stand back up to pull it open. Reid stands on the outside, looking calm if it weren’t for his tell; his hands opening and closing into fists at his side.

“Hey, man, how is she?”

“Sleeping. They finally got her up and moving today and it wore her out. She’s such a fighter though.”

“That she is.”

“Reid?” Blaire asks from behind me, her voice heavy and hoarse from sleep.

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