Page 29 of Shattered

The guilt in her voice made him frown. “What? No, it’s okay—”

“No, it’s not, and I feel awful about it now.” She tucked her face into the curve of his neck, the caress of her hair against his face soothing. “I don’t care about venues, how many people are there, or menus, or stupid flower arrangements. I just want to marry you. So if you still want something small, then we’ll do something small.”

Sawyer tugged his hand free and reached up to slide it into the thick fall of her hair. “I love you.”

She pressed closer, seeking comfort as much as he drank it in from her. “God, I love you too.”

Exhaustion began to creep through his body. Carmela and Ethan’s lowered voices murmured somewhere in the background, growing more distant by the second. He allowed his eyes to close completely and let himself drift, both his hands held by two of the people he loved most.

The next thing he knew he jerked awake as a stream of breathless Spanish hit him from over by the doorway. He forced his eyes open, still couldn’t see much through the tiny gap between the lids. Ethan and Marisol were gone but Carm was still beside him. She was looking toward the door with a deep frown, and shaking her head.

“Mami, shhh, you’ll wake him,” she admonished in a whisper.

Mami?

Sawyer jerked his shuttered gaze toward the door. The sight of the woman standing there made his heart turn over and caused a huge grin to spread across his face. “Mama Cruz,” he mumbled, his tongue feeling like it was made of cotton.

Chest heaving as she panted, out of breath as though she’d just run a mile, Mama Cruz let out a sob and rushed at him, practically shoving her daughter out of the way to get to his bedside.

Two plump, surprisingly strong arms wound around his neck, and a pair of lips dropped kisses over his forehead and cheeks. “Sawyer.Ai, mi hijo.” She gulped back a sob and kept babbling in rapid-fire Spanish, a litany of relief and gratitude he only caught snippets of.

Still grinning, Sawyer lifted a hand to pat her back. “I’m okay, Mama.” Shit, this woman melted him faster than ice cream on a hot Oklahoma summer day. It had only been him and his strict, hard-ass father growing up. Having this big-hearted woman accept him as her own son meant the world to him.

“You are not okay,” she retorted in her adorable accent, displaying more of that Puerto Rican fire that he so loved about her and Carm.

She pulled back and framed his face with her small hands, gave him a watery smile. “But you will be. Carmelita and I will see to it.” She straightened, determination stamped into every loveable feature. “Now. What do we need to do to get you more comfortable, ah? You want your bed adjusted maybe? Some food? Or maybe a quick wash, hm?” She yanked down the sleeve of her sweater and started rubbing at the side of his face, an annoyed scowl creasing her forehead. “You are filthy. I can’t believe they wouldn’t at least clean you up.”

The sleeve must not have worked, because she scowled harder and licked her finger before rubbing at something on his face.

Mom spit. So gross, but it was so damn endearing that she would treat him as one of her own, he didn’t care.

The thought of her giving him a sponge bath made him cringe inside. He loved her to death, but he didn’t want her seeing him naked. “No, I’m fine for now—”

“Ach!” She thrust a warning finger at him, that stern look on her face that told him not to argue. Without waiting for a response she turned to Carmela, who was unsuccessfully trying to hide a smile. “You go get the nurse, so we can get our boy what he needs.”

“No, there’s a call button right here,” Carm said, reaching for it.

Her mother leveled that same warning finger at her, one eyebrow cocked in a silent command anyone who knew her would recognize instantly. Resistance was futile. Way easier to just do as she said, and then no one got hurt. “Don’t say to me no.” She clapped her hands, waved them at the door in a shooing motion. “Go. Go, go.”

Carm sighed, got up and did as she was told.

When it was just the two of them, Sawyer laid there and said nothing as Mama Cruz fussed with his bed, raising the head and feet until she deemed it was perfect, then fluffed his pillow and settled it beneath the back of his neck.

All the while he thanked his blessings for being alive and whole…and prayed for his teammate who was battling for his life somewhere downstairs right now.

Chapter Ten

He’s going to wake up once they lower the dosage. He’s going to be fine.

Taya kept repeating the words over and over as she sat by Nathan’s intensive care unit bedside, holding his hand. After an agonizing six-hour wait, they’d finally let her come see him once he was out of recovery. The number of monitors and machines he was hooked up to frightened her, as did the sluggish beep of the heart monitor. His heart beat seemed way too slow to her.

One surgeon had told her it was a miracle Nathan survived the operation at all. They’d transfused him twice due to blood loss. The damage to his spleen had been so catastrophic they’d elected to remove it entirely, along with one-fifth of his liver. As it was, they were keeping him in a medically induced coma to allow his body to begin healing.

Even if the liver was capable of regenerating, it didn’t make Taya feel better about Nathan’s chances. Because the head injury was the wild card in this scenario.

He hadn’t been wearing a helmet at the time of the explosion. The ECGs and CT scans had shown both significant coup and countercoup lesions in both his frontal and occipital lobes, due to the force of the explosion and his impact with the ground. A neurologist was reviewing the data now and would come talk to her when he had more information.

So yet again, she was playing the waiting game.

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