Page 37 of Just This Once (Stone Family #2)

Taryn

I blink my eyes open, the harsh fluorescent lights of the waiting room casting a cold glare.

A dull ache radiates through my back and neck from falling asleep in the chair, and I carefully roll my neck side to side, noticing Dante’s parents both asleep across from me.

After Angela and I talked, we sat together for a long time until we received the first update from the doctors in the middle of the night.

They stopped the internal bleeding and put his leg back together with pins.

He also has a few broken ribs and most likely a pretty severe concussion, but he would make it.

It was the first time I was able to take a deep breath since Griffin called me.

My joints crack as I stand and push my hair back from my face. I need to use the bathroom and take a few unsteady steps in that direction until my muscles and bones all remember how to work again.

My heart too .

It beats wildly, like it’s figuring out its twin is somewhere in a room behind those heavy metal doors that have remained closed for the last few hours.

I navigate the sterile hallways, lifting my hand in acknowledgment of the nurses before slipping into the bathroom where I use the toilet and splash water on my face.

I look hungover.

Feel worse than that.

But none of it compares to the relief that courses through me when I remember the doctor’s words. It will be a long recovery, but he’s a strong young man. He’ll be as good as new in a few months.

I believe the doctor, but I also can’t wait to see Dante. To prove it.

After making myself look as presentable as possible, I find a few vending machines at the other end of the hall and purchase a cup of coffee that might as well be dirt on my tongue, but it’s warm and is the first sustenance I’ve had since dinner yesterday.

So much has happened in the last forty-eight hours, it’s almost impossible to wrap my head around it. How fast life can change.

I text my kids and my brothers, as well as Marianne and Clara, who stayed over at my house last night after Griffin explained what happened.

I let them all know I’m not leaving the hospital anytime soon.

As expected, my brothers and best friends tell me not to worry about a thing.

Then I call my assistant manager at The Nest to inform him that he’ll need to take over my duties for the next day or so, at the very least.

I return to the waiting room, where Dante’s parents are speaking to a nurse. My heart drops, an anxious gasp escaping my throat before I can stop it, stealing their attention.

Angela holds her hand out to me, and I immediately close the distance between us to take it as she smiles brightly. “He’s awake.”

I sag. “Oh, thank god.”

“He’s still pretty out of it,” the nurse explains, “but if you’d like to come back one at a time, that’ll be fine.”

I look to Angela, expecting her to be the one to go first, but she nudges me. “Go ahead, sweetheart.”

“Really?”

Dante’s father echoes my sentiment. “Really, Angela?”

She whips her head to her husband. “Yes, Robert. I know my son will want hers to be the first face he sees. That’s what you want when you love someone—what’s best for them. But I’m sure that’s news to you.”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes before flicking his hand like he doesn’t care anyway. If this were any other time, I might high-five Angela for that one, but instead, I face the nurse. “I’m ready.”

Angela takes my coffee, but I warn her. “It’s not very good.”

“Like I know the difference at this point.”

And I laugh for what feels like the first time in one hundred years.

I follow the nurse through the doors and down the hall to a room with its door half open, the beep of monitors reaching my ears before I even step inside.

But when I do, I don’t see or hear anything except for Dante.

His head is faced away from me, but when I step up next to his bed, gripping the sides of the railing, he slowly turns, eyelids fluttering. Seconds pass until those dark eyes of his focus and another few until he speaks my favorite word in a shadow of a rasp. “Duchess.”

I fold in half, my forehead on the backs of my hands and sob.

Great heaving sobs that send tremors down my spine and clog my lungs.

Relief and gratefulness fill my veins, the cloud of terror and worry still hanging over my head.

All I wanted was to see him again, but now that I have, it pains me to see him lying here, only half conscious and strapped up to more wires than I can count.

Something tugs on my scalp, a few strands of my hair being pulled, and I force myself to lift my head. Dante watches me under heavy lids, his lips parted like he wants to speak, but all he can get out is a grated, “Taryn.”

“I’m sorry.” I lean over to kiss his temple. “I’m so sorry.”

Even in his state, he comforts me , his hand moving like it’s not really attached to his body as he pats my arm. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” I back up, shaking my head, anger replacing everything else. “You’re here because of me! Because I pushed you away.”

Again, he starts to talk, but I cut him off.

“I was so scared I would never see you again. That I could never tell you I love you.”

His eyebrows slowly rise, and if I weren’t already out of breath from crying, I might have laughed at the slight spark of amusement on his features. The edge of playfulness in his slow whisper. “You…love…me?”

“Of course I love you!” I whack at the air since I can’t whack him. “You have been so annoyingly perfect, how can I not? You built me a shed to make my pottery and…” I sniffle, dabbing at the corners of my eyes with my knuckles. “I saw the curio you made. When did you do that?”

He closes his eyes and swallows, sluggishly lifting his shoulder. “I want…to put it…in the living room.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Fix your…kitchen too,” he says, his eyelids heavy with exhaustion.

“You won’t be fixing anything for a long time.”

He lifts his arm about three inches up from the bed like he’s a tough guy. “This? It’s nothin’.”

I snort a laugh. “I love you.”

“Say…again?” He squints at me. “Couldn’t hear.”

I gently brush my hand over his forehead and hair, tracing the tip of my nose down his, breathing my words into his mouth. “I love you.”

He groans in satisfaction.

I step back. “And you almost died.”

He groans in displeasure.

“No more motorcycles. Swear it, Dante. I can’t take it. I can’t go through this again. Neither can you.”

He points his index finger at me, mouth curving in an approximation of a smile. “You love…me.”

“Yes. That’s why you need to get rid of the motorcycle. No more. Promise me. I can’t lose you. The kids can’t lose you.”

He frowns. “The kids.”

“Yes, they were really upset when I told them you were here. That you had an accident.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and I can tell he’s fading fast, sleep pulling him back under.

“Don’t scare us again like that. We need you. Please, Dante. Don’t leave us.” I sit on the edge of the bed, a few inches of space, and he reaches for my hand, directing it to his head. When I understand what he wants, I pet him, and he nuzzles into my palm on his cheek. “I love you.”

He smiles sleepily, eyes closed. “I want…you. The kids. I love you…all.”

“I know.” I trace his cheekbone, the shell of his ear. “I can never pay you back for everything you’ve done for us, that I know you’ll do for us, but I’ll try.”

He shakes his head, barely a movement. “Love is free. ”

“Love is free,” I repeat back in a whisper, my nose stinging. “Sleep now.”

His eyelids crack open as his fingertips inch toward my thigh. “Stay.”

“I’ll stay right here. I won’t move. I promise. Now, be a good boy and sleep.”

Even in this state, he can’t stop his flirtatious innuendos, the tip of his tongue barely poking out of the corner of his mouth, and I laugh because it can be translated in a few ways. All of them lewd.

But then he relaxes, and I stay exactly where I am, skating my hand down his shoulder and arm, passing over the place where the IV is stuck into him, to his long fingers, and eventually to his torso.

I’m afraid to press anywhere that he might have broken bones, so I settle my palm on the middle of his chest, barely enough to feel the slow yet steady rise and fall of every breath.

Then I lay two fingers at the base of his throat, finding his pulse.

The proof of his life.

His love.

Mine .

It is a long time before I’m willing to shift even a centimeter, but I turn to relieve the kink in my neck and inspect the room.

The curtains across the window are open a few inches, and early morning light spills through the slim break, a stream of hazy sunshine that highlights the whiteboard on the wall, noting Dante’s information along with his nurse’s name: Violet.

My breath catches, skin peppering with goose bumps, and I tilt my head up to the ceiling as I close my eyes, smiling to myself. “Thanks, Mom.”