Page 50 of Wilde In His Arms

“I’m sorry.I need to see him.”She rushed past Adeline and Noah and straight to room 212, where two agents stopped her.

Mason came up behind her.“Aria is Nick’s girlfriend.”

They gave the nod and she burst through the door and found Nick straight ahead, lying in a bed, dead asleep.

“Ssh.”

She turned to the other four beds packed in the room and found a young boy with a broken arm and three girls.The group looked to be somewhere between seven and twelve years old.

The boy’s eyes went wide when Mason walked in behind her.At six-three and solid muscle, he looked intimidating to most people.

Aria wanted to put the kids at ease.“This is Nick’s brother, Mason.I’m Aria, Nick’s girlfriend.”She pointed to her sister.“And that’s my sister Lyric.She’s married to Mason.”

“Nick said you were coming.”The oldest girl whispered like Aria had done to keep from waking Nick.

Still, he mumbled from the bed, “Ari.”

She went to him and brushed her fingers through his hair.“Sleep.I’ll be here when you wake up.”She kissed his forehead, then pressed her head to his and inhaled a full breath for the first time in hours.“I love you.”

He leaned his head to hers for just a moment, then she felt him relax back into sleep.She stood next to the bed and for the first time really looked at him.His left shoulder was wrapped in bandages.The other side of his chest was bare, except for a mottled bruise blooming on his pec and barely seen over the sheet.She carefully lifted it and hissed at the massive bruising.

Mason moved to the other side of the bed and checked it out with a wince.“Thank God he had his vest on,” he whispered, then met her gaze.“He’s okay.”

She knew that, but looking at him only brought home how close she’d come to losing him.

Lyric put her arm around Aria’s back, her hand on Aria’s hip.“It looks bad, but you know he’s going to be up and ready to go in a couple of days.Nothing keeps a Gunn down for long.”

“That’s for damn sure,” Mason agreed, then turned to Hawk, who had walked into the room after taking care of the helicopter he brought them here in.“Gunns don’t quit.We never give up.”

Lyric yawned.The pregnancy was making her exceptionally tired, and it had been a long day.

Mason jumped to it and went around the bed to pull her close.“He’s asleep.Let’s go to the cabin and get some rest.We can come back in a few hours.”

Lyric looked to Aria.“Come with us.”

She shook her head.“I’m staying with him.”She settled into the chair beside the bed and laced her fingers through Nick’s.She wanted him to know she was here.If he woke up, she wanted to be the first thing he saw.

“I’ll hang out a bit, too.”Hawk pulled up the chair across from her and sat down.

Lyric gave Hawk a hug, then left with Mason.

Hawk stared across Nick at her.“Rumor is you two broke up.”

“I ended it, because he seemed to care more about work than me.Then he told me we weren’t over.We started really talking to each other.He convinced the FBI to set up an office where I live and bought a house.I’m so damn happy he refused to let go.”She picked up his hand and kissed the back of it.

Nick didn’t wake, but he turned his head toward her.

“So you’re back together?”Hawk’s sharp gaze studied her.

“He is everything I want and more.But I know he loves his job.I’d never ask him to give it up.The way he’d never ask me to leave my family and the business we’ve built.It seemed we couldn’t overcome the distance.”

“But Nick found a way.”Hawk glanced at his cousin, then back to Aria.

“That’s what Nick does.Right?He’s moving to Wyoming to be with me.”Saying it out loud made it seem all the more real.It made her love him all the more because he was changing his life to be a part of hers.

“So, you’re all in now.”

“He has my whole heart.He always did.But I couldn’t stand to be the last thing on his mind, or the thing he put off for something else.I’m hoping things change once he’s in Blackrock Falls.”

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