“Stop it.”
“He cut your hair. He cut you. You didn’t see Jonas, babe, you were livin’ your nightmare and me and my boy were livin’ an entirely different one but, trust me, Ace, it was a fuckin’ nightmare.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“I don’t need that shit from the TV to remember it. I don’t need it on the phone. I don’t need it in town. I don’t need it shoved down my throat everywhere I turn which means I don’t need it from my son.”
I moved as swiftly across the room as I could and put my hands to his abs.
“Lower your voice, Captain,” I hissed.
“He took you from me,” Tate bit back.
“He didn’t, Tate, I’m right here,” I reminded him.
“He took you from me, right from my goddamned house.”
“He didn’t. I’m right here.”
“I called him to take you to work, bring you home. I trusted that sick fuck to keep you safe and he took you from me.”
There it was, the crux of his anger. Tate was blaming himself.
I pressed into him, lifting my hands to hold each side of his head and I shook it, repeating, “Baby, I’m right here.”
Tate closed his eyes.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I whispered and Tate opened his eyes.
“I trusted that sick fuck to keep you safe,” he repeated.
“I trusted him too,” I told him. “I opened the door to him. So did Tonia. So did Neeta.” I fitted myself into his front and slid the fingers of both of my hands into his hair, pulling his neck to bent and his face closer to mine. “And I didn’t do anything wrong either. He’s crazy and now he’s incarcerated.”
“It’s gonna haunt you,” he informed me.
“It’s not me who’s not sleeping,” I reminded him and his whole body jerked.
This was true. I’d only been home three days but every night I knew he woke because, when he did, he woke me. And when I was in the hospital, he stayed with me all day, all night, the last night climbing into my hospital bed with me and holding me close. I woke twice because hospitals were noisy and both times I saw Tate awake, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
I pushed up on my toes so my face was an inch from his and I whispered, “You’re beside me, baby, I’m sleeping just fine.”
Both his hands came up to cup the back of my head as he murmured, “Laurie.”
“I lay on that mattress and I knew you’d find me. I ran through those woods, Tate, and I knew you’d be looking for me. I was shouting because I knew you’d hear me. And I ran right into you because you were coming for me.”
His mouth lowered to mine. “Baby.”
“Mack’s right, that was pure drama on TV but what they said was true. You might have made a lot of money playing football but you make this world a safer place doing what you do and you didn’t even know the faceless people who’s futures you changed by putting bad guys behind bars. But now one of them isn’t faceless, Captain. She’s standing right here.”
“Jim-Billy –”
“Got there first,” I cut him off, “but you were not even ten minutes behind. Dalton was taking his time, he had all night. Even if Jim-Billy didn’t get there, you would have.”
“Lauren –”
“And you think, knowing that, knowing that four years they’ve been looking for him, four years and ten women before me, he only had an hour with me before you got to me, you think after that, I lay my head on a pillow by yours and I relive it? You think I can’t cope? You think I don’t know I’m safe, right here, beside you?”
His hands at my head lifted me up a centimeter and his head slanted, his mouth taking mine in a wet, thorough kiss that would have been fantastic if it hadn’t made my breathing erratic which made my wound hurt.
When his mouth let mine go, I whispered, “I love you kissing me, honey, but –”
“Right,” he muttered, cutting me off, then he let me go, stepped back, bent and lifted me in his arms. He carried me to the living room, set me gently on the couch, threw the blanket over my legs and then put his fists in the couch on either side of my hips, his torso bent, his face in mine.
“I’m gonna go talk to Jonas,” he said softly.
“Good idea,” I replied and smiled but he didn’t move away, instead his eyes did a scan of my face.
Then his hand lifted and cupped my jaw.
Then he whispered, “You humble me.”
I blinked then breathed, “What?”
“Your strength, Ace, it’s got nothin’ to do with boot camp.”