Page 45 of The Hero Within
Missed it because you're hundreds of miles away from me right now.
Missed it because you're dead in a ditch and I don't even know.
Please don't be dead.
I miss you so much. I wish you'd come home. Your place is here, and I'm keeping your room ready for you in the hopes that one day I'll turn around, and your shadow will fill the door....
It rambled on, but Eden slowly lowered the letter, her heart skipping a beat. She knew every line of it by heart anyway.
What did this mean?
Johnny Colton had been keeping the letter she wrote to her brother in his pocket, and from the frayed edges it had seen heavy use.
And she didn't have a damned clue why.
Chapter Ten
His chest itched like a bitch.
Johnny sat up slowly, prying his bandages away from the claw marks. The skin beneath was slick and whole, the bandages matted with rusted flecks of blood. He could still feel the pull of the wound deep inside, however, lingering with malignant fingers. That sensation would be gone by tonight, but it made him feel slightly vulnerable.
A couple of inches to the left... hell, not even that, maybe an inch and a half, or a twist of the angle of the strike, and he wouldn't be here.
Wargs were difficult to kill. Not impossible. And that bitch had been packing some serious vindictive urges over the loss of her kits.
Lucky. You were lucky.
No, you were careless.And the reason for that was wearing a white tank that revealed tanned arms, and a tight pair of jeans. He could feel that flash of desperation again as the shadow cat launched itself off the boulder, and he'd known Eden wasn't safe. Something had come over him. Something he hadn't really felt before. Something that lingered like a snarl of rage in the back of his mind.
Rage? Or another emotion? He poked at the feeling, but there were no answers there.
"Good morning," Eden said, eyeing him with what could only be described as a dangerously female look.
It asked questions, that look. It kept secrets. And it promised a world of trouble, though he wasn't quite certain how to interpret what type of trouble.
When it came to Eden McClain, it could be anything.
"Morning," he muttered, looking about for his bloody shirt. "You were supposed to wake me."
"We made do."
The shirt was folded neatly nearby, and his stomach suddenly dropped to zero gravity as he remembered the letter he had in the pocket. Her letter. The one she'd been curious about yesterday. Not that she knew her own hand had written it.
Stupid. There was no reason for him to have it still. He should have burned it long ago, but—
But.
Johnny stretched and hauled his shirt toward him, relief slamming through him when his fingers crushed the stiff paper in its pocket. He turned the move into something natural, as though he'd only been reaching for his shirt.
Eden returned to her task of frying breakfast—the smell of which had woken him. The way she leaned over the fire gave him a healthy view of her cleavage. "How are you feeling?"
"Alive. That's what counts, isn't it? How's the boy?"
She glanced toward the other set of blankets. "Dead asleep. I think you wore him out yesterday. Do you want breakfast?"
"Why? Is it poisoned?" He tossed back the blankets with a snort.
Only to feel a set of eyes glaring at him. "No. It's not poisoned. I just thought you'd like breakfast. And I wouldn't do that."
