Page 129 of Against The Tide

I can’t breathe for fear that my next lungful of air could be the last I share with the one person who has loved me without asking for anything in return. My heart is beating while his might stop at any given second.

Tick, tick, tick…

It’s all I hear as the pushier agent enters the room. They’re staring at me, standing there with piteous looks on their faces.

“I saw you,” I say as the short and mean one opens his mouth. “You were following me. All day. All fucking day you’ve stalked me, and you did nothing!”

God, I’m so damn mad that I can barely hear myself over my pounding pulse. It’s roaring in my ears as my words rip my throat raw.

“You could’ve stopped her!” My yell echoes around us, and I can’t bear to listen to the sound of my own voice.

There has to be something I can do apart from sit here waiting. It’s all I’ve done this entire time. Wait. Have patience. Smile through it. Have faith.

I’m done.

One step after another, I walk past the agents, pulling my hand free of Callie’s grasp when she tries to pull me back. The walls are closing in, and I won’t let them crush me. I can’t and I won’t.

“Mrs. Henderson,” one of the feds calls after me, and when I spin to look at them, my vision frays red at the edges.

“Stop calling me that!” I scream loud enough that a nurse stops to look in. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know what happened. And I don’t care!”

Turning, I leave the room, ignoring all the voices calling me back. The numbness and anger slowly ebb into loneliness with every step I take toward the elevator. I’m hollow as I get in and press the button to the phlebotomy floor followed by the one to close the doors in front of me as Rowan heads straight for me. At a glance, it could be Rhett. A very quick glance. If I didn’t know the way Rhett moves with long strides and an awing ease that’s so entrancing, I might have to do a double take.

The doors close before Rowan reaches me, and I stumble back with relief. Maybe he doesn’t blame me, but I can’t bear the worry and pain in his eyes. He’s hurting because of this mess my father left behind. The problem I brought to their doorstep. The doors open, and instead of getting out, I ride all the way down to the lobby.

It’s dark and late, and I don’t know what I’m doing down here when the only place I need to be is waiting for Rhett to come out of surgery. It’s been almost five hours. I can barely remember the last thing I said to him before Rowan pulled me off him and Callie took me away. It was so loud I could barely hear myself think, let alone what I was saying. I hope I told him I love him. I hope it was the one thing he was certain of.

“Ma’am.” A tall, broad security guy nods at me as I pause in front of the automatic doors.

I listen to the rain hammer the concrete outside and the asphalt beyond it. It’s the first thing that makes me smile even as the sweetest memory stabs at my chest. I’m entranced in that enthralling melody of Rhett’s. The one he hums when we’re lying in bed or swaying barefoot in Jo’s kitchen. The one he hummed in my ear when he danced with me on Duke’s boat and under the stars the night he asked me to move in with him.

Five nights. Four days. All the fear I felt then is nothing to the grief I feel now.

“Want me to take you somewhere?” A heavy arm wraps around my shoulders, and I keep inhaling breath after breath, waiting for the leather and brine scent that I love so much to fill my lungs along with the peppery and citrus notes of expensive cologne.

There’s nothing but the sharp metallic bite of blood. He bled so much that his blood is still following me everywhere. I’m drowning in it. Thick molasses that make it impossible to see past the stain on the pavement and that awful startle and panic and fear that darkened his eyes. It’s all I can see. The shudders and shivers of his entire being fighting the urge to let go still rack through me.

“I gave up on him once.” Rowan blows out a quick breath. He sounds winded enough that he must have taken the stairs all the way down. “I won’t do that again. I’ve lost far too many brothers already, and I won’t lose Rhett.”

“I was holding on so tight—” A half hiccup and half sob cuts me off. “—but I can’t remember if I told him I love him. I can’t remember if I kissed him properly this morning. We had breakfast, and I was so wrapped up in today that I don’t know…I can’t recall…”

Stepping outside, I head straight for the rain, only stopping short when it dawns on me that it’ll wash away the blood. Rhett’s blood. The only thing I have of him right now. I can’t part with it, not until I have him again. Only when I’m certain that he won’t leave me.

“I’ve been counting the seconds and watching the minutes turn into hours, and I keep trying to remember what I told him. But all I can think about is everything.”

“A lot has happened,” he tells me with a somber nod.

“No, not the mess. It’s what I keep calling it. The Mess.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“I keep thinking of everything he promised me. Everything we spoke about. Everything I know about him and everything he’s ever wanted. I don’t think he truly realized that he is everything. I don’t know how or when, but he became the air I breathe. And since this afternoon, I’m suffocating. Slowly but surely suffocating, and I’m scared that if this is it, I won’t be me anymore. Rowan—” I look up at him to find him staring me back, head tilted to the side and jaw clenched pensively. “—I’m scared that he’ll open his eyes and he’ll take one look at me and realize that he’s better off without me. What will happen then? How will I carry on? How will I be a good mom if my heart is gone?”

An unexpected smile pulls at the corner of his lips, and a long chuckle pushes past them as he combs his hair back off his face. “When Doc opens his eyes, he’s never going to let you out of his sight again. Trust me, Mermaid, you’re one of the family now. I wouldn’t be standing out here in the fucking cold if you weren’t.”

“I feel awful for dragging him into this whole rigmarole.”

“Tell you what, Avery—he wasn’t wrong this morning. You really do shoulder all and any blame going. No wonder he didn’t want to lay it all on you.”