“I was not fucking kidding when I said you’re never leaving my sight again. Not after all of this.” I push back from the bathroom counter I set her down on. “You clearly need a keeper.” She narrows her eyes on me.
The only reason I even had her inhaler with me is because it was one of the things she’d left behind in my room. I’ve been so desperate to find her I was willing to take any part of her that I could get.
“Answer me this, precious. Why did you need your inhaler? You were fine up until the second we’d made it back to my room. Then what happened?” I don’t even want to say it but I’m so pissed off right now. I can barely think straight. “Did I scare you?”
I would think if she was going to have an attack it would have happened well before we’d gotten all the way back here. I must have scared her somehow.
Her teeth sink into her bottom lip as she looks down at her hands in her lap. I put my finger under her chin to bring her eyes back up to mine.
“Why are you scared?” I push for an answer, needing to know what I did to make her feel that way in order not to do it again in the future.
“No one knows what happened to me that night.”
“What night?”
“April 3rd.”
“Then you hadn’t been gone that long. We made love and I went into the office. When I’d gotten back all your shit was gone.” Her brows pull together.
“I was found alone and unconscious in a parking lot.” Everything inside of me stills. “Someone hit me in the back of the head.” She lifts her hand and proceeds to touch the spot of her injury. “They think it was with a metal pipe. I don’t remember any of it. Not even them finding me. They put me into a medically induced coma because my brain was swelling.”
Anger unlike anything I’ve ever felt rolls through me. I turn, storming out of the bathroom. I don’t make it far because I can’t control myself any longer. I need to release some of this anger before I explode. I've already scared her enough. I drive my fist into the wall. I welcome the pain, needing to feel something besides the rage before I murder someone.
“Dane.” She barely whispers my name. I turn to see her standing in the doorway of the bathroom. “Are you leaving?” She shifts on her feet, something she does when she’s uncertain about something.
“Told you. You’re not leaving my sight. Wherever I go, you go.” We sure as shit aren't going home. Not until I find out who did this. I will use every resource I have to find out who hurt her and our baby.
She turns to head back into the bathroom. I take a deep breath, flexing my hand. Blood drips down from my knuckles. To my surprise, she comes back out of the bathroom with a small towel in her hand. She heads straight for me.
“Let me see.” She reaches for my hand. I let her take it. She can touch me anywhere she wants. “Why did you do this? It’s not helping anything,” she scolds me. I try not to smile.
“It made me feel better.” She rolls her eyes, holding the towel against my knuckles.
“I was scared,” she admits. I flinch at her words. There is no hiding it.
“I would never harm a hair on your head. You are and will always be my precious girl.” She tilts her head, giving me a small smile. One I’ve missed every day since she disappeared.
“I like when you call me precious. It makes me—”
“Feel loved,” I finish for her. My Kennedy was all alone in the world until I found her and took her for myself.
“I’ve said that before.”
“Yes.” She stares up at me for a long moment.
“I’m sorry I felt that way. I have no idea what happened to me or if someone was trying to kill me or if I was trying to get away.”
“You think you ran from me?” I keep my face expressionless. The thought of her actually trying to get away from me for some reason almost brings me to my knees.
“Not really. When you pushed me back into the bathroom earlier I should have been freaking out then. Instead I let you kiss me. It felt right.”
I relax more. We have enough shit to deal with. I don’t need her thinking I’m the bad guy in her life.
“I started thinking about the baby. I got freaked out. It’s not just me that I have to worry about anymore.” She puts her hand on her stomach. “Thoughts of something happening to the baby started to overwhelm me.”
“I still can’t believe you’re pregnant.” I rest my other hand on top of hers. I try to push down the thoughts of what I’m going to do to whoever did this. They hadn’t only gone after my girl. They put our child in danger too.