“Don’t, Jonquille,” he cautioned sharply.
At the same time, Rubin barked an order from the doorway. “Stop that right now, Jonquille. What are you thinking? Do you want to fry your brain completely? You could have burned out your talent, for all we know. I can’t even examine you yet.”
She didn’t hear him move across the room, nor did she feel his energy, but he was suddenly sinking down onto the bed beside her, taking her hand, gripping it tightly.
“You do sound like a bear, Rubin,” Nonny chastised, but she sounded gentle. “Don’t growl at her. She’s emotional and very frightened. You need to reassure her, not upset her.”
“I know, Nonny. I’m sorry, Lightning Bug. You scared me again. I don’t seem to do well with you scaring me. Maybe we’ll have to put you in a little room for the next few months where I know you’re safe, just to let me breathe.” He brought her hand to his mouth so he could press kisses to the center of her palm. “Thank you for saving my life. What you did was impressive, to say the least, but it could have killed you.” There was warning in his voice.
Jonquille reached for her voice. She might not be able to pry open her eyelids to see his beloved face, although she was determined that she would. Her hand trembled in his with the effort to rub one finger along his, that was how weak she was. “There is no living without you, apparently.”
Her voice was more of a whisper, a thin wispy sound barely moving from her mouth to his ear, but he heard. She knew he did because he tightened his hand around hers and suddenly leaned down to her face.
“I’m in love with you, Jonquille. I know you think that’s impossible because we haven’t really been together, but I am. We’ve shared minds, so I can see who you are. It was impossible not to, and hopefully you could do the same with me.”
It had never occurred to her that a man like Rubin would ever truly be in love with her. He might be paired with her because Whitney had set it up that way, but to actually love her for herself, that seemed unlikely. Rubin wasn’t a man to lie. It wasn’t in him. She had to open her eyes. As if Nonny could read her mind, that soothing cloth passed gently over her eyelids with a cool liquid and her lashes fluttered.
She forced her eyes open. Just a little. Not a lot. She wasn’t asking for the moon, she just needed to see his face. That face. She loved his face. She needed to see him desperately. To know he was alive and well. She would forever relive that moment when that bullet had torn into his chest and she’d seen the destructive path it had taken. For her, it had been slow motion.
She had envisioned it in her mind. She was already running, calling to Diego. To Luther. Ignoring everyone else on the field. There was only Rubin. Her Rubin. She had to save him. She knew what that bullet was doing inside his chest, and she was determined that he wasn’t going to die. The one thing about her few understood was that she could be determined, or stubborn if you preferred. She didn’t stop if she set herself on a path, and her path had been to save this man.
She got her eyelids to cooperate just enough. He was there, filling her blurry vision. She didn’t know if there were tears in her eyes or if her vision was messed up from using her talent, but it didn’t matter. She would have given her life to save his.
He leaned close again, kissing the knuckles of her hand, looking into her eyes with his dark, dark ones. His hair was thick and a little unruly at the moment. She would have brushed it back from where it tumbled on his forehead, but she couldn’t find the energy to lift her hand, so she just took in his chiseled features. Rubin was a handsome man. At least she thought he was. His jaw was firm, with a perpetual shadow on it. She liked that too.
“Glad you woke up, Jonquille. You had me worried.”
His voice was soft. Intimate. Just for her. She could see he really had been worried. Her stomach did a crazy little somersault. “Sean?” She mouthed the name more than said it aloud. She was worried.
“Joe went to assess his men. A few of our team went with him for safety. We’ve got eyes on them. It’s been two days. We’ll go when you’re on your feet. Wyatt’s going tomorrow. Joe sent for him. Apparently there are two men in bad shape and they need help right away. Wyatt is an excellent doctor. They’ll try medically first. We’ll help them, Lightning Bug, no worries, if those two can’t. You just need to rest and heal. In another day, I’ll be able to help you heal faster. Nonny is a healer and she’s been working on you. Zeke looked you over for me. He’s an excellent doctor.”
She hadn’t meant to pull back slightly, but she had. She wasn’t used to anyone getting near her. Nonny, she was all right with. She liked Nonny with her soothing touch. She appeared to be an older woman, small, almost fragile-looking until you looked into her sharp, faded blue eyes. She had silver hair she wrapped into a bun on top of her head. Her movements were calming and very graceful.
“Zeke?”
“Ezekiel saved our lives when we were kids,” Rubin said. “He took us in. Diego and me. We would have died on those streets. We understood the mountain, but not the city. He taught us how to live on the streets and the value of education. He’s family, sweetheart.”
She wasn’t so certain they would have died. They might have been criminals, but they wouldn’t have died. They were survivors. She was certain Ezekiel had to be a survivor as well. If he valued education, he had led Rubin and Diego to where they were now. She decided she might like the man.
“Zeke is a doctor as well. All of us in this unit are now. Some specialize. We fly into hotspots and drag our soldiers out of nasty places. You know the drill. It’s what we do.”
He rubbed his chin back and forth over her knuckles. She found the feeling of his day-old growth mesmerizing.
If she didn’t move her head at all, not even one tiny bit, the excruciating pain could be held at bay. Otherwise, she was certain her head would shatter. The insides of her chest felt like they were floating around with nothing to anchor them, smashing into one another if she moved so much as an inch. She decided animation while she talked wasn’t worth it. She knew how to be still when she needed to be, and she forced herself to remain still.
“Zeke’s going with Wyatt in the morning. I’m going to work on you and then we’ll go when you’re ready. Once we get Sean’s men in shape, we’re going to visit Chandler. None of us like the idea that the pilot has been in his hands this long. We can only hope he’s okay.”
She had forgotten about the other pilot. Her brain wasn’t thinking clearly. “Luther?”
“Not a scratch. That man is like a cat, but with a million lives. How did you know about his caves? Diego said you told him to take me to the caves.”
“It was in your mind. All of it. The surgery, all of it. I followed what was in your mind. I wouldn’t have been able to do that on my own.” She wouldn’t have. Rubin had envisioned the cave, then his chest and more precisely the surgery. He had continued to do so as long as he was conscious. That had been a lot longer than she thought he could possibly be. The pain alone should have knocked him out, but he’d mapped out the entire surgical procedure for her.
“I remember that now. Barely, in the back of my mind. You said you don’t forget things you see. I counted on that. I stayed awake as long as I could. You really don’t forget anything.”