Page 31 of Every Broken Piece

Chapter thirty-one

Tess

G abe slept in the uncomfortable chair, refusing my pleas to return to his hotel room. I slept fitfully; pain allowing me only to doze in fits and starts but waking to his soft breathing calmed my racing heart each time.

The downside of him not leaving is that he’s here when the doctor returns to go over the conditions of my release.

Occasionally Gabe steps out to take a phone call. His absence makes the room seem bigger and the fears lurking in the darkness inside me surges until I’m fidgeting with the edge of the blanket, pleating it between my fingers.

I don’t want him here for his safety.

I do want him here for my safety.

I should come clean and tell him about Sandra Jansen and the phone call that I’m positive led to the attack. But so many years of hiding everything from the police keeps me silent. Sandra did a bang-up job of instilling fear of the system in her daughters.

I’m aware that she used it to her advantage, but I can’t move past the ingrained lessons to actually trust other people.

“You’ll need to follow up with the orthopedic surgeon about that wrist,” the doctor’s saying. “It’s a serious sprain, but I think it will heal on its own. You’ll probably have that brace off in a few weeks.”

Gabe’s leaning a shoulder against the wall, listening intently, looking rumpled and sexy in the clothes he wore all night. His hair is mussed, his shirt and pants wrinkled. It’s the most unkept I’ve ever seen him and it does funny things to my stomach.

I force my attention back to the doctor because I can’t be thinking of stomach somersaults caused by a man who’s taken over my life so completely.

“I’ve given you a few recommendations,” the doctor says, still talking about the orthopedic.

“But you’ll need to call soon to get in.

As for your head, I want to see you in my office in a few weeks for follow up.

No screens, Tess. Limited phone time and no computer time. ” He gives me a pointed look.

I don’t miss Gabe’s brow lift when I’m told no screens. I make the mistake of meeting his humorous gaze and the tightening of his lips to keep himself from grinning.

“I’ll make sure she follows your instructions,” he says to the doctor without taking his eyes off me.

When I scowl at him, the infuriating man winks. I have no doubt he’ll try to be my prison warden, and I can’t have that. I have things to do, but I don’t know how to get rid of him. Worse, I don’t know if I want to get rid of him.

The doctor gives instructions on the medications I should be taking. I don’t do prescription medication. Ever. So I won’t be filling the script.

After a few signatures and a folder full of the written instructions the doctor went over, I’m set free.

Earlier a nurse helped me shower and put on clean clothes while Gabe stepped out to take more phone calls. If the nurse thought it strange that my fiancé wasn’t helping me, she didn’t say, and I wasn’t about to explain.

Gabe walks ahead as a nurse pushes my wheelchair through the hospital lobby, his head on a swivel as if he’s preparing for an attack. Outside he approaches a large, black SUV waiting by the curb. I stare up at it from my seat in the wheelchair. How the heck am I going to climb into that ?

“I guess I wasn’t thinking when I rented it,” Gabe says. “Or rather when Jack rented it.” He studies the open passenger door for a moment. “I’ll lift you in.”

“What? No .” He’s not picking me up. He’s a big guy.

I’m a small woman. I have no doubt he can do it.

I just don’t want him to do it. I don’t want his hands on me.

I’m having a hard enough time keeping my feelings for this man in check.

Him carrying me would batter my defenses more than I’m willing to allow.

He sucks his lips in, contemplating the car situation. “I can try to find some steps.”

With a sigh of frustration, I push off from the wheelchair to stand. Gabe gently grabs my elbow to steady me as the world tilts just a little. I don’t have time for this. Being attacked put me way behind on running away. But I guess that was my attacker’s intention.

Score one for him.

“Just get me up there.” I’m irritated and my tone shows it, but Gabe doesn’t react and gently swings me up into his arms. The world tilts as I’m pressed against his hard chest. Then he’s placing me in the passenger seat and reaching across to pull the seatbelt, snapping it into place.

“All good?” When he turns his head, he’s so close that I can see each individual eyelash and feel the soft warmth of his breath fan across my cheek.

He’s not wearing his glasses. He made a point of telling me they’re only for reading.

I made a point of not telling him that I wouldn’t mind if he wore them all the time.

“A-all good.” I lick my lips.

His gaze drops to my mouth, then lower to my throat where I’m sure he can see my pulse thundering, before snapping back up to my eyes. “You sure you’re okay? Feeling nauseous?”

Feeling breathless because he’s so close and I want to kiss him like I wanted to kiss him last night in the darkness of my room. This is so inappropriate it’s not even funny.

“Not at all.”

He smirks, retreats, then closes the door to round the hood of the car and climb into the driver’s side. He taps a few times on his phone then hands it to me.

“Type in your address.”

I enter it in, and he pulls away as a mechanical, definitely Australian accented woman’s voice fills the cab of the car. I raise my brows at him. He grins back.

As he follows the Aussie’s directions, I watch the houses get smaller and smaller and the neighborhoods more and more run down. I nervously pick at my cuticles, suddenly anxious to have larger than life Gabe invading the sanctuary of my small apartment.

His hand settles over mine, stilling my fingers. I curl them into my palm, the nails biting into the soft skin.

“All good?” he asks with a worried glance.

I nod and look away.

It’s glaringly obvious that I don’t live in the best neighborhood when we pull up in a car that cost six times my yearly rent.

It’s an old neighborhood that had once been affluent but has dramatically fallen to decay and despair.

The building needs a major facelift. The bricks are cracking, the steps leading to the entrance crumbling.

The iron railing is rusted and loose and can’t be trusted.

There’s trash matted into the gutters. An abandon car sits parked across the street, one tire flat, another gone, tall weeds surrounding it.

Gabe’s gaze jumps from the shabby and neglected building to the boarded-up businesses lining the street, his jaw working as he grinds his teeth, his blue eyes flinty.

“You can just drop me off here.” And leave. Go back to Colorado, to your penthouse apartment featured in Architectural Digest. Or to his mountain retreat. Yes, I’ve read all about his various homes.

“Not happening,” he says as he unbuckles his seatbelt and hops out of the car.

I already have my door open and am attempting to slide down when he reaches in and gently plucks me out, settling me on my feet until I stop swaying.

It’s the picking me up and swinging me around that makes me dizzy.

Definitely not his large hands that wrap around my waist or how he handles me like I’m made of the finest porcelain.

He snags my small bag of clothes from the backseat.

I don’t have much. Just the things that Amelia brought me a few days ago.

The dress I was wearing the night of the attack has been entered into evidence.

They can burn it for all I care. I’ll never wear it again.

In fact, it’ll be a long time before I walk into a bar again.

When we enter the building Gabe mutters, “The outside door doesn’t lock?”

“Broken. Elevator too. I’m on the fourth floor.”

“Tess.” He nearly growls my name. “You can’t climb four flights of stairs in your condition.”

“It’s fine.” It has to be fine. I have no other option. And I really don’t like the way he says ‘your condition’ like I’m an invalid. Yes, I might like the way he lifted me so carefully out of the car, but I’m not about to break. If I was, I would have done it long ago.

He sighs as he follows me up the steps. I don’t miss that his hand occasionally skims my lower back, there in case I stumble.

I would never admit that my legs are weak by the time I make it to my apartment door.

I manage to get us inside, but my strength is failing fast. No matter how strong I think I am, I’m beginning to wonder if my body will disappoint me and give out.

“Tess?”

My head is throbbing, my vision blurring, my stomach churning. His voice is distant, but his hands are there, an arm around my waist, securing me to his side and holding me just tight enough that I don’t collapse.

“I’m okay.” But we both know I’m not okay.

“Damn it. I knew those stairs would be too much.”

Once again, I find myself lifted and tucked into his chest as he takes two long strides to my couch and lowers us both into it.

He doesn’t let me go. He doesn’t lay me down on the couch.

He lays himself down and adjusts me, so I’m sprawled on top of him, my head pressed to the heavy pounding of his heart.

“I’m okay,” I whisper. I think I’ve frightened him more than myself.

“You’re not. You almost passed out on me.”

“I’ll be okay.” Because I don’t have a choice, but even as I say the words I snuggle into his warmth and close my heavy-lidded eyes. His hand cradles the back of my head, while his other hand lays heavy at the base of my spine, anchoring me to him.

I’ll be okay in a minute.