Finally, she was on her way, flooring it down the quiet, empty, debris-strewn streets of Westport and onto an unfamiliar highway. There was no one on the roads, and she hated that. It made last night’s storm seem even more serious. More likely to cause casualties.
Please, please, please. Not Brendan.
Okay, fine. She wasn’t planning on getting serious with the man, but she really, really needed him to be alive. If someone that vital and enduring and stubborn could be wiped off the face of the earth, what hope did the rest of them have?
She used her shoulder to wipe away the moisture dripping down her cheeks.
Not getting serious about Brendan.
Right.
It took her twenty-five minutes to reach the hospital, and it was as quiet as the roads. There were a couple of cars parked outside and a sleepy administrator manning the front desk. “Sanders. Taggart,” she blurted.
The woman didn’t look up from her computer screen as she directed Piper to the fourth floor, nodding toward the elevator bank across the lobby. Upon entering the elevator, her fingers paused over the button.
The fourth floor was the ICU.
No. No. No.
After pressing the button, she closed her eyes and breathed, in and out, in and out, all but throwing herself through the doors when they opened. More lack of activity greeted her. Shouldn’t doctors and nurses be rushing around trying to save Brendan? Her wet sneakers squelched on the linoleum floor of the dim hallway as she made her way to the information desk. There was nobody there. Should she wait or just start checking rooms?
A nurse left one room and ran to another, a clipboard in her hand.
Going to see Brendan? Was something wrong?
Heart in her throat, she crept toward the room where the nurse had gone—
“Piper?”
She whirled at the sound of Brendan’s deep voice. And there he was in his signature jeans, beanie, and sweatshirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Above his head, the hallway light flickered, and briefly, she wondered if that meant he was a ghost. But no. No, there was his scent, the furrow of his dark brow, that baritone. He was there. Alive alive alive. Thank God. His eyes were so green. Had she ever noticed how beautiful a shade they were? They were ringed with dark circles, but they were incredible. “Oh good,” she croaked, his image rapidly blurring. “Y-you’re okay.” She tried to be subtle about swiping the tears from her eyes. “They just said there’d been an accident, so I . . . I just thought I would come check. To be neighborly and all.”
“Neighborly.”
His raspy voice sent a hot shiver down her spine. “Yes. I even brought you your truck.”
Brendan took a step closer, his eyes looking less and less tired by the moment. “You were at my house?”
She nodded, backed up, narrowly missing a supply cart.
His chest rose and fell, and he stepped forward again. “Is that my shirt, honey?”
Honey. Why’d he have to go and call her that? “No, I have one just like it.”
“Piper.”
“Mmm?”
“Please. Please come here.”
* * *
Brendan’s heart hammered, the tendons in his hands aching from the strain of not reaching for her. She’d come to the hospital. In his clothes. Did she realize tears were spilling down her cheeks and she was shaking, head to toe? No, she didn’t. Based on her flirty shoulder shrugs and attempts to wink, she thought she was playing it cool, and it made his chest burn.
This girl. He’d be keeping her. There was no way around it.
There had been a moment last night when he’d thought his luck might have run out, and there’d just been images of her, flashing back to back, and he’d railed at the unfairness of meeting Piper but not being given enough time to be with her. If they weren’t at the outset of something real here, his gut was a filthy liar. If he was honest with himself, it had been trying to tell him Piper would be important from the second he saw her in her floppy hat through the window of No Name.
“Piper.”
“Mmm?”
“Please. Please come here.”
She shook her head, stopped trying to put on a brave smile. “Why? So you can put me in the recharging station? You have the most dangerous job in the country, Brendan.” Her lower lip wobbled. “I don’t want your hugs.”
His brow arched. “Recharging station?”
“That’s what I call it . . .” Still backing away from him, she flipped her hair back, sniffed. “Never mind.”
“When I hug you?” Fuck. His heart was turning over and over like a car engine. “My hugs are your recharging station?”
“Stop assigning meaning to my words.”
An obstruction formed in his throat, and he had a feeling he’d never be able to swallow it. Not as long as she looked up at him, all beauty and strength and vulnerability and confusion and complications. “I should have called, but I left my phone on the boat and it’s been hectic transporting him here on the helicopter. I didn’t have time to find another phone, and then I worried you’d be sleeping.” He paused. “Can you be mad at me while I kiss you, baby? It’s all I’ve wanted to do for the last two weeks.”