Page 94 of Her Hidden Smile

Chapter Twenty-Four

I took a deep breath, trying to orient myself before opening my eyes. I’d woken up a couple of times before, but those times had been brief and really fuzzy. Now my mind felt pretty clear and I felt rested. Just anxious. Not scared. Anxious.

The reason I wasn’t scared was because of the man sitting in the chair beside my bed. I turned my head and opened my eyes so I could see him. It was the middle of the night, so there was only a low hum of electronics, and a faint light over my hospital bed. I heard a man and a woman talking outside my door. Not close by, but not far away, either.

I wondered how long I’d been here in the hospital. I took inventory of myself. I realized my arm was in some sort of contraption that had it pressed up against my chest so I couldn’t move it. Immobilized, that was the word.

Yeah, from where that whack job had pulled my arm out of the socket.

I could see clearly out of both eyes, so that meant the swelling on my left eye had gone away. That meant I’d probably been unconscious for what? Three days? And all that time, I had Renzo beside me. Renzo talking to me. Renzo reassuring me that he would take me back to my home as soon as possible.

He obviously had been talking to me about a lot more than just taking me home. Somehow, I knew exactly what had gone down with Rod. How Roan, Simon, Drake, and Aiden had all come in loaded for bear. How Roan and Simon had killed Rod.

Hell, I even knew every aspect of how my new alarm system worked, and the fact that Bella wanted me to make her more peach ice cream. Yep, my man had been very talkative while I’d been sleeping. No wonder he was sprawled out in that chair next to me.

“Renzo?” I whispered.

If he didn’t wake up, I’d just let him sleep. But if he did wake up, I was going to tell him to go home and sleep in a comfortable bed.

His deep brown eyes opened and he looked at me. He bent forward and coasted his fingers along the side of my jaw. I moved my hand so I could hold his, then I realized I had an IV stuck in it.

“Are you really awake this time, or are you messing with my mind again?” Renzo gently teased me.

“I’m not the ‘messing with your mind’ kind of gal. I don’t believe in it.”

“So, you’re awake.” He got up out of the chair and bent down and kissed my forehead, the tip of my nose, and then brushed the gentlest of kisses along my lips. He stopped too soon as far as I was concerned.

“Come back, honey. I’m not done with you,” I complained.

“We have things to discuss.”

“No. You’ve done enough talking. I’m surprised you don’t have laryngitis with all the talking you’ve done.”

“You heard that?”

“I must have. I even know that my alarm system will switch to a battery back-up during a power outage, and since it’s on wi-fi, it will switch to cellular during the outage as well. Since I didn’t know that before, I’m figuring you’ve been telling me this.”

Renzo gave me a rueful grin. “Yeah, I did tell you that. Do you also remember me saying that as soon as you woke up, I was going to break you out of here? That I would do it in the dead of night with a blanket over your head so you didn’t have to deal with anyone here at the hospital?”

I frowned. “I don’t remember that part. But I do remember you being grumpy with two nice nurses.”

“That’s because there were two of them. Remember how you said you always felt like a piece of meat at the burn unit, and part of that was because so many people filled your room all at the same time. I told them that they could come in one at a time, or not at all.”

“Renzo, honey, they’re just doing their jobs.”

Where had that come from? I’d never, ever, thought that way before about nurses.

I waited for the start of my panic attack. I was here in a hospital, talking about nurses coming in to poke and prod at me. Why wasn’t I hyperventilating?

“Millie? What are you thinking? You went away for a minute.”

“I’m waiting for my panic attack to start.”

He gave me a curious look, then looked at the bed and lowered the rail. He carefully scooped me up and positioned me over to the side, then he climbed in. I noticed he didn’t have his shoes on. It was a really tight fit until he then picked me back up and arranged it so I was nestled mostly on top of him.

I relaxed.

“So, you heard what I had to say, huh?”