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“You can go straight through those doors,” she said, pointing to the double ones to my right.
I’d found Rhett beyond, pacing away from me, his broad shoulders slumped.
The second his gaze had landed on me, my heart had broken all over again at the raw vulnerability in his eyes. My tears had started as he allowed his emotions free, and I’d hurried to throw my arms around him.
We stood in the hallway for countless minutes, crying, noses running, holding on like we were each other’s life vests in a stormy ocean. And in that moment, every word he’d said and hadn’t said since we’d met, every curl of his lip, every dismissal…I put my hurt aside, wanting to give him comfort.
Eventually, we would need to talk, but bigger matters lay in front of us—
“I’m sorry for crying like a baby,” he muttered, traces of tears still in his shaky voice as he kept his face tucked in my neck. “There’s no need for this kind of emotional outburst.”
Anger kindled inside me, an ache in my chest forming for the broken man. How fucking dare his childhood trauma rise up to make him feel guilty at such a time?
“Releasing emotions is nothing to be ashamed of, Rhett,” I stated sternly, still holding him since he allowed it. “Every single person’s feelings are valid. Worthy of being heard—and I’ll listen and try to understand with an open heart if you’ll let me.”
Rhett released a sigh that shuddered him in my arms.
“Mr. Stirling?” someone called before he could respond.
Rhett and I both eased away from each other at the nurse’s voice, but our fingers threaded together and held tight without effort on either of our part. It was like our souls recognized the need for one another, and I’d never felt such contentment in the face of potential tragedy.
“Yes?” he asked, his tone as haggard as his face. Exhaustion lined his skin, dark circles beneath his eyes. Still gorgeous. Sexy as hell.
“We have a room ready.”
Rhett nodded, and I clutched to his hand as we stood back, watching a volunteer ready Ash’s bed.
He lay unmoving except for his chest, pale and bandaged. I’d expected him to appear—more broken having heard head trauma. I’d feared a disfigured face. Smashed nose. Sterile strips of white hiding his beautiful eyes from sight.
A mere bandage covered the side of his head, and other than pale, he appeared as unblemished and gorgeous as ever.
I breathed easier and fell into step beside Rhett as the volunteer rolled Ashton’s bed down a hallway.
Rhett filled me in on what the doctor had told him earlier as an elevator carried us up a few floors—no debilitating injuries, but Ashton would have to be in the hospital for observation for a day or two.
It was the mention of cancer and other testing that caused my eyes to well again as we moved down another hallway toward our destination.
Rhett’s voice broke at that bit of shared information.
“Did he see a doctor?”
“I doubt it,” Rhett said, rubbing a hand over his face. “Knowing Ash, he got caught up in his emotions over indigestion and thinks he’s dying. It would be like him to deny it too. If he didn’t talk about it, it wasn’t real.”
“What do you think?” I asked and started to chew on my thumbnail.
Rhett shrugged, his focus on the volunteer ahead of us. “I don’t know. I-I’m struggling right now to just breathe.”
I squeezed his hand tighter, thrilled that he shared his feelings with me.
If Ashton feared he had cancer, it was no wonder his sole focus in the previous couple of weeks had been to get me pregnant. His fixation on sex and releasing inside me hadn’t just been the closeness, the claiming, and enjoyment of a honeymoon-type phase I’d thought it had been.
The idea he didn’t see me as more than a womb flitted through my head, and I fought to push it away. We had shared too much closeness, connected on too deep of a level for that to be true.
At least, I hoped.
Two chairs waited in the private room, and both Rhett and I sat on opposite sides of Ashton once they had him settled.
So many thoughts swirled through my head, but the hush over the room felt…sacred in some way.