“No,” I tell her. “He doesn’t want a doctor. Please, you have to help him.”
“I… I can’t,” she sputters. “I don’t have the tools, my license…”
“Amy, please,” I beg. “He’s going to die if you don’t do something. Just help him until Lachlan can get a doctor here.”
She hesitates for another moment and then seems to come to some sort of a decision.
“I’ll help him get stabilized,” she says. “But he needs to go to the hospital when I’m done.”
She kneels down beside me, and starts listing off things that she needs.
I run around the house like a lunatic trying to gather everything and get them to her as fast as I can. She cuts his shirt off, and for the first time I see his chest. And I’m shocked by the amount of scars that litter his body.
Amy is too.
“Who is this guy?” she asks.
“He’s my…” I pause. “My friend. A really good friend.”
The door opens again, and this time it’s Lachlan. His face is white, and when his eyes land on Ronan, it’s obvious how much he really does care about this man. I’ve never felt like Lachlan and I would be able to relate on anything. But as it turns out, Ronan is our common ground. He’s staring back at me too, searching my eyes for answers before he can even ask them.
And then his gaze snaps to Amy, who is poking at Ronan’s wound.
“Who is she?” Lachlan asks.
“My mother’s home nurse.”
I leave out the part about me calling her.
“Can you help him?” Lachlan asks her.
Amy shakes her head in serious refusal. “He needs to go to the hospital. The bullet is still in there, and…”
“Sasha.” Lachlan interrupts. “Is there a bed where we can move him?”
“My room,” I tell him.
“Good, go get it ready. I need a moment to speak to Amy.”
I hesitate for the slightest of seconds and the guilt burns through me. He’s probably going to threaten her. Or maybe offer her money. Either way, I don’t care. The only thing I care about right now is Ronan and making sure he is okay.
So I do as Lachlan asks, and I walk down the hall and pull back the covers and move everything out of the way.
A moment later, Lachlan is behind me, lingering in the doorway.
“I need you to help me move him in here,” he says. “I’ve called some of the other lads, but I don’t want to wait. Amy’s going to help him, okay Sash?”
I nod and scurry after him. It takes all three of us to get him into the bed. And then Amy brings in her medical bag, and she starts setting up an IV line.
“What are you going to do?” I ask her.
“She’s giving him something to keep him calm,” Lachlan explains. “If he wakes up and someone he doesn’t know is touching him…”
He leaves the rest lingering, and I nod.
But Ronan does wake up. As Amy’s trying to set up the IV. And he goes completely ballistic. For a moment I’m too horrified by what I’m seeing to really understand it. He’s always been so strong, so calm and sure. The only time I’ve ever seen him lose it was with Blaine. But right now, he’s like a caged animal, thrashing around in the bed as Lachlan tries to hold him down. His wild and panicked eyes find mine, and my heart splinters. I crawl up on the bed beside him and grab his face.
“Shhh, Ronan,” I whisper. “It’s okay. Just look at me. Only me.”
To everyone’s surprise, my words seem to soothe him. So I keep repeating them, stroking his face beneath my fingers. He never takes his eyes off me.
“Do you trust me?” I ask him.
He nods.
“Okay, good,” I whisper. “Because I would never let anyone hurt you. Do you know that?”
He blinks and his breathing slows a little as his eyes search mine. Those deep brown eyes look so much like a small boy’s in this moment and not the man I know him to be. Right now he isn’t a violent predator. He’s my sweet, handsome Ronan. And behind the fringe of dark lashes and the armor he’s worn for so long, there is trust. For me. And I have a feeling that later, when I reflect on that, I will finally understand the gravity of what that means. Because I doubt Ronan trusts anybody. Even his best friend, Lachlan, who he’s known all his life is considered an enemy right now.
But not me. And I won’t ever take that trust for granted.
I thread my fingers through his and squeeze.
“I trust Amy,” I tell him. “And she’s trying to help you, Ronan. Okay? I won’t let her hurt you.”
He doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t need to. Everyone can see that he’s calmed and Amy seizes the opportunity to get the line set up. Ronan watches me the entire time. But once the line is in, his eyes drift shut. I lean down and kiss him on the forehead, and when I look up through tear soaked eyes, Lachlan is staring at me.
“You calmed him.” His voice is tinged with disbelief. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”