We both bent to pick it up at the same time, our heads nearly cracking together.
“Shit. Sorry.” I jumped back up, but she remained hunched over. “Clare?” I questioned, reaching out for her but stopping at the last second.
She folded an arm across her stomach and then used her other to prop herself up on her knee. Her back rounded as a painful moan escaped her mouth.
“Mama?” Tessa cried from the bed, promptly abandoning the iPad I’d loaned her and scrambling over the side.
“I’m fine,” Clare said in a broken voice that told me she was anything but fine.
I squatted in front of her at the same time Tessa careened into her legs.
She winced and an agonizing wail shot from her mouth before she moved the arm at her stomach to wrap it around Tessa’s back. “I’m fine,” she repeated.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, desperately fighting the urge to take her into my arms.
She groaned, using a great deal of effort to stand up straight. “Nothing. I’m good,” she panted as though she’d just run a marathon.
“You’re in pain.”
“I’m just a little sore.”
“Bull—” I didn’t finish the curse strictly for Tessa’s benefit. “Hey, sweet girl. Go get the iPad. I brought you some headphones.”
She looked up at Clare warily but reluctantly followed my direction.
Once I had her set up on the bed, watching one of the princess movies I’d downloaded for her, I refocused on Clare. “Hall. Now,” I ordered.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she mumbled as she walked past me in a gait that could only be compared to that of an eighty-year-old recovering from a hip replacement. She stopped at the door without crossing the threshold into the hall.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
She glanced over her shoulder at Tessa. “I’m fine, Heath. We just need some sleep.”
“Don’t feed me that shit.”
She was still wearing the scrubs the hospital had given her that morning despite the fact that Elisabeth had placed several bags of clothes on the armchair in her bedroom.
“Why don’t you go take a long bath and get changed?”
“Into what?” she snapped, slapping her hands on her thighs in frustration before wincing again.
I crossed my arms over my chest and rocked back on my heels. “Maybe something in one of those bags.”
She scoffed and glanced to the floor. “I’m fine in this.”
“Yeah, but you’ve been wearing it all day. And you need a shower. I’m not saying you stink or anything, but…” I trailed off and tossed her a smirk.
One she did not return.
Her whole face crumbled, which sent off a chain reaction through her body. She threw a hand out and caught herself on the door.
I would have given anything to take that from her. To make things better. But I couldn’t be sure she even wanted the comfort from me. And, if she didn’t, I would have been no better than any other man who had put his hands on her without her permission.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and ground out, “Talk to me.”
Her breathing sped rapidly as emotions ravaged her, but she kept them locked away.
Pressure mounted in my chest because there was not one damn thing I could do to ease her agony unless she trusted me enough to open up. I couldn’t force her. It was something she had to decide on her own. And it fucking killed me.
She screwed her eyes shut but didn’t move.
“Clare, I’m gonna be real honest here. I’m on the verge of spontaneously combusting. I refuse to be one of those men in your life who puts my hands on you when you have no say in it. But, if you don’t stop being such a hard-ass and lean on me, I’m going to lose my mind. If you want to be left alone, I’ll completely understand. But, for the love of God, babe, open your mouth and tell me what the hell is going on in your head.”
Her sad, blue eyes lifted to mine; the pain shining within was staggering.
I loomed forward, thrumming with need to hold her. “It’s me, Clare. Whatever you need, you know I’ll give it to you. You just have to tell me.”
Finally, fucking finally, she closed the distance between us, folded her arms around my waist, and pressed her cheek to my chest. “I wanna go home, Heath. I can’t stay here. I can’t…”
That was all the permission I needed. I’d promised myself that I’d only give to Clare, but as I wrapped her into a gentle hug, I had to admit that it was for me. My heart slowed immediately as I filled my lungs with her scent.
“I can’t let you go back to that.”
“No,” she corrected. “Not back to Walt’s. I mean home. To the shitty trailer I lived in before I met him.” She paused and then softly finished with, “Before my life ended.”
“I can’t let you go back to that either, babe.”
Her shoulders shook as her breathing shuttered. Her fingers tensed at my back as she clung to me.
“I know this is hard,” I told the top of her head. “But we’re all here for you. Me. Roman. Elisabeth. The DEA. Everyone.”