Page 94 of Under Fire

“And…now, areyouokay?” Alisa asked him, hanging her stethoscope back around her neck.

Her focus drifted up and down his face, analyzing whatever he’d felt on his cheek.

“Yeah, what is—” He touched the cool spot again, then realizedexactlywhat it was.

For a split second, he had felt like Katy was dying…in his arms. For a split second, he’d faltered. A cool rogue tear had fallen from his eye. Stunned as hell, he pulled his hand back from his cheek, hovering it in mid-air, his gaze drifting up to Alisa as she watched the realization wash over him. That’s what crying felt like. Her clever eyes saw through him, maybe more than he saw through himself.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she whispered, shooting him a knowing look.

A grin crossed his lips, along with the overwhelming desire to reach out and kiss the knowing look off her goddamn flawless face.

“Sit tight,” Alisa directed, surprising him yet again with how cool and collected she was—certainly in comparison to how he’d been.

He had to give her credit.

As Alisa strode back to brief the nurses and doctor, Warren admired her from a distance, holding Katy’s hand beside him, squeezing it in reassurance. He looked back down to the little blonde girl who looked so much like her dad. Warren couldn’t count the times he’d been on an operation after that, deep in some hellhole, wishing that God had taken him instead.

He tightened his grasp on Katy’s little hand, her baby blue eyes, just like his, blinking up at him. The way she licked her bottom lip told him she was trying to think of the right words to say something. He reached over, brushing a tear off her apple-shaped cheek. Something about being with Alisa had opened him up to what was really happening inside him—a storm of sorts. A storm of his own fears.

I’m allowed to make mistakes. I’m allowed to be human.

He let his teeth graze his lip as he thought of the words that had never left him.

He darted his gaze back to the door where he saw Alisa jotting notes in a chart as she spoke with the doctor about a different patient in the ER. Even after everything that had happened the night prior, the past week, he had to sit back and admire how she had maintained a completely professional demeanor throughout the whole scene, not breaking the depth of their relationship to anyone.

And that was a relationship he wasn’t prepared to let slip away.

Not with a woman like that.

“I don’t want you to go back,” Katy said, breaking into his thoughts.

“I know.” He caressed her hand, turning his full attention to the child. “I don’t want to go back, either.”

“Can you stay home this time?” she asked in a tiny voice, the same question she’d asked too many times. “Please.”

Warren watched her little eyes fill with tears again, knowing how he’d failed her. When he’d come back from that tour, with his slashed up back that had one hundred stitches in it, he’d had more scars deep inside that had needed to heal. He knew it would be impossible to forgive himself for all that, for everything he’d done and failed to do, but at some point he was going to have to reckon with the fact that he was pushing Katy away.

He had to forgive himself for his mistakes.

He owed it to Geoff to watch over his little girl. He owed it to Brooke.

“Katy, I love you,” he whispered to her in his gruffy voice.

“It’s okay. I love you, too.”

Her little red pout trembled, but he stopped her. “I’m sorry I kept leaving.”

Somewhere along the line, he realized that he’d been lying to himself.

“I’ll stay.” He offered her a caring smile, knowing he was changing his life without even having a plan. He just knew he couldn’t let her go, not anymore.

She reached up with her little hands, embracing him. He sank into her, knowing that he was doing things that for a long fucking time he’d never thought he could do. And as he refocused on Alisa in the distance, he wondered how to get her back and how to make their fake engagement areal one.

* * * *

Being discharged from the hospital had been bittersweet, Warren thought as he walked out of the main doors with Alisa by his side. He told Brooke to wait with Katy inside. He was going to grab the truck and pull it around for them. It was weird being at a civilian hospital but weirder having to hide his hardened dick for a good portion of it. Alisa gave him the type of warm and fuzzies that used to scare him.

He gazed over at Alisa, still a little quiet. He knew exactly what was going through her head, everything still so unresolved. He squared himself to Alisa. He was damn happy not to be in the ER anymore, damn happy that everyone was just fine, but was twisted up letting his chick out of his sight again.

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