Page 52 of Guarded Knight (Echo Valley #3)

It’s been three hours since they wheeled her in.

Three hours since she finally stopped coughing long enough to nap. Since the nurse dimmed the overhead lights and told me I could stay as long as I liked. Since the last test finished and the doctor came in.

Since I exhaled for real.

I can’t let her slip through my hands twice. Losing her again isn’t something I’d survive—not this time, not when I’ve finally admitted she’s my whole damn future.

Lara’s tucked into a hospital bed with blue rails and white cotton blankets that never get a person warm enough. But she’s said she’s running hot every time I offer to get a new one.

Not that I want to leave the room.

My girl is on her side, curled like she’s bracing against the world. No oxygen tube, thank God. Just the occasional hitch of her breath and a raspy exhale that tells me I need to keep an eye on her.

She looks less gray now. Less strained. Beautiful, even here. And it guts me, because all I want is more mornings, more years, and I don’t know how many we’ll get. I just know I want every single one of them.

After hours of us waiting for test results, Lara falling in and out of sleep, the doctor finally came in and told us her blood showed traces of opiates, enough to cause dizziness, maybe disorientation. But not enough to sedate her long-term or be of concern for a CF flare-up.

They’ve got her on IV antibiotics to be safe. They said it’s precautionary, but I know better than to underestimate how fast CF can turn. CF doesn’t wait. It doesn’t forgive…

She coughs again, but in the past half hour, it’s been less strained. Still, the stress, adrenaline, dust, and dirt in the warehouse were enough to bring back the type of cough I haven’t heard in years.

As I wait for her to wake up, I drift in and out of worrying about her health and wanting to break into the hospital room where Trent is detained and finish the job I started.

I said I’d ruin him. Prison was not what I had in mind when I said that, but it will have to do unless I can coordinate an inside job, and now…

I have too much to live for.

Lara needs more from me than revenge.

I’ve never been so grateful for GhostEye.

Once Ava and Enzo got sniffing on the Trent trail and Rio told them more about Kevin and Belinda, I’ve had nonstop updates in the family group chat.

The nerds in Tahiti weren’t completely able to trace the money yet, they told me that takes time, but they did find evidence of both Belinda and Kevin operating under multiple identities with criminal intent.

Everyone is going down. At least there’s that. Trent, Kevin, and Belinda will all be held accountable for their crimes. And all of them will come to justice because of her…

Lara shifts slightly, her foot brushing against the blanket, and I hold my breath like the sound might wake her.

It sparks reminders of the last time she was in a hospital bed. Not when we met her new doctor… the first time I kissed her. When the only thing in the world we had to fight was time.

She’s four years older than anyone ever thought she’d be. I celebrated every one of her birthdays. Some in person. Some in a quiet moment on my own, lighting a candle if I had one, or simply holding up my cell phone flashlight to a night sky. Sometimes, I got down on one knee to thank God.

I never once let Him think I wasn’t grateful for the years she’s been given, even if she didn’t spend them with me.

I take her fingers gently in mine with no intention of waking her, but there’s nowhere else to put my love. Her fingers curl around mine, and her lashes flutter open.

Her eyes are unfocused at first, blinking against the light, until they find me. “You’re still here?”

“It was this or watch the Trolls movie dubbed in Spanish with Dad and Theo.”

“Kat’s son speaks Spanish?” She pushes herself up to sitting.

“He will.”

Lara shifts onto one hip and sucks her teeth when she lands on the bruise. “Damn, that’s going to be cute in a few days. Good thing purple is my favorite color.” She combs her fingers through her hair. “Dare I ask for a mirror?”

I smirk. Her mascara has smudged and left flakes on her cheeks, not to mention other signs of someone who’s been through it. But she’s still shining.

I’m staring and in awe of everything she is, not caring one bit about her being anything but mine. There’s still hesitation in my gut about how we’ll make it happen, but I’m determined.

She lifts an eyebrow. “So, how do I look?”

I let the truth rip straight out of me. “Like I’ve been drowning for years and I finally came up for air.”

Instantly, a glow tugs at her cheeks, but she tries hard to swallow down the smile. “I think you should get checked out, too.”

“Why?” I sit on the edge of the bed, closer, where I belong. “Because I think you’re hot even when you have panda eyes?”

She slaps my arm, and it warms me to see her coming back to life. Back to herself.

She leaves her hand on my arm and strokes her fingers gently along it. Her touch tingles and soothes at the same time.

“I already know you have a thing for the chewed-up-and-spit-out look.”

“My type to a T.”

“Yeah, like how I looked when you first kissed me?” She smirks.

I remember, and my heart beats like it’s been aching to reminisce. She was the kiss that made me. Broke me. “I don’t remember you looking anything but a teenage dream, Firefly.”

She strokes my arm, gazing down at it, softening.

“I never really got a chance to tell you how low I was that day. I felt sick, obviously, but I also felt… ugly. Everyone else who visited just reassured me that my vitals were looking better and lung this and CF that, and then you came. You looked at me and somehow knew what I really needed wasn’t medical. ”

I smooth a strand of hair off her forehead. Her skin is warmer now, her eyes clearer.

She offers a gentle smile. “Do you remember what you said?”

Hell, I remember everything about that day.

“I said if this is you at your worst,” I murmur, “I better kiss you now, before some other jackass figures out how lucky he’d be to catch you on a bad day.” I half smile.

She gazes up at me. “Then I dared you and then I said, ‘Okay, jackass, if you want to kiss me so much, do it.’ And I made you do it.”

That’s what she thinks?

I shake my head. “Before I shipped out, Rio told me to make a list, stuff to do before I belonged to Uncle Sam. I only had one thing on it.”

She lets her head fall on the pillow, and her blonde hair billows around her like a halo. Her lips look as ready to kiss as they did back then.

“That kiss was no accident, Lara.”

“All these years,” she says softly, “I thought I pushed you into it.”

“Not a chance. That was all me.”

She tilts up her chin, eyes never leaving mine. For a heartbeat I hesitate—she looks too pale, too fragile—but then she whispers, “Well, this one is all me.”

And I can’t deny her. Never again.

Our mouths crash together like we’ve been waiting years for this, because we have.

There’s no hesitation, just history and hunger colliding.

She tastes like everything I thought I’d lost. Her hands fist my shirt, anchoring me, and I kiss her back with all the years I spent convincing myself I couldn’t.

For one reckless, perfect moment, the future doesn’t matter. Not where she’ll live. Not how we’ll make this work. Just this. Just her.

When I pull back, I rest my forehead against hers. Our breaths mingle, ragged and hot.

Her eyes flutter open.

“I love you,” I whisper, raw. “I’ll love you through swollen eyes and morning coughs and every future we can’t name.”

Her eyes glaze over. “Whatever you carry, I’ll carry. Just… don’t make me do it without you.”

For all the fear I had leading up to this, for every moment I thought it would be too much, fuck, what she survived today shows me she can handle anything life throws at us. We’ll handle it together.

Her hands slide up my chest, then tangle in my hair, and her lips meet mine again.

I slip my hand under the back of her hospital gown, not for more, but to feel her skin, warm and alive and mine. Her whole body shivers. She moans lightly into my mouth, and my control nearly fractures.

“I’m not leaving this bed,” I promise. “Or you.”

Just as I ease her back gently into the pillows, her hand gripping mine like a lifeline, the door creaks open behind me.

A throat clears.

“Am I interrupting something?” Xander’s voice is flat, dry, and deeply unimpressed.

“You are,” I say, not moving. “Come back tomorrow.”

Lara smothers a laugh as I press one last kiss to her forehead, and her hand tightens around mine like she’s never letting go.