Page 12 of Guarding Grace

I nodded. That was pretty standard after a concussion.

“I’ll be with her,” Terry confirmed.

Gritting my teeth, I decided against creating a scene.

Terry

I’d knownGrace fainted at the sight of blood, but until today, I’d never realized how dangerous that could be.

My insides had been tied in knots since the moment I saw her head hit the concrete. She could have been badly hurt and not known it. I’d seen car-accident cases where the victim suffered a hit to the head, declined a trip to the hospital, and dropped dead within a week from an undetected brain bleed.

It was an immense relief to have the CAT scan come back clean.

When Jordy arrived, I joined him in the lobby.

“The call came from a burner,” Jordy said, handing me back Grace’s phone. “I’ll watch to see if it turns on again, but the odds aren’t great. How is she?”

I shrugged. “Okay, considering. A concussion, and the CAT scan was clear. But she shouldn’t have put herself in that position in the first place. She should have told me about the call. I would have gone with her.”

Jordy laughed. “The way you treat her, I think she’d drink sewer water before she’d ask you for help.” He pulled a bag from his pocket. “Jelly Belly?” The guy was hooked on jelly beans.

I shook my head, and when he left, I returned to Grace’s exam space, and I had to face the fact that he might be right. Had my efforts to keep her at a distance contributed to tonight by making her hate me?

It took another hour after Dr. Chen’s desensitization lecture for the release paperwork to come through. I stepped out of the curtained area as Grace redressed. This episode was over, and I was damned relieved that she hadn’t been hurt.

I’d promised Pete I’d keep her safe. Safe from bad guys like what had happened tonight had beenhalfhis meaning. The other half had been not letting her date anyone with a dangerous profession—not after what hadhappened with their aunt and uncle. That responsibility fell to me while Pete was deployed, and I could be very persuasive.

Grace didn’t need to know that the young firefighter she’d taken a liking to only ghosted her after a threatening visit. Nor did she need to know I’d also chased off the cop from Glendale in the time since Pete had been gone.

After going missing on a mission four years ago, Pete had been declared KIA based on the claims of the terrorist group that captured him, but that didn’t relieve me of the obligation to follow through on my promise. It also put me in charge of Grace’s finances, since Pete had put his life insurance into a trust I was tasked with managing for her. Those first months had been hard.

Then, Lucas had informed me that through his Omega contacts, he’d learned that Pete was still alive, being held somewhere despite what the DOD said. He’d warned me that only six people in the country knew this, with me it was seven.

Not only could Grace not know, because the circle couldn’t grow to eight, but after seeing her destroyed once, I couldn’t give her hope and then crush it a second time.

So, all I could do was wait for Omega to get a window to extract him. It sucked to be helplessly silent, but that was the nature of a hostage-rescue operation. And our code meant I had the added task of keeping Grace safe from me and my desires.

Grace was goodness and light. She needed to be shielded from the darkness I carried around with me, from the monster I hid from the world.

“I’m decent,” she announced.

When I reentered the curtain, she had turned away, gathering up her papers. But that killer dress she had on this evening showed me an acre of bare back—almost to her ass—and my cock instantly noticed. This was why I tried not to be in the same room as her when I could help it.

She turned around. “I’m ready to go home.”

“You’re coming to my place,” I insisted. I never sugarcoated things with her. Expectations needed to be clear. It was the way of the world. “Doctor’s orders—you can’t be alone.”

Her pale-blue eyes flared.

I could get lost in those eyes for days, which is why I made such an effort to avoid her.

“Stop being a jerk and ordering me around.” There was her argumentative side again. “I want to go home.”

“Wildcat, have you forgotten what happened tonight? I’m sure theyknow where you live. Going back to your apartment is the stupidest thing we could do.”

Her face contorted into the angry Grace I knew too well. “Now you’re calling me stupid.”

“I’m telling you what we’re going to do and explaining why.”