“Mr. West?”
“Hughes,” I correct without thinking.
The doctor turns his glare to Ryan. “Are you Mr. West?”
Ryan looks startled. “Uh…”
“Who is the husband of Tabitha West?” snaps the doctor.
I step forward, my heart hammering. “Yes. Sorry. That’s me.”
The doctor sends me a sympathetic stare. “Your wife is out of surgery.”
I can tell by the way he’s acting that Tabby is anything but dead. But wife—God. That stops me cold. Did she tell him I was her husband? The thought makes me dizzy with hope.
“I can see her?”
“Oh, she’s all yours,” says the doctor. “Room 204.” He turns and walks away.
Ryan says, “Go on, brother,” but I’m already running.
I navigate the winding hospital corridors quickly to find the right section of rooms. When I’m halfway down the hall from room two zero four, I hear muffled shouting and slow from a run to a trot.
It’s a woman who’s shouting, her angry voice echoing down the hall. She’s demanding to see someone right now, shouting like she’s possessed.
I yank open the door of Tabby’s room and step inside. Tabby is lying in bed, hooked up to a lot of machines and some hanging bags of clear liquid. A nurse is leaning over her bed, trying to calm her.
“Please, Miss West, you can’t get out of bed. The doctor has—”
“I don’t care about the fucking doctor!” she roars. “I need to see Connor!”
When I say, “I’m here, princess,” the shouting stops.
The nurse looks over at me, straightens, and sighs. “Thank the Lord.” She leaves, chuckling softly on her way out.
Tabby’s eyes eat me up. Without a word, she holds out her arms. It takes me less than a heartbeat to be in them.
She buries her face in my neck and hugs me harder than someone who just woke up from surgery should have the strength to do. I cradle her, kiss her hair, her temple, rock her in my arms as I sit on the edge of the bed, trying to be as gentle as I can while still getting what I need. Namely, contact.
The heartbeat monitor attached to her finger is going crazy, beeping so fast I half expect another nurse to come bursting into the room to see what’s wrong.
I release a ragged breath. “Goddamn, sweetheart. Don’t ever scare me like that again. I don’t think my poor senior ticker could take it.”
Tabby keeps her face hidden, her arms tight around my back. She doesn’t answer, doesn’t take the bait of my weak-ass joke, just burrows in deeper.
“Doctor says Juanita’s gonna be fine,” I murmur, knowing she’ll be worried. “Her family is on their way now. Flying in on Uncle Sam’s dime, all seven of ’em. Should be here soon. So, that’s good.”
Tabby’s still silent, holding on to me for dear life. The beeping of the monitor hasn’t slowed.
“And me and Ryan are good too, we’re okay, none of the boys on the op got hurt. Well, you knew that already.”
She still isn’t saying anything, and I’m out of people to talk about. She already knows about S?ren because I told her in the bird on the way to the hospital.
And speaking of that fucker…
I clear my throat, say softly, “And about S?ren.”
She stiffens.
I make my voice as gentle as I can. “I know about you being related. And about your parents, what happened. I got filled in on everything while you were in surgery. And I just want to say…I need you to know that I gave him a choice. But he didn’t—”
She puts her finger to my lips to stop me.
Maybe she just needs me to shut up and hold her. Maybe she’s in pain. Oh shit—am I hurting her?
When I try to gently withdraw, Tabby makes a desperate noise and won’t let me go.
“Are you hurting, sweetheart?”
She nods.
Now my heartbeat is galloping as fast as hers. “Well, shit, lemme get the doctor! Get you some more pain meds—”
“No!” Her voice is muffled because she’s talking into my shirt. “It’s not my leg. I mean it is, it hurts like a bitch, but that’s not…that’s not…”
When she gulps in air and her shoulders start to shake, I realize she’s desperately trying to hold back tears. I gently peel her off me and cup her face in my hands. Her eyes are watering. She’s biting her lip.
“Talk to me.”
She swallows hard, blinking rapidly. Gripping my biceps, she hoarsely says, “I want you to promise you won’t call or come visit me. You need to forget about me and go on with your life.”
I stare at her, in total shock. “What?”
“I mean it. If you call, I won’t come to the phone. If you write, I’ll tear it up without reading it. I’ll refuse to see you—”
“You’re breaking up with me?” I say, astonished and so fucking hurt, it’s like my heart’s being cut out with a razor blade. “Now?”
A lone tear crests her lower lashes and tracks a slow path down her pale cheek. “Of course.”