She came to in a hospital bed, feeling as though an elephant were sitting on her chest. Her head throbbed as bright, sterile light stabbed through her pupils. She shut her eyes immediately and moaned.
“Kait!” A soft hand closed around hers.
Kait struggled to place the voice. “Marjorie?” she croaked. She slit her eyes open again to see her friend’s face hovering over hers. “What happened?” Even as she asked the question, the events flooded back. She opened her eyes and looked around for them, but only Marjorie was in the small room with her. Fear shot through her. “Gray?” she gasped. “Landon?”
“They’re okay! Kait, they’re fine.” Marjorie pressed her gently back against the bed, easily defeating her weak attempts at getting up. “Landon got some first degree burns carrying you and Gray out. Gray has a concussion, but you can see him soon. He’s on this floor. Landon’s at home because his mom bought a team of doctors and turned his room into a hospital.”
“He carried me out?” Kait whispered, then her voice dissolved into a wracking cough. Marjorie held a plastic straw to her lips and she drank eagerly. “When can I see him?”
“You need to get better first.” Marjorie replaced the large, plastic hospital mug on the tray within Kait’s reach. Whatever you have to say to Landon can wait.”
“No,” Kait said, her eyes suddenly filling. “It can’t.”
She spent two more days in the hospital, hoping every time someone came in her room that it would be Landon. Finally, on the third day, she and Gray were both discharged. Marjorie drove them both back to the apartment, but Kait didn’t even go inside. She went straight to the Honda.
“Don’t you want to change first?” Marjorie asked critically. “I picked that out as your ‘coming home’ outfit, not your ‘going to see Landon’ outfit.”
Kait smiled at her friend but didn’t hesitate. She pulled out of the parking lot and turned the twenty-minute drive into fifteen. Before she could start on the long, winding drive that led up to the James mansion, she had to convince security to let her through the wrought iron gate.
They finally got permission from Martha, who was waiting for Kait at the top of the drive, the massive house spanning out behind her like outstretched wings.
In all the years she had known Landon, Kait had never been to the James mansion. Before, it would have intimidated her. Now, she didn’t give the grandeur a second thought as she jumped out of her car,
“Martha James.” She stopped in front of the older woman.
“Kaitlyn LeClark,” Martha said, taking her time examining Kait from the top of her messy ponytail to the tips of her toes. Kait knew she didn’t look her best. She was still pale and wan from the hospital, she still had a wracking cough if something hit her airway wrong. She was wearing the only pair of shoes she had left—black, non-slip sneakers better suited for the LeClarks kitchen than the James mansion. But she wasn’t intimidated by Martha anymore either. And the hard bitter grudge that had lodged itself in her heart fifteen years ago had dissolved.
“Can I see him?” she asked plainly.
Martha hesitated and then nodded. She turned and went into the house, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Kait was following. She led Kait into a palatial lobby with two stairwells sweeping up from the tiled floor. They went up the left one and down the hall for what felt like half a mile before she stopped in front of a set of double doors.
“This is his room,” she said. “The nurse is in there with him, but the doctor won’t be back until this evening.”
Kait hesitated, suddenly shy. “Should you ask him if he wants to see me?”
Martha’s face softened infinitesimally. “He wants to see you, Kaitlyn.”
With that, she started back down the hall and left Kait alone. Kaitlyn raised her hand and knocked twice before she could second guess herself. A round-faced woman with dark-rimmed glasses and a tight bun answered the door.
“Who is it?” a voice asked imperiously from within the room.
“A woman,” the nurse called back.
“Kaitlyn,” Kait provided.
“Named Kaitlyn.”
Even from the doorway, Kait heard the sharp inhalation.
“Send her in.”
The nurse swung the door open and stepped aside.
Kait was overwhelmed by the size of the room and the spectacle of hospital equipment grafted over a luxurious bedroom. It took her a minute to find Landon standing up from the wheelchair he’d pulled up to his desk.
“Oh my god!” Kaitlyn’s hand went involuntarily to her mouth.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” the nurse assured her.
“Give us a minute,” Landon said brusquely, his eyes never leaving Kait’s.
When the door clicked closed behind her, Kait stepped closer, her eyes sweeping over him for any signs of injury. His face and hands were red and chapped, but other than that, he looked fine.
“I feel fine,” he said. “This is all Martha’s doing.” His gesture encompassed everything from the IV stand at his bedside to the wheelchair behind him. “She wants to have some fucking lung specialist fly in from Chicago.”
Kait opened her mouth to say, “She loves you,” but it came out, “I love you.” Tears filled her eyes and she didn’t bother to rub them away. It felt like all she did lately was cry.
Landon studied her face impassively. “That’s a big leap from thinking I’m a monster.”
The words were toneless, but Kait sensed the hurt behind them. And he had a right to be hurt. She’d turned on him so quickly, so easily. And he’d nearly died for her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing how inadequate it was. “Marjorie told me that you knew about Basil Hampton, that that was why you went after 1358.”
“To avenge you,” Landon said.
“Yes,” Kait
