They slammed open at the sound of my bedroom floor creaking. I was curled up in a ball on my bed in the dark, and through the moonlight spilling in through the large window I saw Joss standing at the bottom of my bed.
Surprised that she had come to me but still gripped by hurt at her defection earlier, I just gazed at her with round eyes.
At a breathy gasp, my eyes grew wider as I realized Joss was crying. Joss was crying.
Joss. I knew she’d run earlier because of the baggage she carried around about her family’s deaths. I’d known that on some level that fear had sent her running from me, but actually witnessing her tears, I realized it all meant that she cared about me. She was frightened of losing me.
The tears slipped down my cheeks and moved Joss to action. She crawled up onto my bed and as she settled in beside me I turned on my back. Joss immediately rested her head on my shoulder and shifted closer to me. She took my hand and held it between both of hers.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s okay,” I promised her and meant it. “You came back.”
“I love you, Ellie Carmichael. You’re going to get through this.”
I’d won the love and affection of someone as lost as Jocelyn Butler? For me that was a whole lot of light in a whole lot of dark and it overwhelmed me. I tried to swallow past an answering sob as I whispered the truth back to her, “I love you too, Joss.”
***
Braden had woken us up that morning and he’d made us breakfast. Even with the appointment with the neurosurgeon looming over me that afternoon, I could tell something had gone horribly wrong with Joss and Braden. Upon asking them, I discovered they’d broken up and attempted not to feel guilty. I failed.
They’d clearly broken up because of me… because of Joss’s reaction to what was happening to me. Hearing Braden’s deadly cool voice with her and seeing the flinch of pain in Joss’s face, I wanted to intervene, I wanted to fix what I had inadvertently helped break, but they wouldn’t have it and I was ushered out of the room and into a shower.
At one point I heard their escalated voices over the spill of water and then a plate crashing followed by more shouting. Worried, I switched off the shower and clambered out but the voices had quieted to a murmur. Still, I hurried getting dried and pulled on a bathrobe, ready to put myself between them if need be.
Instead as I walked quietly down the hall I heard Braden confessing that he loved her and that he wasn’t going to stop fighting for her. He promised her in his way that he would be relentless. The romantic in me almost passed out on the spot.
“You’re insane,” Joss hissed back.
“No,” I disagreed, coming to a stop in the kitchen doorway, giving them a smile. “He’s fighting for what he wants.”
“He’s not the only one.”
I turned my head in shock at the sound of the familiar voice, and watched with a pounding heart as Adam strode into the flat toward me. He looked like hell with dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days.
He was still absolutely beautiful, and the way he was gazing at me, like I was something precious just dancing out of his arm’s reach, was absolutely beautiful.
When he stopped before me he took my hand and raised it to his mouth, squeezing his eyes closed as he pressed a kiss against it. My breath caught as he opened his eyes and I saw the tears from yesterday were back again, shimmering in their depths. I also knew from the determined fire blazing in his eyes that he had really meant it when he said he’d only waste a little more time for me. As in less than twenty four hours.
That’s why when he tugged me by the hand and drew me into the kitchen as he faced up to Braden, I let him. Because in a few hours I’d discover whether or not I had the biggest fight of my life on my hands, and even after everything, the only person I wanted fighting by my side was Adam Gerard Sutherland. We had a history, and I wanted to keep adding years to that history.
“I need to tell you something,” Adam faced Braden and I could feel the tension vibrating from his body.
He was doing it. He was really willing to risk it for me. I squeezed his hand tighter.
Braden crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes moving from Adam to me and then back to Adam again and I knew he knew but he wasn’t going to make it easy. “Go on.”
“You’re like a brother to me. I would never do anything to hurt you. And I know I haven’t been what a brother would consider good material for his wee sister, but I love Ellie, Braden.
I have for a long time now, and I can’t not be with her. I’ve wasted too much time as it is.”
I don’t think either of us took a breath as we waited for Braden’s response. After a minute’s contemplation he finally turned to me, his gaze softening. “Do you love him?”