Page 7 of Entwined Hearts
My brows furrowed. “What tattoo?”
“The angel on his arm,” she said as if it were obvious. My breath caught in the back of my throat. “You didn’t know? It’sgorgeous. It’s covered up by bandages right now, but those can come off in a few days.”
My legs were wobbly again, and I shook my head. “No, I didn’t know,” I whispered, unable to make my voice any stronger.
I couldn’t believe it. An angel on his arm. A tattoo on his body for me. After all this time.
We walked through another door, and there were beeping monitors and hushed voices. And when I looked up, there he was, smiling at me like I hung the moon.
“Sav.”
3
Weston
The ceiling tiles above me were doing a happy little dance, spinning like the wheels of a car. I didn’t know they made ceiling tiles that spun like that.
Ceiling tiles don’t spin, dumbass. You’re just stoned, I told myself. I frowned, blinking quickly. I looked at the IV in my arm and followed it to the pole next to me, and the bag that said morphine on it, even if it was a little blurry.
Okay, a lot blurry.
The door opened, and Savannah walked in. She wasn’t looking at me, but at the nurse who’d been taking care of me all night. I couldn’t tell if it was the meds and my busted head making her appear, or if it was real. I didn’t really care, honestly.
Hallucination or not, she was here. I grinned. “Sav.”
Her head whipped towards me, eyes red-rimmed and wide. “Weston,” she said, her voice soft, but far more apprehensive and guarded than the last time we spoke.
The nurse left us alone, and I was suddenly nervous. It was the first time we’d been alone in over a decade, the first time we’d even been within a hundred feet of each other in that long.
“Is this real?” I asked as she stepped closer toward my bed. But it wasn’t close enough. “Or are you in my head?”Please, please be real.
Her eyes ran over the bed before meeting mine again. “It’s real. I’m here,” she said as if she had to remind herself of it, too.
“Thank God.” I let my head fall back onto the bed and pushed back the wave of pain that came with it. “I thought that bull might’ve knocked something loose,” I said with a chuckle.
“That’s not funny, Weston,” she snapped. I looked over at her then. She had her arms crossed over her chest, her chin quivering. “You didn’t get up,” she said a few moments later, her voice brittle.
“Just needed a little nap. That’s all,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood for her sake and mine.
“I thought you were going to die,” she said, voice trembling as fresh tears rolled quietly down her cheeks. My smile faded. “I thought you were dead. You landed so hard, and then you didn’t get up. I didn’t”—she took a deep, shuddering breath—“I didn’t know what to do.”
My chest ached, not from my shoulder or head, but because of the devastated look on her face. Even after all these years apart, I had put it there. And I felt like shit for it.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” I whispered past the growing knot in my throat. “Come here, angel.” I held my hand out, hoping she’d take it and come sit with me.
“No.” She wiped her face harshly, sniffling. “You know, everyone knows about us now, right? The nurse came out there and told us you kept saying angel.”
She had always been so paranoid about everyone finding out and being upset. But not me. I couldn’t care less if I had tried, especially now that all that merger shit was behind us.
“I highly doubtthat’swhat gave it away,” I said, my voice slurring. Beau already knew, and if he knew, Claire did too, andGod only knew who else. “It doesn’t matter anyway, the ranches are merging.”
“It does matter, Weston!”
I winced at the shrillness in her voice, my head ringing. “Please don’t yell like that right now. My head is pounding.”
She pursed her lips, looking at the ground. “Sorry.”
“I’ll forgive you if you come over here so I don’t have to work so hard to look at you.” I didn’t care how much the lights bothered my eyes; I was going to soak up every second she stood in front of me. But since she walked through the door, she’d been a kind of Savannah-shaped blob…her features blurred too much for my liking.
