“I’m so sorry, Max.” She squeezed my arm.
Any more sympathy for me and I might just lose my shit altogether.
“It’s not about me, is it?” Rolling my neck and shoulders, I tried to get my anger under control. “Tell me about Shy’s wounds. What does this mean for her leg?”
“Hey, Handsome?” Hunter interrupted. “Listen, I’m gonna go update the guys—just tell them she’s stable—if that’s okay?”
As soon as he left, Dr. Haines put on her getting-down-to-business face. That face never meant good news.
My heart thumped again in my chest.
“Well, we have other problems to worry about now,” she said.
Chapter Thirty-One
Drowning
MY PULSE STARTED BEATING sluggishly.
“The damage to Shiloh’s left knee is considerable.” Grasping the ends of her stethoscope, Dr. Haines looked me dead in the eye. “I’m not sure we can save it.”
I slumped into a chair as her prognosis sent another wave of despair through me.
“Max.” Talking softly, she touched my shoulder. “We’ll do everything in our power to make sure we don’t have to take her knee. Everything.”
My voice dry and rusty, I managed to say, “Okay.”
But it wasn’t okay. Nothing about this day and what Diablo had done to Shy was okay in any fucking way possible.
“Can I . . .” My voice broke. “Can I stay with her?”
“We need to clean her up a little more. Let us move her to a private room first and make sure she’s settled. If you want to talk to a counselor about—”
“No.” I stood up, drawing my hands down the sides of my face. “No. It’s not about me, like I said. I’m here for Shy, however she needs me.”
Twenty minutes passed before Haines came back for me. I’d made the guys go home—it was getting close to morning, and there was nothing more they could do.
They’d already done a massive solid helping me get Shy back.
I couldn’t shake the looks in their eyes—a mixture of sadness and anger and regret—the same things I felt.
Dr. Haines opened the door to Shy’s room. “Just be here for her, okay, Max?” she cautioned before leaving.
Shy was awake.
Awake and bruised and pale and visibly shaken.
I tried not to stare at her mouth—the soft lips I’d kissed so many times. The mouth that had been used. Lips Diablo and his men had violated.
“Oh, God, Shy . . .” I hurried to her, kneeling beside the bed, framing her face with my hands.
Her lips trembled. Her eyes filled until they were watery. “Max, I’m—”
“Shhh, baby. I know everything. I’m here now.”
There was nothing else I could say. No way to make her feel better. No way to erase the terrifying hours from her life or her body or her memory.
I held her in my arms. Held her as she clung to me, crying in great gulping sobs.
Rocked her as tears climbed to the surface of my eyes and streamed down my face.
Shy’s gasping breaths slowed, and she rubbed her face against my shirt.
She hiccupped and shivered, but when I tried to move her even closer to my body so I could warm her, soothe her, she shook her head beneath my chin.
“What?” I asked, a new nagging worry settling in my stomach.
“What they did to me—”
“We can talk about it later.” I cupped the back of her head, trying to keep her against me.
“No.” Shy pulled back.
Her beautiful face was ravaged from the pain and the tears.
And it wrecked my heart.
“What they did. When they . . .” She twisted the sheet in a fist. “In my mouth.”
I sucked in a thin breath, and it felt like my lungs were collapsing. “I know. I know what happened.”
“That”—Shy uncurled her fist—“violation . . . it was . . . it’s not as bad as what they did to my leg,” she finished in a whisper, slamming her eyes shut.
More tears leaked out.
I thumbed away the fresh tears, keeping my own at bay. I couldn’t talk any more, though.
“I might lose my knee.” Her eyes flashed open, ablaze with anger now. “Do you understand what that means? I’ll be even more of a burden. I’ll have even less mobility than before!”
“We’ll deal with it if it happens,” I quietly stated, not wanting to upset her further.
“I will,” she said.
“Uh unh.” I shook my head fast. “No way, Shy. We will.”
She shifted away from me. “I don’t want you to be my caretaker!”
“Goddammit, Shy.” Rubbing the heels of my palms against my eyes, I lowered my tone. “I’m not your caretaker. Never said I was. Am I gonna be here for you? Yeah. No doubt.”
“You don’t get it.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts.
“So give me the skinny on it.” Then I made the mistake of looking her over.
And I tried to stop, because feeling this sudden rush for her was so wrong right now.
Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Shy needed to be convinced I wanted her. Completely as a woman.
That I loved her. Always. Whatever happened. And I would always desire her. No matter what.