Page 32 of Frozen Secrets

She looked down at the unmoving woman pinned to her chest and instantly released the chain burrowing into Lila Mercer’s neck. The metal hit the ice, but no new cracks surfaced. Someone was running toward them. Winnie thought she might recognize the woman with the gun raised from Adrial’s office, but she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything right now. Lila slid down her body, collapsing face-first onto the ice. Dead? She couldn’t tell.

“It’s over, Red.” Dragging her into his chest, Adrial pressed his mouth to her forehead in a grounding kiss. “It’s over.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Another set of stitches. And a fifteen-minute lecture about having torn through a few of the older ones. Once he’d had Winnie looked over by the ER doctor on call, he’d kept his word, sitting without complaint while his wounds had been cleaned, stitched and dressed. Apart from a mild case of hypothermia, all in all, Adrial felt they’d really walked away in one piece.

Two cups of hospital cafeteria coffee weighed heavily in his good hand as his injured arm had been jammed back into the sling. He turned down the hallway where Winnie had been put into a room at the end. Bruises ached up and down his body, but he’d suffer them all over again if it meant Winnie had walked away unscathed.

For the most part. Her body temperature was still too low an hour ago, but the physicians here knew the drill. She was in good hands.

Lila Mercer was alive. Well, she had been up until a few hours ago. For twenty years, BHPD and Black Hollow had believed one telling of events. The twenty-year-old nurse had been a victim of random violence, beaten and drowned in Hollow Lake by her killer. Arthur Hutton had done a damn fine job ensuring nothing endangered those lies, but from what he and Winnie had put together over the past few days told a different story. That her father had gotten involved with a woman who was not his wife, accidentally impregnated her and then did whatever it took to make sure his infidelity wasn’t discovered. It’d taken some gentle soothing, but Winnie had admitted to her theory that her father had broken into the Mercer house not to kill Lila’s mother, but to kill the daughter he didn’t know he’d fathered. Unfortunately, her theory was entirely possible. He wasn’t sure when Arthur Hutton had decided murder was the only option to hide his mistakes, but a lot of people had suffered for it. Including Winnie.

Baxter had worked through the evidence recovered in Hutton’s attic. Most of it had lost its efficacy to do any good, but the underwear—labeled with the Mercer case number—had managed to survive whatever animal lived in the box. Samples were being taken as they should have been years ago and processed in an independent lab separate from the department. As much as Adrial wanted to believe Arthur hadn’t recruited anyone else at the station to help him cover up his mistakes, BHPD would be investigated. Thoroughly.

Adrial set his sights on a man in a suit at the end of the hall, loitering outside of Winnie’s room. The guy paced back and forth a few steps, then raised his hand to knock. Only to back off and start pacing again. Adrial’s grip on the cup holder tightened as his brain instantly jumped to a name. Dan Reynolds. Winnie’s ex-husband. “Help you?”

The suit did nothing to add years to the ex-husband’s boyish features. Hell, from where he stood, Adrial was surprised there weren’t patches in that meticulously maintained beard. Dan ran on the thin side, barely filling out the shoulders of his very expensive-looking suit jacket as he straightened. “Oh, I’m…” He ran a hand through long, styled hair. A hand very much sporting a plain silver-colored wedding ring. “I’m here to see my wife.”

“Ex-wife.” Adrial couldn’t keep the growl out of his response. “Last I heard, the divorce was final, and you’d run off with one of your coworkers.”

Confusion only graced that not-so-mature face for a fraction of a second. “Do I know you?”

“We’ve never met. Adrial Tucker.” He nodded toward Winnie’s hospital room door. He’d already been gone too long, and he knew how she could get into her head. She’d probably already started blaming herself for being the one to put Lila Mercer down and for him getting stabbed—again—and he just couldn’t have that. None of this was on her, and he wouldn’t let her spend a single day believing she should’ve done something different. “Excuse me. You’re in my way.”

But Dan didn’t move. His jaw snapped shut as he shifted on those shiny shoes of his. “Adrial? The Adrial? The guy she was engaged to before I met her?”

Adrial pulled up short, turning to face the man who’d broken off pieces of Winnie without ever having the intention of putting her back together. Winnie had talked about him to her ex. That shouldn’t give him as must satisfaction as it did, but he was going to carry that with him for the rest of his life. “The one and only.”

And he meant that. He’d be Winnie’s only from here on out. The only one whom she turned to in the middle of the night for warmth, the only one she trusted with her fears and her secrets and her uncertainty, without judgment—the only one she would need to rely on. He’d spend the rest of his life earning that title if that was what she wanted, and he’d do it with a damn smile on his face and gratitude she’d chosen him.

“So…what?” Dan motioned toward the door. “You guys are back together?”

“Yeah.” Adrial took a single step forward. That was all he needed to make it clear Dan Reynolds was not stepping one foot into that room, or darkening Winnie’s doorstep ever again. He’d lost that privilege the moment he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. “We are.”

The ex’s laugh didn’t carry an ounce of humor. “Wow. Didn’t take her long, did it? We haven’t even been divorced for two months, and she’s already screwing—”

“Let me make one thing clear, Mr. Reynolds. If you finish that sentence, you will leave this hallway on a stretcher. Understand?” His knuckles ached under the pressure of his hold on the cup holder. Winnie deserved hot coffee. “Now, I’m guessing things didn’t work out with whatever coworker you were using to cheat on Winnie with, and you’re wishing you hadn’t thrown away the life she helped you build. I can understand that, but you’re not getting through that door. You will not come here again unless she invites you. You will not try to contact Winnie unless she reaches out to you first and you will not use anyone else to try to get to her. Is that clear?”

“Whatever, man.” Dan took a step back, like a halfway intelligent man Adrial believed he could be if he pulled his head out of his ass. “Just tell her to stop using my insurance and change her emergency contact information. I’m not paying for these hospital visits.”

“Noted.” Adrial watched the cheating son of a bitch scramble down the hall until Dan was out of sight. Sucking in a deep breath, he cleared the tension and simmering rage from his body before managing to get the door open and face Winnie.

She’d buried herself beneath a dozen separate layers of blankets the nurses had been all too willing to cart in here, in addition to the electric blanket. How she wasn’t burning up, he had no idea. No. He knew why. Her body temperature had dropped so low from exposure to the lake’s cold depths, her organs had begun shutting down, and they were working overtime to regulate. Fortunately, Michal had gotten to the lake in time to get them to the hospital before Winnie fell unconscious. “Please tell me whatever is in those cups is hot.”

“Coffee.” He crossed the room, offering her the first cup.

She wrapped both hands around the plastic and pressed it to her chest. He saw a shiver coast between her shoulder blades, and Adrial tugged the blankets higher as she sat up. She took her first sip, closing her eyes. “Thank you.”

“You need me to adjust the heat level on the blanket?” He searched for another layer he could add, but he’d been warned that while Winnie would want to add to her already heavy nest, they had to be careful of overheating her at the same time. The human body was a delicate thing, and she’d already been through too much in the span of a few days.

“It’s already as high as it can go.” Embarrassment laced her words, but he’d get another electric blanket if she needed. “The nurse said I have to be patient.”

“Ah.” He took a seat in the chair he’d claimed since their admission. “Your favorite instruction.”

“I told her to shove it.” Her smile lit up her whole face as she took another sip. “I thought I heard voices outside the door.”

His chest tightened as he leaned back in the chair, careful of the wound at the back of his shoulder and how he adjusted his thigh. Getting another round of stitches would take him away from Winnie, and he wasn’t leaving until he absolutely had to. “Dan was here.”