LOGAN WOKE UP IN A WHITE ROOM filled with beeping equipment and a sterile smell that made him groan in disgust.
A hospital.
He hated hospitals, always had. His asshole father had put him in several, until the state had finally decided, oh, gee, maybe we’d better do our job and remove the kid from his situation. Logan had thrived in foster homes, but thanks in no small part to his wild streak, he’d still managed to land himself in various emergency rooms all on his own.
Then there’d been Special Forces and the time he and Hawk had been nearly shot to kingdom come when their convoy had been hit in the Gulf.
Since then, however, he’d actually managed to stay hospital free, though he had a running bet with Hawk-one hundred bucks on which of them would run out of luck first.
And damn it, now he’d lost. Unless he could get himself checked out before Hawk found out…
Something rustled at his side, and a face swam in front of his. Fiery red hair, black-rimmed glasses, mossy eyes and well-glossed lips.
His sweet angel, who’d been with him when he’d been dreaming about
Oh, yeah,
Still the sight of her made him want to smile. When he did, a whole new kind of pain swam through him. “Oh, shit.”
“Careful.” She cupped his jaw, her hand blessedly cool on his burning skin. “Stay still.”
He let out a raw laugh. “Yeah. Not so good at that.”
“I’d suggest trying.”
She’d seen him at his absolute worst and was still here. Other than Hawk, that was a rarity for him. And worth everything. He could look at her all day. Hell, all week. He felt dazzled. Dizzy.
But that might have been the pain meds. “You stayed.”
She put her deliciously cool hand on his forehead. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“When was I gone?”
“You’ve been pretty out of it. Your boss called and he sounded devastated at what had happened to you.”
“Tibbs?”
“I didn’t catch his name. He said he’d see you soon.”
“Southern accent so thick he sounds like his cheeks are filled with marbles?”
“No. Sort of a rushed, clipped voice.”
At that, images flashed to him from the barn. Everything going to shit. The shadow on the roof with him. Looking down and seeing something, someone on the ground, looking up at him just before the hit to the head.
He knew that now. He’d looked into Gaines’s eyes and yet had been hit from behind.
By one of Gaines’s men.
“You were out for a long time.”
That sounded bad. He only vaguely remembered being loaded from the chopper into the hospital, but he definitely remembered this gorgeous angel hovering over him with those sweet eyes and that mouth that made him think of hot, sweaty sex. He tried to lift a hand to touch her and found it taped to a board with two separate IVs hooked up to his arm. Uh-oh. Locating his other hand, he slapped at his legs to make sure they were both still there, and a searing bolt of pain sang up his right leg. This time he couldn’t even swear, much less breathe.
“Oh, Logan, don’t.” She ran a hand down his arm in a slow, comforting manner. “Just hang tight. And don’t move.”
He gasped for breath. “Just-give it to me straight. My injuries.”
She looked him right in the eyes. “Well, you have some.”
“Some? Or so many they can’t be counted?”
Her lips quirked. Her eyes softened. “Somewhere in the middle.”
A sense of humor. With eyes like that and a mouth made for sin, it was sensory overload. “Tell me.”
“Let me get your doctor-”
Somehow he managed to grab her hand and hold her still. “I want to hear it from you.”
“Well, you have quite a concussion.”
“Okay, that explains why my head feels like it was stitched back onto my neck.”
“Yep, eighteen stitches.”
“Ouch.”
“There was some concern about the length of time you were unconscious, but you’re awake now, and that’s all the matters.” She stroked her fingers over his. “Right?”
He stared at her fingers. Long, strong, capable. Ringless. “Absolutely. Awake is good, but…? I thought I heard a big one at the end of that statement.”
“Logan.”
Oh, yeah. His humor faded. “Spill it.”
“You fractured your right leg and three ribs in the fall.”
“I’ve had worse.” Which was true.
“There’s some internal bleeding that’s causing concern. They were worried one of your ribs might have punctured a lung-”
“Hey, I’m breathing just fine.”
She nodded and smoothed his blanket, looking so touchingly concerned he wanted to pull her into his lap and kiss it away. Too bad he hurt so much that he was in danger of puking again.
She read his expression with alarming accuracy. “Do you need-”
“No.” He would not throw up again in front of her if it was the last thing he didn’t do.
“Well…I should probably go. I’ll get your doctor first-”
“No.” Logan tightened his grip on her hand, about to utter two words he’d never said before, to anyone. “Don’t go.”
“I really shouldn’t be here.”
“And yet you are.”
“But I shouldn’t be,” she repeated with a helpless smile. “I don’t know why. I just…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on. I puked in front of you. Give me something.”
She glanced back at the door. “It sounds so silly, like a cliche, but I felt this…connection…”
“I know.” He’d felt it too, and he didn’t do connections. Not breaking eye contact, he pulled her closer until she sat on the edge of his bed.
“So you felt it, too?” She asked this casually, just like this wasn’t the moment he usually ran like hell from. If he couldn’t run, he typically backpedaled, scrambling to make up whatever it was that a woman needed to hear, whatever it took to get her back into bed, or into her clothes and out his door, whatever
He could be, as Hawk liked to say, a real prick.
But Logan preferred to think of it like this: it took little to no effort at all to compliment a woman, to touch her the way she wanted to be touched, to listen when she spoke. They loved it.
And he loved being loved.
Normally, by the time he backed out of whatever budding relationship he had going, moving into different waters, the woman he’d been with felt great about themselves.
Both parties happy.
But staring into his angel’s eyes, he suddenly had no fancy words, no moves. He had nothing, and as the
