In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)

She wasn’t responding to Zack and her father’s urgent attempts to bring her back. It was simply too much for Beau to handle any longer.

He dropped to the floor and gathered Ari’s limp body in his arms and rocked back and forth, his face buried in her hair.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered. “Please don’t leave me, Ari. Stay. Fight this. Fight for us. Just please don’t leave me when it took so long for me to find the other half of my soul.”





THIRTY-EIGHT

BEAU paced the interior of the waiting room like a caged lion, edgy, raw, his nerves so jagged that any sound whatsoever set his teeth on edge. Every time one of the medical staff opened the door to the waiting room, he surged to attention, hoping it was someone bearing news about Ari.

He hadn’t wanted to be separated from her, not even for a minute. But the nurses hadn’t been swayed by his harsh demands, pleas or frustrated raging. Not even her parents had been allowed back while the doctor and other nurses worked rapidly to stabilize her. He’d drawn no comfort from that fact, because while he wanted to be with her, absolutely, he just didn’t want her to regain consciousness alone and frightened.

And judging by the restless, worried expressions on her parents’ faces, they weren’t faring any better than he was.

He closed his eyes, remembering the warning from so long ago. Tori’s dream. In reality, not that much time had passed, but so much had happened since then that it seemed a lifetime ago. Him, covered in blood, on the floor. He’d been right about one thing. It wasn’t his blood in his sister’s dream. It had been Ari’s. But Tori hadn’t seen something that had already occurred. She had seen the future. Ari’s fate.

Dane, Eliza, Capshaw and Isaac had arrived an hour and a half after the helicopter had touched down on the roof of the hospital. If the personnel had been taken aback by the strange aircraft, they hadn’t let on. They’d set about briskly and efficiently doing their jobs. Saving Ari’s life.

But Beau was worried about the amount of blood loss she’d incurred. It seemed she’d lost over half her volume. Just what she’d lost with the multiple and continuous psychic bleeds would be enough to fell anyone. Add a gunshot wound on top of that?

She had lost and regained a pulse numerous times on the helicopter flight to the hospital. Upon arrival they’d intubated her and began CPR again.

That was hours ago. What the fuck could be taking so long? Didn’t they know there were people out here dying a slow, agonizing death waiting to know if Ari lived or died? Would it kill them to give some kind of update?

But then if she’d died, they would have already reported that, so he took comfort from the fact that not a single person had been out to give Ari’s status.

Beau had been on the phone with Caleb and Ramie every hour since Ari’s arrival at the hospital. Ramie had wanted to fly out in Caleb’s plane immediately, but Beau had convinced her not to. There was little she could do and Beau would prefer they not leave Tori alone with only Quinn for protection. His little sister was still in a very fragile, vulnerable state, and subject to anxiety attacks if left alone for more than a few hours.

Quinn, too, had called, though his younger brother hadn’t even met Ari. Apparently Caleb and Ramie had filled him in, though, because he was anxious over the condition of his “future sister-in-law.”

Beau blew out his breath. If he was lucky, Ari would give him the time of day after he’d let her down so many times.

“Man, sit down for a while,” Zack said in a low voice.

Beau looked up to see Zack standing beside him. He hadn’t even noticed the other man’s approach. Zack held a cup of coffee out to Beau and he took it gratefully. He was weary to his bones and needed any surge the caffeine would provide because he refused to even contemplate sleep until he’d seen for himself that Ari was out of the woods.

“You’re wasted,” Zack said bluntly. “You aren’t doing anyone any good, especially not Ari, by stalking around here making the other people in the waiting room nervous as hell and you’re certainly not helping to diminish Ari’s mother’s worry. You saw Ari. You were with her. Her parents weren’t. So to see you so eaten alive like this only makes them think the worst.”

Guilt surged over Beau and he glanced momentarily over to where Ari’s parents sat. Ginger had her head laid on her husband’s shoulder, his arm firmly wrapped around her. Her eyes were red and swollen from the tears she’d shed and worry was bright in both her and her husband’s eyes.

Conceding that he wasn’t helping matters any, Beau took a seat and leaned back, fatigue washing through his veins, nearly overwhelming him in the process. He sipped at the strong coffee and grimaced his distaste.

“I didn’t say it was good coffee,” Zack said in amusement. “But it should definitely give you a zap of caffeine. I think it qualifies as sludge more than actual coffee.”