Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 37793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
“Aww,” Hannah said with a long sigh.
Kurt smiled as he leaned back. “I knew the job was dangerous when I signed on, so I’m ready to hold my breath while you’re gone.”
“I promise you, I will—”
“There is, however, a caveat.”
I could not have stopped myself from scowling at him for a million dollars.
“You will be a hundred percent honest with me going forward,” he stated, and I could hear the warning in his tone. “I will always know where you are when you’re not on a mission so that I can come to the hospital and see you.”
I could finally breathe. “If it’s within my means to do, I will contact you.”
“Explain that.”
I cleared my throat. “I wasn’t conscious for a bit after Wagner and Ruiz got me transported last time. I promise to call as soon as I wake up going forward.”
There was a wounded sound in the back of his throat.
“I’m fine,” I reminded him. “You can see I am.”
“Yes, but I want to see your ankle and hear everything that happened.”
“That’s really not—”
“It is to me,” he said, meeting my gaze and holding it. “I want to see.”
“But you’ve seen my ankle.”
“Please George.”
“I––”
“Please.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
Slowly, reluctantly, I took a seat beside him. Once I had my shoe off, he had me put my foot in his lap as he removed my sock.
“How many screws?” Jill asked, having gotten up to take a look as well, Noah following her.
“Four.”
“Dante has three in his left knee,” Noah told me. “He tore his ACL when he had to ditch a plane in some remote area near the beach outside Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve years ago,” he said like it was no big deal.
“You sound okay with that.”
His eyes flicked to me. “Oh? Do I? Well, that’s not true at all. The only reason I don’t hyperventilate is because a, it’s been a bit since these things happened, and b, I can see him standing there in front of me whenever some horrible tidbit of information pops out of his mouth at some ridiculous moment, like when he’s changing the batteries in our smoke detectors.”
Jill started laughing.
“She gets it,” Noah said, tipping his head at her. “Out of the blue, some horrific memory will get shared with you, and they think they’re just making conversation.”
Jill was laughing harder and nodding.
Jory said, “My husband was shot once and told the ER doctor that if she could please go ahead and check to make sure nothing was nicked inside, then he would like to be bandaged up so he could go home. She wanted to murder him.”
“He made a doctor homicidal?” Kurt sounded appalled.
“Of course he did,” Jory said matter-of-factly. “And she was perfectly normal before her dealings with him.”
“Dante’s the same way,” Noah chimed in. “Every doctor he ever sees, he assures them whatever twinge is nothing and he merely needs some ibuprofen.”
Jory snorted.
“Same with Chris, who can say, with a straight face, every time, even when his medical file is this big.” Jill moved her hands apart like she was holding a stack of papers. “That maybe there’s some scar tissue that could, perhaps, be the issue.”
“Yep,” Noah agreed. “There are pins in the man’s spine, screws all over his body, and the scars… I can’t count them.”
Jill was nodding. “It’s so fun when your husband is cooking burgers and all of a sudden he’ll say, I remember this one time when I was being tortured and they held my hand on a grill much like this one.”
All eyes on her.
“Then he has the gall to say, you know, that hurts more than you think it would.”
When Jory chuckled, which seemed to me not at all the correct response, everyone seemed to take a breath at once.
“Chris has five screws in his left leg and two in his right shoulder. He used to set off all kinds of metal detectors, but that doesn’t happen much anymore.”
I watched Kurt run his hands over my skin, that looked completely normal now. “I told you I’m fine.”
“Yes, you did,” he replied, putting my sock back on and turning to look at my face. “Now tell me the story from the beginning.”
“Some of it is still classified.”
“He doesn’t care where you were or who you were saving or really anything about what you were doing up until the moment you were injured,” Jory told me. “That’s where he wants the narrative to begin.”
I turned back to Kurt, whose eyes were suddenly filling with unshed tears.
“I’m ready.” He declared, and I could tell he was girding.
“This is not a good idea.”
“It is. I have you with me, so yeah…now’s the best time.”
So I took a breath and told him exactly what happened. And when I was done, he leaned forward for a kiss that I willingly gave him.