“But I wasn’t, thanks to your very nice shooting that put Walsh on the run.” He tilted his head. “Of course, I was being exceptionally skillful myself, but I have to admit you saved the day.”
“I don’t care about saving the day.” Her hand tightened on his, her voice uneven. “I only care about you. I could hit you. Don’t you ever do that again. I told you that we weren’t going to take any chances. Yet you strode off like some kind of Gary Cooper wannabe gunning for your own personal High Noon.”
“Not entirely personal. You wanted the skull.”
“It was personal,” she said fiercely. “You’ve told me that everything between us is personal. I know that, but I can’t stand the thought of your risking—” She broke off and drew an uneven breath. “And you can’t tell me that you didn’t want to try to take Walsh down. You didn’t care about the risk.”
“Wrong,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t have risked leaving you alone with Walsh out there. I would have pulled back if I hadn’t thought I could do it.” He lifted her palm to his lips. “And I did do it, didn’t I? Or rather, we did it. Was there any damage to the reconstruction?”
“A little. But it won’t take me more than a few hours to repair it.” She leaned closer. “But I don’t want to talk about the skull. I want to talk about promises. I can’t stand the thought of this happening again. I want your word that you won’t—” She stopped. He was shaking his head. “Joe, dammit.”
“You won’t get it. Why are you even trying? This is who I am. Every bit of me belongs to you, but I can’t change who that person is.” His hand tightened on her own. “Hey, do you think that I don’t want to run your life so that you’ll be safe forever? Sometimes I try to do it. But I’m never going to ask you to be someone else because sometimes I get scared. I’ll just work around it.”
As he’d done when he’d tried to convince her not to go to Tahoe. He’d accepted, then applied every ounce of his intelligence and strength to make the decision work for him. She was silent, gazing at him. “Like you did tonight.”
“Yep. But that’s not so bad. We’ve done pretty well so far.”
All the years, all the love. “So far … But tonight it almost crashed and burned.” She stood up and leaned forward to kiss him. “I’ll be back soon. I’ll go and tell the head nurse that you’re awake.”
“Fine. When am I being released?”
He wasn’t going to like this. “The doctor will be in later, but he’s going to err on the side of caution. He said the earliest will be four or five days.”
“Bullshit,” he said flatly.
“Talk to him. The surgery wasn’t all that easy. He said if you rip those stitches before they’re healed, you could bleed to death.” She heard him mutter a curse before she hurried from the room. “I’ll see you later.”
*
“How is he doing?”
Eve turned away from the nurses’ station to see Nalchek walking down the hall toward her. “Not bad. Could be a lot better. But I’ll take it. Unfortunately, Joe isn’t likely to agree. They’re going to have to fight to keep him here for more than a day or two. He’s stubborn as hell.”
“I got that impression.” He glanced down the hall at Joe’s room. “And damn tough. The Nevada PD said he pulled off an amazing stunt out there.”
“He’s always amazing.” And strong, and smart, and more complex than anyone would dream. “And I’ve got to figure a way to keep him from bolting out of here.”
“I could ask the PD to find a minor crime with which to charge him.” He made a face. “But I don’t want Quinn for an enemy. I don’t believe he’s one to forgive and forget.”
“No way. My problem.” She turned to look at him. “Any news about Walsh?”
“Nothing good. They found an abandoned rental car on the shore a few miles away, and forensics is going over it. He probably had a speedboat waiting.”