* * *
When the nurse came out to tell them they could visit Liam one at a time, Cate had no intention of stepping forward. And when Keira turned to her and said, “You first, Cate,” she demurred.
“You’re his sister. I’m just—”
“You’re just the woman he loves,” Keira said swiftly. Her smile was woman to woman, and full of understanding. “He’ll want to see you first.” And when Cate still hesitated, she added, “Go on. I know him. He’ll want to know you’re okay. And since he can’t ask...”
Another burst of sisterly affection for Keira filled Cate—similar to what she felt for Angelina—and she blinked back sudden tears. Liam’s sister was just like Liam, and Cate could so easily see herself fitting into their family, if...
She didn’t hug Keira, but the urge was there. “Thank you.”
* * *
The nurse led Cate through the double doors and down a long hallway, to a dimly lit hospital room filled with so many monitors, pumps and other pieces of lifesaving equipment there was scarcely room to maneuver except right next to the bed. “Ten minutes,” the nurse said.
Cate hesitated in the doorway until Liam turned his head toward her, and his eyes—those beautiful dark brown eyes—lit up at the sight of her, despite how weak he obviously felt. Then she was at his side in a flash, leaning over and kissing his cheek as emotion welled up in her throat. She wasn’t going to cry, she told herself with a kind of desperation. She wasn’t.
Only...she was. Tears coated her cheeks as she whispered, “Please don’t ever scare me like that again.” Then kissed his shoulder, his arm, his hand—the one without the IV drip. Hot, frantic kisses, because she was so overcome with emotion that he was alive and she had to let it out somehow.
She shushed him when he tried to speak even though the ventilator tube made it impossible. “Don’t, Liam. Just listen.” She brushed a hand over his forehead, then cupped his cheek. “I’m sure there are lots of questions you want to ask...but you’ll have to wait until that tube comes out. All you need to know right now is I’m okay...and Vishenko is dead.” She kissed his cheek again for good measure. “And you are a lucky man, according to your surgeon.”
He gripped her hand and squeezed, his eyes telling her he knew he was a lucky man...and not because his injuries weren’t life-threatening. His eyes said plain as words he was a lucky man because she loved him. “I do,” she whispered. “I do love you, Liam. More than you know. More than I can ever tell you.”
He tugged on her hand until she let him guide it to his chest and splay her fingers over his heart. Then he moved her hand to her own chest and pressed it against her heart, and she knew he was trying to tell her the only way he could that he loved her, too.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “When I saw him on the path,” she said in a voice that trembled, “I was afraid at first. Then... I can’t explain it...but I felt your arms around me. Holding me safe. Loving me. And I knew no matter what happened, he couldn’t touch me. Not the real me. Only you can do that. Only you.”
* * *
The ventilator had been removed and Liam had been moved to a regular hospital room when Cate returned the next day. The IV was still inserted in a vein on the back of his right hand, and the chest tube was still in place, too. Despite that, he was sitting in a chair beside his bed, trying to interest himself in a not-so-recent swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated one of the nurses had provided him with from the waiting room...but thinking about Cate. Thinking that none of the swimsuit models could hold a candle to her. Remembering, too, that she’d once dreamed of being a model herself...before the Bratva and Vishenko entered her life.
He looked up when the door opened, and there she stood in a simple cotton T-shirt tucked into snug jeans, her shoulder-length blond hair shining. But all he really saw was the radiance in her face, her eyes, and his heart turned over at the sight of her. It probably always will, he realized. Fifty years from now she’ll still make my heart skip a beat. And he wasn’t the least bit sorry.
“Hey, sweetheart.” He tossed the magazine onto the bed and held his left arm out to her. She moved into his embrace and kissed him lightly, careful not to touch his chest tube. “I was just thinking about you.”
Still in the circle of his arm, she reached over and picked up the magazine from the bed. Her gaze moved from the nearly naked cover model on the front of Sports Illustrated to him. “Oh really? Thinking of me?”
Her attempt at the sexual banter most women engaged in without a second thought was endearing, and he gave her his most flirtatious grin. “Yeah, darlin’. I was thinking you might pose like that for me...a private showing.” His grin deepened when her cheeks turned crimson. But his grin was erased when a stricken expression entered her eyes and she turned her face away from him.