Page 48 of Knight's Desire

Bridget already had the door open and ran inside to get help while Brick rounded the vehicle and lifted Isobel into his arms. The angle was awkward, but somehow he managed. Hope was there to close the car doors and hurried behind him inside. They turned Isobel over to the emergency staff, and since Bridget was a nurse at the hospital, she went with Isobel back to a room, leaving Hope and Brick in the waiting area. They watched the doors close and stared at the heavy wooden frames for several minutes.

“Do you think she’ll be alright?”

“Iz has taken harder hits than this. She’s the toughest woman I know.”

While his words were meant to be encouraging, she decided not to point out that he never answered her question.

“Come on. I need to move the SUV, but I can’t leave you alone. Even with the hospital security, I’d feel better if you’re with me.”

She turned to face him, thought of pointing out that no one would abduct her out in the open like this, but ultimately just nodded. Once again, they were back in the SUV, moving a short distance to an empty parking spot. Hope felt fatigue weighing on her limbs like a thousand-pound weight, and she wanted nothing more than to go home. Not to her house. That somehow seemed violated now that her stalker had gotten to her in her own front yard. She wanted to be home where she could cry on her father’s shoulder, be surrounded by her overprotective brothers and visit her mother.

Brick switched off the engine and started to get out, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. Once she had his attention, she felt her courage weaken, but she knew this was the right choice. This was what she had to do.

“I’m sorry. For all of this. I never wanted anyone to be hurt because of me. I never thought this guy would do more than leave me flowers and make creepy phone calls. I think…I think it’s better if I leave town for a couple of weeks. I’ve read that stalkers will lose interest if the object of their obsession moves or something. Maybe being out of sight for a while will make this guy give up and leave me alone.”

“Hope, none of this—”

“I know. None of it is my fault. It doesn’t change the fact that all of this happened because of me, even if I didn’t cause it.”

“What about the Shoppe? I thought now wasn’t a good time to close.”

She sighed. “It’s not, but I can take a couple of days to tie up some loose ends. Kayla can work from home to handle our online business, and I can stay in touch with our vendors to make sure our orders arrive on time. I can manage because I don’t have another choice.”

“Yes, you do.” He shifted in his seat until he was facing her. “I made a mistake tonight leaving your side. It won’t happen again. We’ll get this guy. I know we will.”

“And if you get hurt in the process?” Her voice caught, and she paused to collect herself. “I couldn’t bear that. I c-care about you. Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”

He stiffened, and she was stunned at the transformation. She found his shifts in mood hard to keep up with. He could be hard and unyielding, then sweet and protective, and then closed off, as if he wasn’t affected by her like she was by him. She wasn’t sure what any of it meant, and trying to figure it out only intensified her fatigue.

“We should get inside. Stay where you are, and I’ll come around.”

“Brick, please understand.”

“It’s okay. You have to do what’s right for you. The decision is yours. All I can do is respect it.”

He said the words she wanted to hear, but once they hung in the quiet, and she watched him step away from her, she realized how little she wanted him to do what she asked. For once in her life, she didn’t want to do what was best, but she wanted to do what she wanted. She yearned to take a risk without knowing how it would all end. She wanted to believe Brick was her hero who had come to save the day and give her the happily ever after she’d always wanted.

But this time, the risk could be far greater than the reward. This time, she would be the one protecting him from something that had the potential to destroy them both.

Chapter Twenty

The KSI family had a ritual whenever one of their own was in the hospital. Tristin would commandeer a private waiting area just for them. They posed an intimidating picture when they all gathered en masse, so the hospital administrators never had a problem keeping them separated from the people in the main waiting areas.

The tension in the room was thick as they waited for Isobel’s doctor to appear with a report. The only ones missing were Kat, who was home on doctor-ordered bed rest for her pregnancy, and Wings, who went to Charlottesville, Virginia, to escort Egan O’Connor back to be with Isobel. Wings wasn’t comfortable letting Egan drive himself to Grayson Cove. Once he found out about Isobel, he would flip his shit and be in no shape to handle a car in his haste to get to his girlfriend’s side.

Brick could almost understand how Egan would feel. He wanted nothing more than to be at Hope’s side, but he forced himself to stand with Tryst and Jay at the opposite end of the room. Even with the distance between them, he was drawn to her. His eyes had looked at little else but her since they arrived. Her hair was disheveled, her beautiful eyes shadowed by the dark circles of exhaustion. Though she sat close to the other women, she remained reserved and spoke only when they spoke to her first.

He could almost hear the silent beating she was giving herself. She believed what happened to Isobel was her fault, and nothing anyone said would change that. She convinced herself that she had to protect them instead of the other way around. Now she planned to leave town to escape all of it, and he was powerless to stop her.

“She can’t go back to her house now.”

He acknowledged Jay’s words with a nod without looking away from Hope. “She’s leaving for her hometown in a couple of days. She thinks this guy will leave her alone if she gets away.”

“Even if she leaves, we’re getting this son of a bitch. He came after one of us, so no way are we letting him get away with that.”

“She can stay with us,” Tristin offered. “Kat would probably like the company, and I’d like to see this guy try to break through our security.”

“She won’t go.” Brick’s eyes darted over to his friends before landing back on Hope. “She blames herself for what happened to Iz. She won’t risk something happening to Kat and the babies.”

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