Page 108 of Nothing to Fear

“You should take Ferguson,” she said.

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere. All the time.”

“My head is harder than yours. If anyone is going to take the blows, it’s me. You’re more important.”

“Than you? I am not.”

When she tried to lift her head, his strength held it down.

“Let’s not fight about it.”

There, in the hospital, they had to keep the volume down. And they should both be safe with security and so many other people in the structure. For someone to come to the room to finish the job, that would be more than random and even more than targeted, that would be someone with a serious vendetta.

“Darroch?” she murmured, closing her eyes.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Partners?”

He kissed her head again. “Partners.”

She shouldn’t be there and would have to sneak out before morning. Being with him justified the bending of hospital rules. She wasn’t there to hurt him or to push him. More thananything, she wanted him to be better, back at full health. If he needed her with him to speed that process, she’d stay at his side for as long as it took.

THIRTY-FOUR

“OH MY GOD!”

The exclamation jarred her from sleep.

“What the—”

“Darroch!”

Alice’s voice cut off the one from beneath her. Damn. Her vision still blurred, but there were vague figures standing around. His parents. His doctors… his brothers. Oh… no… Darroch, the hospital… it was coming back, and it wasn’t good.

“This is unacceptable,” a doctor said.

“Hospital sex, nice.”

“If there was intercourse, it will have to be reported.”

Were they different doctors? Why were there three of them now? What did that last one say?

“Interco—no! We didn’t have—there was no intercourse,” she said, burying her face against Darroch.

“Not for lack of trying on my part.”

“We’ll have to test if you’re still under the influence of drugs.”

And if he was, she’d probably need to talk to the cops… again.

“I’m sorry,” she said, breathing him in once more before sitting up to slither off the bed. “I meant to leave before you all got here.”

“We did nothing wrong.”

“Rest is vital to your recovery.”

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