Page 61 of Tell Me Your Desires

Chapter Thirty-Two

Anya lost her smile as soon as she saw Max pacing the corridor. Time to get down to business. “Max, you’re with me.” She slipped her arm through his and dragged him with her as he glanced behind him toward Jaime’s room, confusion written all over his face.

“H-how pissed off at me is she?”

Anya raised a brow as she eyed Max. “You should be more worried about me. You really didn’t tell her anything?”

Max turned away like a guilty puppy who had just been caught chewing his owner’s favorite pair of shoes. “I tried, but I…” He mumbled something incoherent as he scrubbed his stubbled chin. “I thought it would be better coming from you.”

Anya pressed the elevator call button and turned to stare Max down as they waited. “In my field, we call that weaponized incompetence. Or cowardice. Which do you prefer?”

“Is there a third option?” Max grumbled.

“Nope.”

“C’mon, Doc! The woman just woke up from getting shot. How the hell was I supposed to tell her she was shot with the same gun that killed her fiancée?”

“I actually agree with you not telling Jaime about Taylor,” Anya confessed.

“I didn’t tell her about the gun.” She rolled her eyes when Max threw his arms up in the air as though he’d won the first-place trophy in this argument.

“Don’t get cocky. The only reason I didn’t tell her is because we need irrefutable proof of the shooter’s identity before putting her through that pain again.

If it turns out to be a ghost gun that our suspects got off the street… ”

“Either way, we gotta tell her, Doc. But I’d prefer to do it when she’s better.”

The elevator door opened, and Anya smiled cordially at the people who stepped out before she entered. “Oh? You’re going to tell her? Like you told her you were on administrative leave? Or that the feds were working the case now? Or that I was working the case with Kate?”

Max stabbed the button for the parking garage. “I assume we’re leaving?”

“And deflecting it seems, yes.” Anya decided to let Max off the hook.

Obviously, seeing Jaime in such bad shape shook him enough to keep him from telling her anything he deemed too stressful.

Could she really blame him? Hadn’t she essentially done the same thing?

Yeah, she had told Jaime some things. But hadn’t she admitted to withholding certain information for the sake of Jaime’s health?

Besides, they didn’t have time to argue about this anymore.

Anya needed to bring Max up to speed on what was happening with the case.

She dug her car keys out of her pocket and handed them to Max.

Max frowned as he stared down at the key. “What’s this?”

“The key to my car. You’re going to drive me home.

” Anya guided Max’s hand, pressing the unlock button on the key fob.

Anya’s Lexus chirped, and the lights flashed as the locks disengaged a few feet from where they stood.

“On the way, I’m going to tell you who the killers are and how we’re going to catch their asses. ”

“Fuck yeah!” Max opened the passenger door for Anya. He was halfway to the driver’s side when he stopped abruptly. “Killers? As in plural?!”

The room felt like it had deflated the second Anya left.

Jaime stared at the closed door, blinking through the raw blur in her eyes, her chest aching in places the morphine couldn’t touch.

The soft hum and steady beep of the machines beside her bed should have been comforting—it meant she was alive and healing—but right now, it just underscored how fucking useless she felt.

She was Jaime Baros. The one who kicked doors in and made monsters confess with nothing but a glare and a record of being right. And now she was stuck in a fucking bed, stitched together with titanium staples and sheer willpower, while the woman she loved was heading straight into the fire.

With her ex.

Fucking perfect.

Jaime tilted her head back against the pillow and closed her eyes, her bottom lip quivering with the image of Anya disappearing behind that door. I will be back. We’ll get our time, played on a loop, both a promise and a threat depending on how the next few hours went.

Zoe busied herself around the room, fluffing a pillow or pretending to check Jaime’s chart. She was probably just following protocol to keep Jaime distracted. Good luck with that, Jaime thought. There wasn’t a distraction big enough to drown out the coil of dread tightening in her gut.

“So,” Zoe said, in that bright, practiced nurse voice Jaime usually hated. “Want me to turn the TV on or something?”

“No,” Jaime muttered as she barely opened her eyes. “Unless you’ve got a live feed on rogue former agents doing vigilante shit with their federal exes.”

Zoe paused. “Yeah…no. But I’ll keep checking channel four.”

Jaime cracked a smile, but it hurt. Everything hurt.

She’d known Anya was brave—reckless sometimes, infuriatingly stubborn most of the time—but knowing it and seeing her walk out that door with a plan she wouldn’t explain, facing down a killer with nothing but her instincts and maybe Max at her side… that was something else.

And still, Jaime had let her go.

She could have fought harder. She could have tried to rip the IV from her arm and drag herself after Anya like some half-dead lunatic. But Anya had asked for trust. Real trust. And Jaime—broken, stitched-up, and love-struck—had given it.

God, she hoped it wasn’t the last mistake she ever made.

She shifted slightly, ignoring Zoe’s soft “Careful,” as she reached for her phone on the side table. Her hand trembled, but it wasn’t from pain. It was from frustration, fear…and the need to feel like she had some kind of control.

Her fingers hovered over Max’s name in her contacts. She didn’t call. Just stared at it.

If she called him and they were mid-op, she’d fuck everything up.

If she called and they didn’t answer, she’d panic.

If she called and heard something in his voice—guilt, panic, or worse…

silence—that would be far more terrible than anything her mind was conjuring up now.

And right now? Her mind was conjuring up some pretty vivid shit.

A knock came at the door.

Jaime’s head snapped up. Zoe’s did, too. The nurse opened it cautiously, but it wasn’t Anya. Just a tray of Jello cups that Jaime couldn’t stomach the thought of right now.

Zoe took the tray. “Thanks. We’re good in here.”

The girl, now trayless, nodded and disappeared like she’d been chased.

Jaime let her head fall back against the pillow with a sigh. “I’m going to lose my fucking mind in here.”

Zoe slid into the chair Anya had vacated. “She’ll be okay.”

Jaime side-glanced at Zoe. “You don’t know that.”

“No. But I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She’s not coming back dead. Not when she’s finally got something to live for.”

That hit Jaime like a punch to the sternum.

The tears she’d been holding back slipped free before she could stop them.

“I was dead for a bit,” she said quietly.

“Anya told me. And I remember this one thing. I… remember feeling peace. Like real peace. Not the kind you tell yourself you’ll get on a beach with a beer someday but never do. I remember thinking I could rest.”

Zoe didn’t say a word. She just listened.

“But then…I felt her.” Jaime blinked repeatedly as she stared up at the ceiling. “I felt her fingers laced in mine, and her voice saying she needed more time. And suddenly, I needed it, too.”

The silence from Zoe stretched on.

“I think,” Jaime whispered, “I think I fell in love with her the second she said my name like it was the only word that mattered.”

Zoe smiled faintly. “Then hang on to that. People who fall in love like that…they don’t get torn apart easily.”

Another knock.

Both women looked toward the door, but again, it wasn’t Anya. It was a nurse with Jaime’s updated chart and instructions for meds. Jaime barely heard them talking. She was already gone again in her mind, seeing Anya’s face, the fire in her eyes when she said she was the savior.

Yeah, you are, babe, Jaime thought. Just don’t be a martyr.

Jaime’s hand closed slowly around the crumpled blanket. She could feel the pressure building in her chest again, the ache of helplessness turning into something sharper.

She needed something. Anything.

A pen. She reached toward the table drawer with her uninjured arm, biting back a grunt. Inside, she found paper, a cheap plastic pen, and a couple of out-of-date magazines. She grabbed the pen and paper, ignoring Zoe’s questioning look.

“What’re you doing?”

Jaime tried to sit up a little better, burning way too much energy when she did so. “Writing her a letter.”

“She is coming back, you know.”

“I know.” Jaime paused. “But just in case…If I don’t say it now, I’ll never forgive myself.”

She stared down at the paper for a while, the pen hovering and her fingers trembling.

Then she started to write.

Anya,

If I didn’t say it enough when you were standing right in front of me…

I love you. I love your fire, your brilliance, the way you throw yourself into danger like you’re too stubborn to die.

I love your sarcasm, your strength, your goddamn mouth when you’re bossing me around.

If anything happens to you, I’ll never stop trying to figure out how to rewind time and make you stay.

You told me to trust you. I do. With everything.

But I also know love means being terrified sometimes. And right now, I’m terrified.

So please, just come back.

— J

She folded it carefully, slid it beneath her pillow, and exhaled slowly.

Maybe she’d never need to give it to Anya, but she felt better having the words out in the open. Just in case. Zoe didn’t say a word. She didn’t ask to read it. She just gently adjusted Jaime’s IV and dimmed the lights a little more.

As Jaime stared at the ceiling, her heart hammering and her mind racing, all she could do was wait. And hope like hell that Anya really would come back.