Page 48 of Wired Ghost

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Sophie didn’t remember leavingthe Hilton, getting in the rented Continental, driving to the hospital. She didn’t remember parking, walking through the lobby, getting on the elevator, getting off at Jake’s floor. She didn’t remember finding her way to his room, or even the sight of Janice Dunn’s angry face or Patty’s smiling one as she walked in and approached the bed.

She only registered Jake.

Her lover was propped up with an IV, and a couple of monitors hooked up to register his vitals. His eyes were shut, but he was breathing on his own, and his cheeks were flushed with color. The ugly bruising of his injuries had faded; the bandages on his wounds were smaller.

He looked like he’d sat down to watch TV and fallen asleep.

“What are you doing here?” Janice snarled.

“That’s enough, Mother. Jake wants Sophie here.” Patty grabbed Janice by the arm and towed her out of the room.

Sophie sighed with relief to have Jake to herself. She pulled the plastic chair Janice had been sitting on closer to the bed and picked up Jake’s hand, holding it in both of her own.

“Jake. Mykun dii,” she whispered. “I love you. I’m here. Please come back to me.”

His hand twitched.

No other signs of consciousness.

She scanned the monitors—his heart rate was elevated, and the machine beeped rapidly. The brain activity graph was a tangled mass of intersecting, moving colored lines. His breathing had a wheeze and bubble to it, but his chest rose and fell regularly, a beautiful sight.

“Jake, I know you can hear me. I am by your side. I’m waiting for you for as long as it takes, and I won’t leave you if I can help it. But you need to wake up, so you can tell your mother that you want to see me.” Sophie kissed the abrasions on his knuckles. “Now I know where you get your temper. And stubbornness!”

Jake’s hand moved again. She glanced up. His mouth twitched too.

He was trying to wake up.

She’d give him some incentive. “I see that smile. You’re teasing me, Jake. Testing to see if I’ll still love you when you’re a comatose vegetable. Well, the answer is yes.” Sophie blew out a breath. “Furthermore, I want us to get married. I love you so much that I want to do that, even with the charming mother-in-law I’m going to get. So, if that ring your grandmother gave you isn’t spoken for yet—I’d like to wear it.”

His eyelids fluttered, and opened. His gray irises met her gaze squarely. “Sophie,” he croaked. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”

She’d been wrong. She still had tears to shed for him. Lots of them.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Sophie

Afternoon that Jake woke up

Sophie parkedthe Continental and went into the Hilton. She stopped at the desk, and asked for a single room—she planned to stay there until Jake was discharged from the hospital, and with her father gone back to Washington, there was no need for the suite. The clerk reassigned her, and she walked to the elevator to pack her things.

She had spent a glorious half hour alone with Jake, quietly sitting together, until Janice and Patty returned and it was Sophie’s cue to leave. Janice was crying with joy that Jake had woken, so Sophie decided to save the news of their engagement and let him share it with them. She slipped out, smiling at the sight of him holding his mother’s hand as he fell asleep.

Soon she was situated in a new room with a king bed and a balcony that overlooked Hilo Bay, a familiar view from when she and Jake had lived together in a nearby apartment. She made herself a cup of tea and stepped out onto the little balcony, sitting on a lounger to watch the afternoon wind ruffle the water of the Bay and the coconut palms do their hula dance.

There were a lot of people she should call to share the news about Jake: her father. Marcella. Connor. Lei. Alika and Armita. Even Raveaux. But it was all a little sudden and overwhelming to have the tables so completely turn, when she’d been braced for the worst.

She didn’t want to call anyone. She wanted to hug this delicious happiness close and savor it all by herself.

Jake had a way to go before he was fully restored to health; the attending physician had warned them that the full extent of any cognitive damage was still undetermined. It was better to wait and see how things unfolded, perhaps wait for him to tell his mother the news of their engagement. Certainly, Sophie didn’t want to be the one to do so!

Her phone, resting face down on the little glass table, buzzed in silent mode.

She picked it up and checked the screen:Pierre Raveaux.Maybe it was something to do with the case. The thought of speaking with him, telling him the news, felt good. He’d been so kind, so caring about Jake, and now she could tell him that they were engaged—she didn’t want Raveaux hoping for things that could never be.

“Hello, Pierre.”

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