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SIXTY
CHARLEIGH
I blinkedmy eyes open to the golden haze that saturated the room. It was quiet, and the rods of sunlight that slanted in through the bedroom window appeared alive. Dancing as they played through the motes that dusted the air.
My thoughts were fuzzy and disjointed, but in an instant, I recognized one thing.
The soft pants that puffed from the child’s mouth where he was fast asleep beside me. Both blue stuffed puppies were tucked to his chest, his little arm holding them close as he slept.
He was on his side, his precious face turned toward me. My fingers trembled as I reached out and brushed them down his chubby cheek.
Love swelled. Swelled to overflowing.
Nolan.
My son.
“He wouldn’t leave your side.” That low voice rumbled from across the room, and I jerked, then shifted enough to find River standing in the doorway. His giant body was leaned against the jamb, all that ferocity shearing through his features.
My heart that was already filled to overflowing leapt.
I attempted to sit up, then yelped as a smack of pain pierced through my middle.
River’s hands shot out like he could reach all the way across the room and keep me pinned to the bed. “Don’t try to get up.”
I rolled until I was flat on my back and staring up at the ceiling. I gently placed my hand over the throbbing in my side.
It wasn’t until then that I realized there was an IV attached to my left wrist.
I could feel the bandages covering the spot where Frederick had stabbed me. Images sprang to my mind, those last moments when I’d rammed the blade into his side, me grappling for Nolan, the knife that had impaled my side.
The moment when I would have been happy to surrender if it meant that Nolan hadthis.
I looked back at the child.
At the peace that smoothed his features into tranquility.
I was sure he had to be traumatized in some way, being taken from Miss Liberty’s, and I had no idea what Frederick had put him through in the hours he’d held him hostage, but at least he was here.
In the safety of his home. The only one he’d really known.
The bed sank on the other side of me, and I slowly rolled toward River. He had his knee tucked up on the bed so he could fully face me, and his hand came to my cheek. Thunderclouds toiled in the depths of his eyes, though his thumb stroked softly along the apple of my cheek.
“How are you feeling?” The coarse words were accompanied by him searching my face, his gaze traveling down my body as if he were terrified a new injury might have sprouted in the time I’d been asleep.
I stared up at him. At his vicious beauty that etched him in severity. His sharp jaw and defined cheeks and the stars that played along his hairline.
I inhaled his volatility. The taste of violence and destruction on my tongue. This man so dangerously sweet.
My throat was tight, and my mouth was dry, but I somehow managed to whisper my truth. “Happy.”
So happy I didn’t know how to make sense of all that I felt.Everything I’d known had been ripped apart like the shredding of a contract that had been made null and void.
And in its place was this.
This.
River kept brushing his thumb gently across my skin, his expression carved of possession and relief. “I was so fuckin’ scared. Didn’t know he’d gotten to you until you fell to the ground.”
