I started to argue, but my ribs protested, and I groaned instead. Mia’s gaze widened. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not.”
More argument flickered at the edge of my consciousness. Sentences fell out of me, but made no sense, and my vision blurred hard enough to wipe my brain of just about anything. Anything but her.
Mia peered at me, then seemed to shake herself. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter right now. We can’t do anything until Rebecca comes back with more information, so why don’t you try and sleep?”
Sleep was the last thing on my mind, but my body had other ideas. Awareness slowly slipped away from me and my head found its way to Mia’s chest. Her breast pillowed my cheek, and her heart beat like a drum against my skin. Her fingers trailed softly over my face, and despite the deep ache in my torso, and the spinning sensation I couldn’t seem to shift, I felt as well as I ever had. Safe. Loved. My only fear was how long it would last.
Mia
Battered and bruised, Luke still slept like a dream, a serene version of his beautiful conscious self. I could’ve watched him for hours. Did, in fact, watch him for hours. A nurse came by and dimmed the lights, covering him with an extra blanket and offering me a pillow.
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to move him.”
Absently I pondered where Gus and Fran had got to, but I didn’t have the energy to worry about them. Rebecca had advised us not to leave the hospital. I could only trust they’d taken her seriously. Besides, my brother was a fucking hero. If Luke’s mum was safe with anyone, it was him.
But even as I thought it, I knew it wasn’t true. Luke was the toughest man I’d ever known, and this nightmare had nearly killed him. The strongest man in the world was no match for a speeding car, and in the dark hospital room, the fragility of life was more than I could contemplate.
With trembling hands, I slid my fingers into Luke’s silky hair, careful to avoid the swollen lump where he’d hit his head. He’d sustained a concussion and the doctors were fairly satisfied that there was no lasting damage to his brain or skull, but it was clear to me every time Luke met my gaze that the man I knew so well had been turned upside down. The grey tinge to his usually glowing skin, his obvious confusion at simple questions, and his inability to focus on the conversations around him... He wasn’t right, and neither would I be until he was healed.
I almost didn’t care about the rest of it. The name Morgan Benson meant nothing to me outside of this room, and his motivations seemed almost irrelevant.
Almost, because there was a part of me that couldn’t stop thinking about him. A garbled exchange with Luke had given me a face to match to his name, and I retraced the steps that had led me to his brother’s house a few days ago. The wedding booking had been last minute and panicked. The original, out-of-town florist had suffered a catastrophic fire at her premises, leaving her unable to fulfil her orders that weekend. As the only local florist free, I’d picked up the job. Coincidence? I had no idea, but the image of flames ravaging a building, creeping closer and closer to the people I loved most, kept me awake while Luke slept.
It was dawn when Rebecca returned. I started to move, but she stilled me.
“Don’t disturb him. I just came to tell you Morgan Benson has been arrested. I won’t know any more for a while, but right now, just focus on Luke, okay? I’ll be in touch as soon as I know more.”
She left as abruptly as she’d appeared, leaving me barely wiser than before. Luke had been so adamant that it was Morgan Benson who’d hit him that I hadn’t questioned it. The confirmation seemed pointless, but the relief that Benson was behind bars left me dizzy. He’d nearly killed Luke. What would I have done if I’d lost him? If the precious time we’d spent together in recent months was nothing more than a cruel joke?
Contemplating it hurt too much. And I didn’t need any encouragement to focus on Luke. I went back to gazing at him and fretting over his injuries. Gus joined me a little while later.
“The police took Fran home. They think she’s safe while they have that dude in custody, but they’ll keep an eye on her.”
“What about you? You should go home too.”
Gus snorted. “Fat chance. I couldn’t leave him any more than you could. And I kind of promised Billy I wouldn’t.”
“You spoke to him?”
“A few minutes ago. He’s freaking out a bit, but I think he has someone with him. At least I hope so. Fran’s in bits worrying about both of them.”
I hadn’t stopped to think about how having both her boys in different hospitals was affecting Fran. I’d kept Luke to myself all night without giving her a second thought.
As though he’d heard my thoughts, Gus shook his head. “She’s glad you’re here. Luke and Billy both hate being mothered, so if you weren’t, chances are he’d be in here on his own.”
“That’s not true. You’d be here.”
Gus shrugged. “I’d have tried, but it’s only you he wants, Mia. It’s always been you.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mia
Luke came slowly back into himself. By the afternoon, his bewilderment had faded, leaving his usual grumpy self with a hell of a headache.
“I’m going home.” He slid gingerly off the bed. “Where’s my boots?”
“Over there.” I made no move to fetch them, though. The ward doctor wanted to keep him in another night, and I hadn’t argued. The hospital had become a sanctuary of sorts, and I wasn’t quite ready to face the real world.
Luke had other ideas. He shuffled around the bed, coming to a stop by his work boots. He stared at them for a long moment before looking over his shoulder. “Any chance you could pick them up for me?”
“None at all. Get back on your bed.”
He glowered, but I loved it. The empty expression he’d worn for most of the previous night haunted me, and I’d take pissed-off Luke over that any day of the week.
After a beat of stubborn silence, he sighed and returned to the bed. He didn’t sit beside me, though. He sat on the chair and rested his head on my thigh. I rubbed the back of his neck, absently humming, until I remembered something I’d intended to tell him the moment he’d woken up from his last concussion-fuelled nap. “Rebecca called. She’s going home for a few hours, then she wants to come and see us this evening.”
Luke raised his head. “What for?”
“She didn’t say, but she seemed to think it was safe for Gus to go home, so...” I realised there wasn’t much point to what I was saying. “Anyway. That’s later on, so maybe you could try and eat something and come back to bed?”