Page 89 of Winters Heat

“Give me a break, Jared. I got stir crazy. Needed to get up and stretch my legs.”

“And I’m sure that had nothing to do with little Mia Kensington tearing out of here like she planned to kill somebody. And she probably could, so I’d watch my ass if I were you.”

Winters grabbed the remote and turned the volume up on the television in a desperate attempt to ignore his boss. The news host’s all-American enunciation didn’t drown out Jared.

“If you want out of here, you have to earn it. I’m not going to have you almost die just to have you kill yourself.”

“I didn’t almost die. Stop with the dramatics.”

“Oh, hell. Youarethat stupid. Miss Thang you just sent scuttling out of this hospital? She’s the reason you’re still kickin’. I would’ve let you sleep on that mangy-assed cot until you died. But nope, not her. She was all tending to you and shit. She noticed your fever. She noticed your piss-poor responses. I didn’t. The guys didn’t. Your ass got choppered out of Colombia, and medevacced all the way back to the States. So if you think you didn’t tease the widow-maker, think again. ‘Cause you’re a dead man who was hooked up by Lady Luck. Or in this case, Mia Save-Your-Ass Kensington.”

Winters threw the remote, hoping to hit the wall across the room, but it didn’t go far. Attached to a cord next to his hospital bed, it swung back at him, and clattered against the bed rail, finally dangling inches above the floor.

“What the fuck do you want me to do?” Winters yelled, bunching his fist in the blanket.

“Get your head back in the game, and figure your shit out.”

Just like Mia, Jared spun and stormed out in a fashion far more dramatic than Winters was used to seeing in his jerk of a boss. He relaxed his death grip from the blanket and ran his hands over his face, trying to clear his mind.

Mia. Mia. Mia.

Nope. It wasn’t working. A hollow despair spread in his blood, pumped into every crevice of his body. Through his aching heart, to the soles of his feet, Winters mourned what could have been.

He threw himself back against the pillow and tossed his head to the side. His gaze landed on a cot, a pile of used blankets, and several unopened boxes of Dots.

Damn it. She was perfect in every way, and he couldn’t have her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Winters hung his head over his bathroom sink, despondent and depressed. It’d been three days since he was released from the hospital. He should’ve shaved his beard when he got home, but he had neither the energy nor the motivation. Other than Clara, nothing interested him. His mother tidied around the house, trying for conversation, and he brushed her off like the prick he was.

Unlike his mother, the guys were as subtle as whores hocking blow jobs. They arrived uninvited and unappreciated, and did nothing but pepper him with moronic questions. They started out with lead-lined softballs likehow’s Miaand ended with power-punches about his health, his mindset, and his ability to get his shit together.

He leaned off the vanity and watched the image standing before him in the mirror. Two weeks off was an eternity. He needed to work out, to train and pump iron until his muscles gave up on him. Something, anything to alleviate his tension. But exercising sounded like an awful waste of time, and he didn’t want to muster the energy.

His cell phone sat quiet, charging on the vanity counter. It didn’t ring a lot, but now it was infuriatingly silent. The guys hadn’t shown up all day. Maybe they went out on a job. An operation Jared didn’t tell him about.

With a few more splashes of water, he finished in the bathroom, then went to Clara’s room. She stirred, her infant fists balled over her head in a tiny stretch. Not that he had much to base assumptions on, but Clara was an awesome baby.

More or less, she kept to a schedule. He knew, to a five-minute window, when she would wake up. Right now, he had a few moments to sit and watch her slumber. It was the only thing he could enjoy.

Her bright blue eyes opened wide with the realization she was awake. Without giving her a chance to cry, he scooped her off of her purple sheets and cradled her against his chest. She was getting to be a big girl.

“Baby girl, I missed you while you were sleeping.”

He walked her over to the changing table and made fast work of a diaper change.

“I know, I know. It was awesome when Mia was here before. She’d be so proud of you.” He smoothed the baby’s cowlick down. “Peas and sweet potatoes. Who knew babies like that? I sure didn’t.”

She gurgled and reached for his face. Used to the smooth skin of a clean shave, Clara tugged his beard, intent on investigating.

“Yeah, I miss her, too.”

His cell phone vibrated on his hip. They could screw off. He was busy now. He ignored two calls as he sat on the floor, watching Clara try to crawl. A pile of toys encircled them, and he fashioned two guns out of large, pink building blocks, then set up a row of stuffed animals.

“This is how you take out the enemy. First, you—” Clara stared at him, reaching for her pink block weapon. “Let me have that back.”

He took a few of the blocks off. “You’re too young for guns. Even pink ones. This is a pink stick, and I have no idea what you should do with it.”

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