I nodded and gripped his hand even tighter. “They’re both my priority number one, Roman. But yeah, I got you.”
“Good. Devon and I will be out here all night. You go ahead and get back in there before she wakes up.”
Good fucking plan. It was a sad day when I was already jonesing after having been away from her for ten minutes.
Christ, I was fucked.
“Where are we going?” I nervously asked as Heath made another trip around the 285 loop.
He kept his eyes on the road as he replied, “We’re just taking the scenic route to make sure no one is tailing us.”
I turned and looked out the back window to see traffic as usual, no sign of Walt or any of his guys—as far as I could tell, anyway.
“Turn around and relax,” he ordered.
“Sure thing,” I smarted, righting myself in my seat and once again adjusting the oversized scrubs the hospital had given me to wear.
Relaxing was easier said than done. I didn’t get to experience it often, and after my briefing this morning from a salt-and-peppered Richard Gere–lookalike named Mark Tomlinson, it wasn’t something I figured I’d be experiencing much of any time soon.
No one had seen or heard from Walt since Heath had left him unconscious on our driveway. But I knew Walt; he was off somewhere, licking his wounds. I could only pray that we were safe at the Leblancs’ house, under the watchful eye of the DEA and Roman’s private security team, by the time he decided to make his move.
“Hey,” Heath called to catch my attention. “We’re good, ya know? We’ve got a car in front of us leading the way and a car behind us watching for anything suspicious. I’m just waiting for the all clear before making our way to Roman’s place.”
“Oh,” I said softly. Something akin to relief but much less relaxing washed over me. At least, if what he’d said was true, we probably wouldn’t be gunned down in the middle of the highway.
“Luke!” Tessa yelled.
I nearly jumped out of my skin as I attempted to scramble over the center console to get to her before Heath’s arm went up between the two seats and blocked me in the front.
“You all right back there, Tessi?” he asked the rearview mirror. Cool, calm, and collected. Everything I was not.
“I spilled my fish,” she replied as grief-stricken as an almost-three-year-old could be about having spilled their favorite snack.
“Well, quick! Catch ’em before they swim away.” Heath chuckled.
She giggled. “They can’t swim, Luke!”
I’d told her that morning to call him Heath, but I still called him Luke on occasion. There was definitely going to be a learning curve involved for both of us.
“Oh! You mean your crackers,” he teased. “I thought you might have brought your pet fish with you.”
She cackled louder. “I don’t have no fish!”
She’d never had any kind of pet. Animals weren’t allowed in Walt’s house. Excluding him, of course.
“Clare.” Heath’s voice was low so she couldn’t hear him. “You need to calm down and show her there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
I swallowed hard and did my best to slow my pounding heart. “Yeah. I might need a step-by-step instructional video on how to do that.”
He turned his head my way, flashing me his blue eyes and one of his signature smiles that transformed his entire face from the badass Heath Light to the friendly and easygoing Luke Cosgrove.
“I’m not sure they make YouTube tutorials for that,” he joked.
I rubbed my sweaty palms over my thighs. “Yeah, I can’t imagine ‘how to relax while on the run from your neurotic crime lord husband’ has much of an audience.”
“Probably not,” he replied, flashing me another one of those smiles as he flipped his blinker on and switched into the exit lane.
“Are we getting off here?” I asked.
“Yep.”
A second round of nerves took up root in my stomach, but for a completely different reason. “How far out are we?”
“’Bout fifteen minutes still, depending on traffic.”
I pulled the visor down and used the mirror to inspect my face for the first time since we’d arrived at the hospital. Based on the impaired vision, I’d known my eye was going to look bad, but I wasn’t prepared for the rest of it. The doctors had glued numerous gashes on my face, and they were all starting to bruise. My lips were swollen, and dried blood still stained the corner of my jaw from the split on my ear despite the thirty-second shower I’d taken while Tessa had played peek-a-boo with the shower curtain.
Heath had offered to watch her while she’d sat in his lap, watching videos on an iPad he’d magically produced. However, I hadn’t been anywhere near ready for there to be a door dividing us if Walt showed up.
Closing the visor, I gave up on the lost cause that was my face. I looked like hell, but there was not one thing I could do to fix it.
The nerves rolled all over again.
“You good?” he asked the windshield.
I glanced back at Tessa then asked him, “Have you met her?”
“Who?”
“Elisabeth Leblanc.”