“Hi, Maria.” Skye Summers approaches from the foot of my bed. “How’s my patient doing?” She squeezes my toes and I pull back.
“Hey, that hurts.”
“Good.” Skye writes something down on a tablet. “Capillary refill brisk. Your perfusion is improved. Now, if I can get your Guardian to step aside, I can see how you’re really doing.”
“I don’t remember what happened.”
“Liam, if you don’t mind?” Skye turns toward Liam. “There are a few doctor-patient things we need to do.”
“I’m not leaving her side.” Liam nearly growls at the doctor.
“Not asking you to leave, but how about we shift positions? Let me at the head of the bed and you take the foot?” Her soft voice isn’t one to dismiss. The woman speaks with quiet confidence she’ll be obeyed.
“Fine.” Liam bends down to kiss my forehead. Then he moves around to whisper in my ear. “I hope you’re ready because I’m never letting you go.”
Skye pretends not to hear and goes about performing a thorough examination. “You were cut with a knife over the left side of your body. Unfortunately, it cut deep and nicked your bowel. I had to go in and fix that and stop some internal bleeding. You lost a lot of blood, and we’re replacing that with saline. I don’t think you’ll need a transfusion, but we’ll figure that out once we land.” Skye goes on to tell me everything she did while I try to absorb what she says.
I drift off and wake up sometime later. Instead of Liam standing over me, there’s someone else.
“Hi.” Wolfe smiles down at me. “Looks like you’re going to pull through.”
“Thanks to you.”
He holds my hand and gives a little squeeze of my fingers. “Don’t tell Liam I told you this, but he was a total basket case while Doc Summers stitched you up. We practically had to put him in a straitjacket to get him to stay out of the sterile field.”
“It feels like you’re speaking English, but I don’t understand one word in ten.” Indeed, my thoughts are muddied, swimming with the painkillers Skye pumps into my veins. “Thanks for rescuing us.”
“Hey, it’s what we do.” Wolfe cocks his head to the side.
I slip in and out of consciousness during the rest of the flight and for a good part of the next few days. My body takes its sweet time to heal, and I battle a nasty infection from the knife wound that keeps me holed up in the hospital longer than I’d like.
Finally, I get the all-clear and I’m free to leave.
But I have nowhere to go. My home is in New Orleans.
“Hey, princess.” Liam knocks on the door. “Hear you’re getting the old heave ho’ from the doc.”
“Looks like.” I sit up in bed, feeling strong enough to do so on my own. I still get dizzy when I stand, but the feeling passes soon enough.
“I brought gifts.” He winks and flashes that devastatingly handsome smile. Most of the swelling on his face is gone. The bruising is still there, making him look like he got his ass handed to him, but it only makes him look even more handsome than before.
“What kind of gifts?”
“Nothing special. Mostly clothes because Doc Summers said I had to, but I brought you this.” He pulls out a small flowering cactus from behind his back.
“You brought me a plant?”
“Well, I know chicks dig flowers and shit like that, but after a few days they wither and die. Feels kind of weird giving a girl a gift that’s supposed to symbolize your love only to have it die. I figured a cactus was better.”
“Better?” His words make my stomach flutter. He definitely used the L-word.
“Yeah. First off, it’s practically impossible to kill. Secondly, it has a beautiful flower that lasts for a month. Or, at least, that’s what the lady said at the garden shop.”
“It looks beautiful.” I hold out my hands. “Let me see.”
Liam crosses the distance from the door to my hospital bed and sits down beside me. He hands me the fist-sized cactus and squirms like he’s nervous.
I’m missing something.
I turn the cactus this way and that and catch the back of my hand. Something’s missing on my finger. I don’t know when I lost the ring, or when the Guardians reclaimed it, but it makes me sigh.
Liam and I have known each other less than a week, but it feels like forever. And while whirlwind romances rarely last, for the briefest moment, I dared to let myself dream of a future with Liam by my side.
“Do you like it?” Liam leans forward as I spin the cactus in my hand.
“I do.” I’m not sure if I’m a fan of cacti—their spikes don’t really scream love—but I agree with him about the flowers.
“And …” He leans forward … expectantly.
“And … what?” I look at him, knowing I’m clearly missing something.
“Look closer.” He pushes the small cactus closer.
It’s the size of a small spud with long thorns radiating outward from every tiny inch of the spiky plant.
“What am I looking for?”
“Seriously?” He takes the cactus from me, looks at it closely, then spins it around and hands it back. “Don’t tell me you don’t see it. If you do, I’ll have to tell Doc Summers there’s something wrong with your vision.”
“Don’t do that.” I wasn’t really that impressed with the cactus and may not have really looked at it. To humor Liam, I do that now.
Something shiny catches my eye.
“What is that?” My breath catches.
“Pick it up and see.”
“Oh no. No way am I putting my fingers in there.” I shove the cactus back at him while trying to regain a little composure.
“You don’t have to …” He looks at the cactus. “Well shit, that wasn’t supposed to happen.” He tries to pull out the ring but only succeeds in getting impaled by the cactus. “Damn, that fucking hurts.”
“Is that supposed to be …” I can barely finish my sentence.
“Consider it a promise ring for my princess.”
“A promise ring? Since when is a solitaire princess cut diamond called a promise ring?”
“I didn’t want to scare you off with a full proposal and shit. I didn’t want to assume. I mean, I want to be with you, but if you need time … it’s nothing more than a promise. Or more. It can be more if that’s what you want.”
“You’re hopeless.” I can’t keep the tears from my eyes.
“So, what do you say?” The hopeful expression on his face doesn’t match his Guardian physique.
“To what? Are you proposing or promising?”
“I guess that depends on you.”
“Me?”
“Which one are you willing to say yes to?”
“Liam, you’re a total goofball, and I love everything about you.”
“And I love everything about you too. So …” His brows scrunch together. “Is that a yes?”
“Most definitely.”
“To which one?” His smile falters.
“I guess that’s something you need to figure out. Now, as far as this hospital bed goes, I’m eager to get out of here, take a real shower, and do absolutely nothing for a couple of days.”