Grinding her heels farther into the wood floor, she said, “I want to know. If you don’t love me anymore or think you can’t learn to love me again, let’s have it. I can take it.”
That was a total lie. If he admitted he couldn’t love her, she’d fall apart…just not in front of him and not in front of Michael. She’d never fall apart in front of Michael.
Kieran’s expression never changed. He shifted in his seat and opened his mouth, but whatever he’d started to say was drowned out by a wail from Michael’s room.
Chapter Seven
Kieran shot to his feet, adrenaline pumping through his system full force. He recognized that sound. God, he recognized that sound.
Devon jumped up, too, her head tilted to the side. She placed a hand on his arm. “He has nightmares.”
He charged past her and shoved open Michael’s door. Michael screamed again, his back bolted to the headboard, his eyes staring vacantly in front of him.
Pain hammered the back of Kieran’s skull. His hands clenched. He wanted to rip something apart. He wanted to smash his fist through the wall.
His son trembled on the bed, halfway between wakefulness and a sleep that clutched and dragged him back to the horrors of his nightmare.
Devon hovered behind him and Kieran dragged in a deep, steadying breath. This wasn’t his nightmare. It was Michael’s, and his son needed him, needed him to be calm and sure, not a raging lunatic ready to do violence.
He took a step toward the bed and whispered, “Michael.”
Michael’s fists bunched the bedclothes. His eyes flickered. His next scream gurgled in his throat and died with a whimper.
Kieran perched on the edge of the mattress. “It’s okay, Michael. It’s just a dream. Dreams can’t hurt you.”
Michael sucked in a breath of air and let it out with a whistle. His brown eyes darkened. His grip on the covers loosened.
“That’s it. Push the dream away. Your mom’s here.”
“Mom?” Michael rubbed his nose and blinked his eyes.
Devon crept toward the bed as if afraid she’d break a spell. “I’m here.”
Leaning forward, she kissed Michael’s head. “It was just a bad dream, sweet pea. Do you remember what it was about?”
“No.”
“Just scary, huh?” She pulled him from the jumbled covers and wrapped her arms around him. “If you remember what it was about, you can tell Dr. Elena. She likes to hear about dreams.”
“She told me.”
“Good.” She ruffled his hair. “That wasn’t much of a nap.”
Michael’s features sharpened, and Kieran understood his son didn’t want to return to dreamland. Why would he want to return to a world of fears and threats and monsters?
“Why don’t you bring your blanket with you, and join your mom and me in the living room? If you feel tired, you can fall asleep and we’ll be right there with you.”
Michael scrambled from the bed, dragging a small blanket with him, and Devon mouthed the words “thank you.”
Michael curled up in a corner of the couch, facing the TV. Devon tucked the blanket around him and plumped a pillow behind his head.
“I get the hint.” Devon opened a cabinet and held up a couple of DVDs. “Which one?”
Michael pointed at one with animated fish on the cover, and Devon slid it into the DVD player. She raised an eyebrow at Kieran. “Are you joining us?”
Did he have a choice? The woman was relentless. She was probably hoping Michael would conk out in minutes and she could resume her third-degree interrogation. He could withstand the Taliban, but Devon Reese was in a whole other category, even though he didn’t have any better answers ready this time around.
If he told her the truth, she’d shrug it off, suggest a remedy, find the silver lining. She was good at that.
She apparently didn’t have a problem with a one-eyed man. Not that he expected her to. She was still as loyal and pure as the woman of his dreams-the good dreams.
He dropped to a cushion on the couch, and she settled next to him, between him and Michael. Michael stretched out his legs across his mother’s lap.
One cozy family…until the nighttime terrors.
“Hmm, I wish we had some popcorn.” Devon tickled the soles of Michael’s feet. His giggle turned into a cough.
“Do you want some water?” Kieran half rose from the couch.
“Yes, please.”
Kieran exchanged a glance with Devon. Michael seemed to be talking more. He’d suffered two traumas today, and instead of thrusting him back into his shell, the experiences seemed to be coaxing him out.
Kieran ambled to the kitchen, in no hurry to get back to the talking and singing fish. While he poured a glass of water for Michael, the boy’s cough worsened.
He returned and handed the glass to Michael once he’d settled down after another coughing fit.
“That doesn’t sound good, sweet pea, and you know what the EMTs said.” Devon rubbed circles on Michael’s back as he sipped the water. “Is your throat scratchy?”
“A little.” He took another gulp of water and then coughed up most of it.
“Okay, that’s it. I’m taking you to the hospital. We both breathed in a lot of smoke in that bathroom-icky smoke. I’m just following up on the EMTs’ orders.”
“I agree.” Kieran held out his hand for the empty glass, and Michael’s dark eyes searched his face.
“Can you come?”
“Of course I’ll come.” He pointed to his eye patch. “I’ve spent a lot of time at hospitals recently.”
“Fire?”
He shrugged. “Just an accident.”
By the time they got to the hospital Michael had lapsed back into silence, but Kieran had hope Dr. Elena could help him. They hadn’t even gotten a chance to talk to her about the session today. Too much excitement.
After the doctor examined Michael, he gestured Devon and Kieran into the hallway. “I’d like to keep him overnight for observation. I’m going to give him an inhaler to use tonight to ease his breathing and his cough. Then I’d like to take an X-ray of his lungs.”
“H-he has nightmares, Dr. Jessup. I’d rather not leave him.”
“We’ll keep an eye on him. You can stick around for a while if you like. The anti-inflammatory medicine I’m going to give him will make him drowsy.”
They spent the next few hours in Michael’s room and even shared a dinner of hospital food with him. Devon wanted to spend the night in his room, but the nurses convinced her he’d get more rest if he could drift off to sleep by himself and not try to stay awake to be with his mom.
Devon told Michael before he got his next dose of medicine that she’d be leaving him there for the night. “If you need anything or have any bad dreams, the nurses will be right here to help you. They can call me and I’ll be here in a flash.”
She snapped her fingers. “You forgot to bring your backpack. Where is your backpack? I haven’t seen it lately.”
Michael hunched his shoulders. “Lost it.”
“You lost your Thomas the Tank Engine backpack? What did you have in there?”
“Nothing.” Michael scrunched against the pillows and pulled the covers up to his chin.
“I’ll look for it at home.” Devon smoothed the sheet over Michael’s body. “So are you going to be okay here?”
He nodded.
