Page 48 of What Comes After

I didn’t know why, but I wondered if hearing his name from my lips would do the same thing to him.

“Theo,” I whispered.

Apparently, I could turn his whole world upside down, too.

The second he heard his name, his hand tightened around mine, and he dropped his head forward, breaking the connection between our gazes.

“Thank God,” he croaked before lifting his head again, shifting himself to the edge of the chair, and bringing both of his hands around mine. Then he used them to raise the back of my hand to his mouth. After he kissed the skin there, he pressed his forehead to the same spot and whispered something I couldn’t quite make out.

I was at a loss for words, so I didn’t attempt to speak. Instead, I gave myself the opportunity to come to grips with the fact that Theo was here. For the first time in so very long, he was right beside me, kissing my hand, and thanking God.

I could only imagine the stress he must have been under for him to elicit this kind of response to me saying his name.

Some time passed, the silence not uncomfortable, before Theo finally returned his attention to my face. As his eyes searched, another thought hit me.

I knew I’d been struck in the face several times. There was no question Theo was staring at a bruised and battered face. I could only take a guess as to what he must have been thinking, and what I believed to be the truth didn’t leave me with a pleasant feeling.

“You have no idea how good it is to see you with your eyes open,” he shared, his voice thick with emotion.

“Theo, what—”

That was all I got out before movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I looked in that direction and saw a woman wearing a pair of scrubs had entered the room. “You’re awake,” she declared, moving toward the bed. “I was just coming in to check and see if you’d made any progress.”

When she came to a stop on the opposite side of the bed as Theo, she said, “I’m Ruby, and I’m one of the nurses that has been taking care of you these last few days.”

Days?

It had been days since the attack?

Disbelief moved through me. I’d lost whole days of my life, days I’d never get back.

I wanted to ask questions, but I figured it was best to stick with the basics. “Hi, Ruby.”

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Devyn Jade,” I replied after a brief pause.

It seemed strange to me that they’d be asking such a simple question. If I’d been here for days, clearly there had to have been some severe injuries. Had something been so bad that led the nurse—and likely doctors, too—to believe I wouldn’t have known my own name?

The nurse smiled brightly at me. “That’s great, Devyn. And I assume you know the man sitting beside you?”

I nodded slowly. “Theo McCormick.”

Unsure how it was possible, the nurse’s smile grew. “You’re such a lucky girl. I don’t think I’ve worked a single shift without this guy being right by your side. I’m going to give the doctor a call and let him know you’re awake. He’ll want to come in and do a couple of routine tests. Okay?”

“Sure.”

With that, she turned around and walked out of the room, leaving me with the guy who’d apparently not left my side since he’d learned I was here.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with that information. While I knew it was just the kind of guy he was, I had a difficult time with it.

Was this what it took for him to come back? And now that he was here, how long would he stay? Was he just planning to leave now that I was awake?

I was too much of a chicken to ask.

On the bright side, I wasn’t left with much time to really try to come up with anything to say to him, because the nurse walked right back into the room with the doctor. “I went out, ready to call him, and he was already on his way to check on you. Devyn, this is Dr. Wheeler.”

I shifted my attention to the doctor, who stepped forward with a small smile on his face. “Welcome back, Devyn. You gave us quite a scare when you arrived here at the hospital,” he said. “I’d like to do a couple of simple tests now. It’s all routine, but it’s very important.”

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