Page 54 of Always Been Mine

“Gabe’s badly hurt.” A sob escaped her. She fought for calm, but her knees were like Jell-O. “How did you guys—”

“We had some intel,” the older man said. “I’m Nicholas Crane. Sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances, Ms. Porter. You okay?”

She could only nod.

“Good. We can’t hang around; police and ambulance are on their way.”

“But—”

Crane let out a loud whistle to round up his men. “Let’s go!”

The sirens grew closer.

Crane nodded to her. “Until next time, Ms. Porter.”

The bikers disappeared.

After a few more minutes, the ambulance and police arrived.

Beatrice watchedGabe through the ICU window.

She closed her eyes momentarily as the memory of seeing him loaded on the gurney, pale as death and barely breathing, assailed her mind. He almost died. A few minutes more, it would have been too late.

She had been afraid to tell him she loved him because saying so felt like saying goodbye. She refused. They had put him under a medically induced coma for four days so his body could recover. They were bringing him out of it today.

Right now, watching all the apparatus in the room breathing for him, monitoring his heartbeat and blood pressure, he still looked formidable. There was a static energy simmering inside him. He was alive. She struggled to wrap her head around his injuries. His heart had stopped once. He lostalmost forty percent of his blood. He suffered a collapsed lung and three gunshot wounds to the body. A fourth bullet took out a piece of his skull.

His skull.

The doctor said if he wasn’t in excellent shape, his body would have succumbed to all the trauma.

Doug came up beside her and squeezed her arm. He was the only other person who had been a constant in the hospital. Not a peep from her father. Beatrice was offended for Gabe, but she guessed she shouldn’t be surprised.

A few minutes later, Gabe’s doctor walked up to them.

“Ready, Ms. Porter?”

Two weekslater

“Gabe,if you don’t stop behaving like an asshole, a piece of your skull missing or not, I’m going to whack this purse over your head.”

Beatrice issued the threat with much conviction. Gabe paused and clenched his jaw. It had been two fucking weeks for fuck’s sake, almost three if he considered the time he was under. He’d been going insane with boredom in the hospital. They had fit a quarter-size metal plate in his head. Beatrice had started calling him Terminator.

“Wanna get the fuck out of here.” The way he issued this demand was actually the tamest of his recent rants. “I’d rather stay at home than be here.”

When Gabe woke up from his coma, he was relieved to see Beatrice’s face. Even in the darkest recesses of his medically induced sleep, she had been ever present. He woke up thinking of her. His second thought was of Rhino. He found out Beatrice had moved into his house, so she could take careof his dog. His woman. In his house. Could she really blame him for wanting to be there with them?

“You still require medical supervision and you shouldn’t be moving too much.”

“You can take care of me,” Gabe grumbled.

“I have to work.”

He looked away from her, staring out the window. “I’m not there to protect you.” A frustrated anger exploded from him. “I’m stuck here. In this hospital. A damn invalid! Some kind of bodyguard I turned out to be.” He slapped his thigh to release some pent-up rage. Part of the rage stemmed from the fact that Beatrice had refused to leave him when things got desperate, and she could have been killed. He understood her reasons, because he would have done the same if their situations were reversed, but he was the man, damn it. It was his job to protect her, not the other way around.

“Calm down.”

“Fuck calm down. Get me out of here,” he demanded anew. “Get me the nurse or whoever the fuck is in charge so I can sign the release forms.”

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