Page 72 of Deceptive Lies

They didn't look like a delusion, and this didn't feel like some hallucination. Two of the other men also looked like Cooper and his double, who was still making his way toward her.

“Shh,” he soothed as he approached. Other than the fact that his eyes were blue instead of gray, he looked exactly like the man lying asleep beside her. “It’s okay, Willow. I'm Connor, Cooper’s twin brother.Behind me are Cade and Cole, and Jax and Jake. Did Cooper tell you who we were?”

Giving a shaky nod, her gaze darted between Connor, the others, and then Cooper. “H-how did you f-find us?”

Last she knew they’d been out in the desert, she’d been no longer able to walk, and Cooper, stubborn man that he was, had been carrying her, then everything had faded away. Try as she had she’d been unable to hold her eyes open any longer, and even though she knew that as soon as she lost consciousness that could be it for her, she might never wake up again, she hadn't been able to stop it from happening.

“Cooper’s watch has a tracker in it. We tracked it to the desert, but then lost the signal. We were driving around looking for you guys when we found Cooper waving us down,” Connor explained.

“You were lucky we found you when we did,” one of the other men told her as he also approached the bed. “I’m Cole. May I?” he asked, nodding at her arm which she now realized had an IV running from her elbow to a bag that was looped around the top of the bedpost.

Tentatively, she nodded and forced herself not to tense when he perched on the edge of the mattress beside her. Cooper’s warm body was still pressed against her side, and it was a testament to how exhausted he was that he hadn't woken yet.

“Just going to check your pulse, okay?” Cole asked, waiting until she nodded her assent before his fingertips pressed against the inside of her wrist. “You're doing better,” he told her with a smile a few seconds later.

“You guys saved me. Us,” she added, looking down at Cooper. “Thank you.”

“That’s what family is for,” Connor told her with an easy smile.

“How long have we been here?” Willow asked.

“Going on twenty-four hours since we found you two,” one of Cooper’s stepbrothers replied, only she wasn't sure which. He must have seen her confusion because he gave her a warm smile. “I'm Jax. That’s Jake,” he said, pointing to his brother.

“Twenty-four hours?” Had she been asleep that long?

“You weren't in good shape when we found you,” Cole explained. “We started cooling you down with water and got an IV with fluids going then got you into our truck. Put you in a cold bath whenwe got here to the motel, but it took several hours before your temperature dropped enough that I was satisfied you were going to be okay. Came pretty close to having to risk a trip to the hospital.”

“I'm glad you didn't have to, it would have put targets on all your backs.” Willow dropped her head, unable to meet their gazes any longer. “I'm sorry for almost getting Cooper killed.”

She could only imagine how much they must resent her.

If it wasn't for her, their brother would have taken the intel he got from the professor and headed safely back home to his family. Instead, he’d almost been killed several times over and they’d had to hop on a plane and fly halfway around the world to rescue him.

“Look at me.” The hard voice offered no option to disobey, and when she lifted her gaze, she found Cade’s dark eyes drilling into her. “None of that talk. It’s not your fault and you don’t apologize for someone else’s actions. You did nothing wrong. Cooper’s made it clear that you're important to him, he wouldn't let himself rest until we knew you were out of danger. If you're important to him then you're important to every single one of us. Got it?”

Sure her mouth was hanging open in shock and she was staring at him with wide eyes, Willow found she couldn’t do anything else but nod.

When she looked around at the other men, she found they were all nodding in agreement, and she couldn’t help but feel she’d just kind of been adopted into this family she didn't know just because of a man she’d known a couple of days.

“Is Cooper okay?” she asked, looking down at his still sleeping form.

“Better than you,” Cole answered. “Nothing broken, a couple of cuts that needed stitches. In addition to the dehydration and heat stroke, I stitched your head and another few cuts I was worried about. Strapped your arm which is almost definitely broken, and splinted your finger. Cheekbone is also broken and I'm pretty sure you have at least a couple of cracked ribs. You also have more bruises than I've ever seen on a person before.”

“Professor Mahmoud liked having his own personal punching bag,” she said softly.

The protective energy in the room surged, and despite everything,Willow chuckled as she looked at the big, burly men surrounding her who looked like they’d give anything to get their hands on the professor.

“Umm, this is a little embarrassing, but I have to pee,” she announced.

Cole grinned at her. “Music to my ears. Means your body is hydrated again. After you go, we can take the IV out.”

Disconnecting it from the port in her arm, he helped her swing her legs over the edge of the bed and kept a steadying hand on her arm until the spinning in her head stilled enough that she wasn't going to fall over.

As she hobbled into the bathroom, Willow wondered what happened when they got home. She and Cooper had admitted there were feelings there, but that didn't mean they would work out. What if once the adrenalin was gone, and they were no longer in danger and running for their lives, he decided he was no longer interested in her? What if he was just one of those guys who had a savior complex and once she didn't need saving anymore she lost her appeal?

Chapter

Eighteen

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