Page 5 of Tate (The Montana Marshalls #2)

T ate would probably never admit how close he came to dying.

To being beaten to death.

But one look at his chart of injuries had Glo nauseous.

Two broken ribs, internal bleeding that included losing his spleen, and his throat was so swollen that the EMTs had to put a breathing tube down it to keep it from closing.

Never mind the bruises that covered his body, his puffy purpled eye, complete with eight stitches dissecting the brow, and the splint that protected his nose, recently set.

His dislocated shoulder had been stabilized, his arm in an immovable sling, and he’d slept most of the last six hours.

Just the tiny squeeze of his hand in hers convinced her that he might live. That he knew she was there.

It made her want to weep every time.

And settled deep in her gut the fear that if he woke and she wasn’t here…

Or worse, if she left him, he just might not ever wake up again.

“You need sleep. Or at least a shower.”

Kelsey’s voice came as a whisper over her shoulder, and Glo lifted her head from where she’d cradled it in her arms on the lip of the bed, next to Tate’s blanketed leg.

Her hair probably stuck up on end, creases heated her cheek, her eyes felt raw and puffy, and yes, her body buzzed, her veins a mix of coffee and Diet Coke, a handful of antacids her only recent meal.

Kelsey set a muffin and a cup of coffee on the bedside table, and Glo nearly leaped for the breakfast. “Thanks.” She released Tate’s hand and opened the muffin wrapper, sitting back in the padded recliner.

“He looks brutal,” Kelsey said as she stood at the foot of his bed. The haunted expression on her face betrayed her own brush with death over twelve years ago.

Except, Kelsey had been fourteen and in a coma for twelve days. And she had awoken alone.

Glo wasn’t going to leave Tate. Not yet, at least.

But Kelsey was right—Tate looked wrecked. Even with his bruises, however, Tate had a rough beauty about him, his face in repose possessing a sort of eerie calm, long lashes against his cheekbones that made her want to kiss the soft wells under his eyes. A fallen warrior.

If only she could erase the image of his bloody face, the fierceness in his eyes when he’d struggled against his attacker, the way he fought for his life.

Maybe it should offer her a morsel of reassurance—after all, Tate didn’t go down easily.

But the fact that he hadn’t called out for help—for Pete’s sake, she’d been in the next room —the fact that he’d ordered her, more than once, to simply run and leave him to his fate…

If she’d ever doubted if he had what it took to protect her from whatever terrorists had threatened her life, at least according to her mother, those doubts died on the Bellagio tile floor.

Tate would easily—too easily, maybe—give his life for her.

She took a bite of her muffin, then washed it down with a bracing slosh of coffee. It did nothing to stop the pitching of her stomach, so she put them both back on the tray.

Kelsey walked away, over to one of the padded chairs near the window, saying nothing more. She wore a pair of cutoff shorts and a gray T-shirt with an oversized sweater and her signature turquoise cowboy boots. She smelled freshly showered.

Outside Tate’s private room, the Desert Sunrise Hospital overlooked the sprawling city, with the vista of Red Rock Canyon in the far horizon. A scorching sun hung high in the sky—Glo had no doubt that Vegas was starting to blister under the springtime desert sun.

But a ruthless chill had slid into her bones, taking root as she sat through the night.

She couldn’t live like this.

Knox, wearing a clean snap-button shirt and a pair of jeans, had come in behind Kelsey and now stood on the other side of the bed. He reached down and squeezed Tate’s leg. “Sorry I didn’t show up earlier to stop all this, bro.”

Glo hadn’t been a firsthand witness to Knox’s meltdown when Tate had been taken in for surgery.

No, he’d hid that until he’d gotten to some remote stairwell.

Although probably not his best choice because the yell of frustration had echoed down the corridor and sent Kelsey fast-walking his direction.

The big cowboy seemed back in control, only the fatigue on his face betraying his own sleepless, pacing night. He must have left in the wee hours, after Glo had dozed off.

“I called Ma to let her know what happened,” Knox said, although Glo wasn’t sure whom he might be talking to. “Although I lied a little about the extent of your injuries.”

Oh. Well, she’d simply avert her eyes to this apparently private family conversation.

“Ma wanted to jump on a plane, but I told her you were going to be fine, so don’t make me a liar.”

Amazingly, Tate seemed to stir under Knox’s touch, his words.

Knox waited, but when Tate’s eyes didn’t open, he made a grim line with his lips and nodded. “Okay, well then, we’re not going anywhere, bro, so take your time.”

Not going anywhere. Fact was, it took everything inside her not to flee.

Only twelve hours ago, she’d been clinging hard to the fantasy that she might actually deserve a happy ending.

Right.

“Tate was always the tough one,” Knox said quietly. “He hated ranching, but by golly, he’d stay in the saddle longer than any of us if Dad asked him to ride fence or hunt down a stray. He doesn’t know the word quit, Glo.”

Oh, now Knox was talking to her. She looked up and nodded. But that was sort of what she was afraid of.

Because it was time to fire her bodyguard.

“You’re not going to believe this, Glo.” Kelsey held her phone up and flashed the screen at Glo.

Glo shook her head, the screen too far away for her to read.

“We’re up for New Group of the Year with the Country Music Guild! Carter just texted with a link of Carrie Underwood announcing the list. He wants us to go to the CMG awards.”

Glo stared at her, trying to wrap her brain around— “The CMG awards?”

“They’re in Nashville. End of May. I gotta text Dixie.”

Dixie. The third member of their band, who had returned to the hotel room right around the time the EMTs were trying to force an oxygen tube down Tate’s swelling throat.

Their first official awards show, and frankly, Glo should be on her feet, fist-pumping the air.

Instead, the cold simply shut her down, the triumph bouncing off her. “Yeah. Sure.”

Kelsey frowned, glancing over at her, then back to her phone.

Tate stirred again, and his eyes moved under his lids.

Glo stood up, bent over him. “Hey, tough guy. You’re okay.” She pressed her hand to the center of his chest, glad to feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. “We’re with you.”

His good eye opened, and for a moment, he seemed far away, the texture of confusion, even horror, in his eye.

“Bro. You’re in the hospital,” Knox filled in, probably deducing the same from Tate’s widening eye.

Tate’s gaze flashed to Glo, the past knitting together in his blue eye.

Then he started to gag.

“Tate, calm down!” Knox pressed his hand on Tate’s uninjured shoulder. “Just let the machine breathe for you?—”

Kelsey had gotten up and pressed the nurse call button.

Tate writhed on the bed, reaching for the tube as if to pull it out. Knox grabbed his hand, pinned it.

The white of Tate’s eye showed, and Glo pressed her hands over her mouth to keep from crying out.

His agonized grunts tore through her, and she took a step back as Knox leaned over him, talking to him, his voice low, like he might be talking to one of his ranch animals. “Bro. Just breathe. We’ll take it out. It’s okay—you’re okay?—”

“What’s going on?” A nurse in green scrubs pushed into the room. With short dark hair, she looked lean and strong enough to handle her writhing patient. She stepped up to Tate’s bed, grabbed his wrist, and took his pulse. Tate was emitting a strange, deep moan.

She pulled out an iPad and scanned it. “Okay, Mr. Marshall, I’ll call the doctor and see if he can take out that tube. You’re due more pain meds, so I’ll order those for you, but you need to calm down or you’re going to hurt yourself more.”

He looked at the nurse, breathing hard through the tube, then his gaze fell on Glo.

Maybe he hadn’t seen her before, because he simply affixed on her. Held on. And as he did, his panic seemed to drop away. He stopped writhing, his keening died, and his breathing evened out.

Whatever he’d been dreaming, whatever nightmares followed him from his slumber broke away.

Then his eyes filled, and maybe that scared her even more.

Tate didn’t do tears.

Glo stepped up to his bed, taking the nurse’s place as she left, and ran her hand over his trapped in the sling. “I’m here, Tate.”

His gaze slipped to the purpling bruise over her eye, and he closed his eye as if in pain.

Yeah, well, she knew how he felt.

“Slava is in custody. And both Knox and I gave statements to the police. He’s not going anywhere.”

Tate opened his eyes and looked at Knox, who was nodding at her words.

But that wasn’t the end of trouble, was it? Because it didn’t solve the bigger problem.

The looming death threat against Glo and her family, one that Tate had vowed to protect her from.

What, from his hospital bed? With two broken ribs?

In a way, she was relieved. In her worst nightmares Tate stepped in front of a bullet or protected her body as a bomb exploded around them.

For years she’d gone to sleep with the images of David’s death in her brain. No details, just an IED on the side of some road in Afghanistan.

It left her imagination way too open.

Tate had added brutal, vivid color to the scenarios in her head.

She ran her thumb over his hand, pasting on a smile. If she’d learned anything from her senator mother, it was to deflect, deny, and pretend. “We’re safe, tough guy. Shh…”

The hospital room door opened again, and a doctor came in, followed by the nurse. A lean, blond man with a short haircut, he looked like a marathoner. “Let’s check that throat of yours, Tate, and see if we can’t get that tube out.”