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Fane

After

The things running through my head felt like they were louder, more violent, surrounded by the white, stale hospital room we were in.

Cali’s hand was warm and soft where I gripped it in mine.

She looked perfect right now. Utterly untouched.

You couldn’t see the wound on her head they stitched closed or the bruising that had started to bloom around it. You couldn’t tell that she had a concussion. Didn’t know that she winced when she moved her head from the whiplash or the bruising across her chest from her seat belt.

But I knew it was there. I saw the blood trickling down the side of her head when her car had finally stopped, and she managed to unbuckle herself and open the door. I was right there the moment her legs gave out, and I gently lowered her to the ground.

“Rose,” I murmured. My heart was going fucking wild. Torn between never wanting to take my eyes off her again and looking up to see where Declan was. I gave in, feeling his eyes boring into me from where he was sitting and staring at us from his truck. Our eyes met for a second before he turned the car back on and disappeared, like nothing had fucking happened.

“Fane,” Cali said, her voice faint, her eyes fluttering half-closed. “Don’t tell Fane, okay?”

“Baby, hey, look at me.” I was terrified to touch her, certain that she shouldn’t be fucking moving. I moved my hands up, trying to hold her head still when she winced after turning it, like she was looking for something. Her hand reached up to touch the side of her head, and when her fingers came away with blood on them, her eyes went wide with panic.

“Oh crap,” she mumbled before looking at the bright red drips that had already descended onto her blue shirt. “This is never going to come out.”

I choked a laugh, and she finally settled her eyes on me, the mossy green in them piercing. “I’ll buy you a new damn shirt.”

“Fane.” Her body sagged in relief the moment she realized I was there before she made a sharp inhale. “Don’t tell my dad. He’ll worry.”

I didn’t tell her that he probably already knew, but I just nodded at her, keeping her head still and my eyes on hers.

“You saw him that time too?” she murmured, and before I could even reply, she kept going. “I thought I made it up the first time.”

The first time what? That’s what had been on the tip of my tongue when the ambulance pulled up, and I gave them a recount of what had happened. I rode with Cali all the way to the small hospital, and it was hard to even bring myself to blink. To miss out on having my eyes on her for even a second.

I stood and watched as they assessed her. When they told her dad, who had ended up beating us to the hospital, regardless of Cali’s wish not to tell him. He hadn’t faltered, just listened to everything they said with gruff determination.

I didn’t even take my eyes off her when Dallas asked me to let him know if anything changed and if he needed to come back.

They stayed right on her when she reached her hand out to me, and I wrapped my hands around hers until she fell asleep.

The door to her room opened and closed.

“How is she?” Ash asked from the foot of her bed.

“She’ll be okay,” I murmured. That’s what I kept repeating. She’ll be okay, she’ll be okay, she’ll be okay. “What did you find?” I pulled my eyes away from Cali’s sleeping form at last and leaned back in my chair, my body aching from being in one position for so long.

“His truck was ditched a couple miles outside of town, burned out. I put a call out, but I don’t have a lot of people this…”

“Rural?”

Ash gave me one of his classic pretty boy smiles. “Yeah.”

“Thanks for your help.” I turned my attention back to Cali.

“There’s one more thing.” He walked around Cali’s bed and handed me a crumpled note. “Found it in Cali’s car.”

I unfolded the note, the messy, unrefined scrawl glaring up at me like a taunt.

My eyes shot to Ash’s, the words choking in my throat. I’d seen the look on her face when she picked that note off her dash. Like she’d seen a fucking ghost.

And I’d let it go.

Because I’d been too damn scared I’d push her away to push her at all.

“My guess is he messed with her brakes,” Ashton said, his voice low. “She’d been leaking brake fluid for a while, but the hole was tiny—small enough that it would’ve taken days for her to notice anything. Probably couldn’t make up his mind on what he was going to do, judging by the shitload of tools in the back of his truck. They matched the description of the missing gear from Gus’s shop.”

“She hasn’t been using her car,” I told him, still staring at the note in my hand.

“You think this is because of the bar thing?”

“He said something to her at Sunshine too,” I muttered, “She never said anything more about it.”

Another thing I hadn’t wanted to push her on.

“The guy’s a fucking psycho, Fane. It’s not the first time I’ve seen someone like him lose his shit because he was turned down by a girl.”

“And if it’s more than that?”

Ashton’s gaze hardened. The glint in his eyes spoke to the darkness he harbored like a secret beneath his humor and his wit. “Then we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“Ashton—”

“For now,” he interrupted, eyes piercing and focused on me. “She needs you not to lose your shit. Don’t make this about you. The moment you start blaming yourself, it all falls apart.”

“I’m the one who fucking brought us here,” I seethed at him between gritted teeth, low and pained. Leave it to him to know exactly what I was thinking.

“Yep.” He nodded, unflinching. “But news flash, Fane. They were coming here whether you stepped in or not. They would have sent a crew in with or without your permission, and where would we be then if not halfway through tearing apart this fucking town?” He lifted his eyebrows at me, daring me to argue with him.

I stayed silent, jaw clenched.

“That’s what I thought.” He crossed his arms. “The guys just got into town after their leave last week. I’m going to have them do evaluations of the outer zones for the next two days before sending them home to work on those presentations.”

“We don’t need anything else. It’s done. We have everything we need to shoot down the project. You know that.”

“Yep, but you need time.” He looked pointedly at Cali before looking back to me. “I’ll stay in town, message a few guys to come out to help for a while.”

“Your dad won’t miss them?” I asked, knowing that he’d put anything on the line to help someone he cared about, even if it meant causing problems for himself later on.

“Even if he did, he wouldn’t say a thing about it.” He turned to leave and stopped at the door to look back at me. “Get some rest. You look like you’re about to fucking pass out.”

I flipped him off just as he blew me a kiss before slipping out. When I turned my focus back on Cali, her eyes were open and on me.

“You’re a terrible fake sleeper.” I pulled her hand up to my lips, grazing them over the back of her knuckles. Her sleepy smile lasted only a second before it melted into a small frown that made her brows pinch together.

“I thought he cut off his family.”

“Mmm,” I hummed into her skin. “Just his mom.”

Her eyebrows quirked for a second before her frown reappeared. “He’s right, you know.”

“About what?”

“You do look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I can’t look away from you,” I whispered, overwhelmed by the knowledge that I’d only just gotten her back and she could’ve been taken from me. That there was all this fucking life I was supposed to live with this woman, and every second of it had been put into jeopardy.

Her voice gripped onto me, pulling me back into the room. “Is Declan gone?”

“You said you thought you made him up the first time,” I said instead, voice steady, but my body was so tense my bones were aching.

“I—”

“I almost watched you die today, Calista.” Neither of us looked away. I told her I wanted no walls between us, but the truth was I’d kept mine up too.

So, I let her see it.

All the fucking fear that coursed through my body the moment my name had left her mouth. She was terrified, and she called for me, and I hadn’t been able to do a damn thing. Again. “Please don’t lie to me.”

I watched her swallow three times before she spoke and felt her hand squeeze mine harder.

“He was the one who chased me.” Her voice shook, and I ran one hand up her forearm. “That day in the café, he said he knew we weren’t really together. He said he wanted to play too. I—honestly, I still don’t even know what that means, but when I went for my run with Jerry, he was just standing in town, out in front of Sunshine, and Jerry went ballistic. I’d never seen him like that before, and I just ran. If…” Her voice broke. “Jerry was pulling me so much faster than I could run on my own. He was so close to grabbing me. I thought when I ran into you, that it was him, and I…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because he was doing it to get to you. If I told you…” She huffed a disbelieving laugh. “What if you left? What if you went after him, and he hurt you?” She tried to shake her head and let out a wince. “I could handle it.”

I wasn’t going to push her more on it. I could piece together the rest of it myself, and despite what Ash had said, I knew that the reason he went after her was because of me.

“Don’t do that.” She tugged on my hand, her tired eyes brightening and locking with mine.

“Do what?”

“Blame yourself. It’s written all over your face.” She pointed weakly at me, her IV tugging lightly at her wrist. “That look says you think you could have somehow stopped it. You couldn’t.”

“I’m not going to fight with you anymore.” I shook my head, sitting taller, my voice resolute.

“Fane.” She gave me her signature deadpan look. Challenging me already.

“I’m serious. I’m not going to waste any more time pretending like I’m mad at you. That I’m not so fucking in love with you. That I haven’t been able to breathe for the last two years without you.”

“You’re—” She looked like I’d started speaking pig Latin.

“In love with you,” I confirmed, leaning closer. “Since the first moment I saw you, and every day since then, I’ve been all yours, baby. My plan up until now has sucked, but—”

“Your plan?” Her brow lifted.

“I’m sure Ashton will fill you in at an incredibly inappropriate time.”

She stared at me like she was seeing me a little more clearly. I hadn’t expected her to say anything back to me, but the very idea that she might think that who she was to me had changed so completely and that I’d been too caught up in my own head–too choked up with my own words–to tell her. It made me sick.

That Calista Grey would think that she was anything other than the center of my entire fucking universe.

“When can we go home?”

“Tomorrow,” I murmured. “They’re keeping you for observation.”

“What about Jerry?”

“Delilah went and got him for the night.”

“What?” She would have looked less shocked if I’d turned into a leprechaun.

“She almost tore off my balls when she showed up. Her boyfriend held her back.”

Cali’s giggle washed over me, and the pressure in my chest eased. “What did you do?”

“You were sleeping, and she was crying like a hyena. I didn’t want her to wake you up.”

She hummed, looking at me with eyes narrowed and a little grin playing on the corners of her mouth. “I better rest up then, we have a big day tomorrow.”

I lifted a brow in question, because she’d lost me entirely.

“The Autumn Fair,” she said simply.

“You can’t be serious.” It was my turn to give her a deadpan look.

“Yes, I am absolutely serious. This is tour three. Meeting the people of the town, participating in something small-townish. Seeing the community here and how changing the town will change its people. You’re so far removed from it that you and your contractors can’t see that.”

“Cali—” I knew even as I said her name I wasn’t going to win the argument, even if it was to tell her that I already knew that. That neither this nor any of the tours had been important in the way she thought.

“What happened to no more fighting with me?” She quirked an eyebrow, and she knew she had me.

“Fine.”

“Please, rein in your enthusiasm.”

“Rein in your enthusiasm.”

“Oh, good one, buddy.” She did a tiny little huffing laugh that reminded me of Sheldon’s character in The Big Bang Theory .

“Okay, Sheldon .”

I snorted, and Cali pulled her hand from mine just to flip me off.

“Careful.” I didn’t even try to hide my grin. “You know what that does to me.”

Cali rolled her eyes before sliding her hand back into mine. “Where’s Declan?” She said it so casually as if she didn’t want to seem like she cared, but the grip she had on my hand told an entirely different story.

“Skipped town,” I told her, pulling her hand back to my lips. “Ash has some people coming in to double-check, but it’s pretty clear he took off when…”

“When he hit my car and thought he’d killed me?” Her voice was sharp, but beneath it, I could hear the tremble.

What could I say to that? Nothing. Nothing would erase the image of her face, pale and panicked, or the sound of her screaming my name, a sound that had buried itself into my chest, rattling against my ribs like it would never leave.

Her fingers tightened again, her voice a whisper now. “So, we’re safe?”

“You’re safe, baby,” I promised, my voice low and steady, the kind of promise that held weight. My free hand smoothed over hers as if I could physically press the truth into her skin.

Her eyes flickered to mine, uncertain but searching. “You’re safe,” I said again, willing her to believe it, because even if it wasn’t true quite yet, it would be soon enough.