Page 83 of Sniper's Pride

Mariah blinked a few times, but she couldn’t seem to form the questions that crowded her mouth. Her mother sighed, adjusting herself in the bed, and kept talking as if she’d heard those questions all the same.

“You didn’t need all that McKenna nonsense every time you turned around, and you know as well as I do that they would have camped out in your front yard if you’d have let them.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You had a life, and I thought it was the one you wanted. I didn’t see any reason why you should beat yourself up about separating yourself from your roots, so I did it for you.”

“I abandoned you,” Mariah whispered.

“Baby girl, I let you go.” Rose Ellen’s tough mouth curved upward. “I wanted you to go. You spent your whole childhood cleaning up messes and taking care of your brothers and sisters. You deserved an easier life. I figured that’s what he was giving you.”

“You did not. You hated him on sight. And you were right.”

“I didn’t want to be right.” Rose Ellen reached out and took Mariah’s hand between hers. “There’s precious little happiness in this world, Mariah. I’ve never had more than a nodding acquaintance with it myself. And no two people’s happiness looks the same. You’ve never heard me call you names for going after what you want, and you never will.”

“He made me choose,” Mariah heard herself say, as if it was torn from the deepest part of her. “And I chose wrong. I’m so sorry.”

Her mother let out that laugh Mariah had always loved. A rough, glorious cackle, made up of late nights and cigarettes and pure joy.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” she demanded. “I’ve spent my whole life making the wrong choice. I won’t lie—that’s the only choice I know how to make. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s this: You can’t spend your time beating yourself up for doing what you thought was right. You can only try to do better the next time. Life isn’t about making the right choice, Mariah. It’s about what you do after the bad ones blow up in your face, the way they always do. Do you lie down? Or do you get up and try again? I could personally teach stupid to a bunch of rocks, but I learn from my mistakes. Or I hope I do. And either way, I always, always keep going.”

And Mama had never been one for extended displays of physical affection. She didn’t like to cuddle, and truth be told, she’d never been all that warm. She wasn’t that kind of mother. But they were both in the hospital tonight, and not dead the way they could have been.

Whatever the reason, Mariah lay down next to her mother, resting the unhurt side of her face on the pillow. Rose Ellen wrapped her arm around Mariah, keeping her elevated leg out of the way.

And they lay like that for a long, long time.

•••

When Mariah woke up, it was because she was in Griffin’s arms again.

She knew it was him before she knew what washappening. It was the scent of him, maybe. Or the particular strength of his arms and the comforting wall of his chest. She cradled the part of her face that didn’t hurt in the crook of his neck, let him push her IV along, and only complained when he set her down in her hospital bed again with a gentleness that might have made her cry if she’d had any tears left in her.

“You can’t go wandering off,” he told her gruffly, standing there at the side of her bed, his dark eyes glittering with things she knew he’d never say. She felt them anyway. “People think you’re lost. After the last two days, that makes everybody jumpy.”

“You found me.” She smiled as best she could with her poor, swollen face, and the funny thing was, it hurt less when it was directed at him. “You always do.”

Griffin stayed where he was beside her bed, like some kind of sentry, and it took her a minute to realize that he hadn’t gone off somewhere to shower and change, maybe eat a big dinner, or whatever it was mighty commandos did after saving the day. He was wearing the exact same thing he’d had on out there at the barn. The same cargo pants covered with dust and dirt, and the same black T-shirt that was really more a love letter to his remarkable torso.

It made her heart flip over, imagining Griffin finishing up with the police and the federal officers—who likely had a lot of questions for the man who’d fired the bullet that had killed her abductor—and then racing right over to see her in the hospital.

Almost like he cared.

And Mariah had told him she loved him a thousand times or more by now, but she knew better than to say itjust then. It was the way he stood there like he was carved from stone. Or wished he was, anyway.

He was still the most beautiful man she had ever seen. And now she knew what he could do. She’d seen it. She’d felt her abductor hit the ground right behind her, and only then had she understood that it hadn’t been a bee she’d heard go by in that second before she’d beensurehe was about to grab her.

She must have run another five steps at least before she heard the shot.

Griffin was beautiful, he was indisputably lethal, and as she gazed up at him, she knew that she had never seen another human being so lonely.

She wanted to save him the way he’d saved her. If she could have, she would have gathered him up in her arms and held him close until she melted away all those solitary walls he had put up around him.

And even lying down in her hospital bed, she could see that he was gearing himself up to lay down the law. She even had an idea of what he planned to say.

But she wasn’t ready.

She just wasn’t ready.

“Will you stay with me?” she asked him softly. “Just until I fall asleep?”

He wore that anguished look again, the way he had back in the barn. He was going to say no. He was going to refuse her and leave, as she had no doubt that he wanted to. She held her breath—

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