Tall, Dark & Furious (Pyte/Sentinel 6)

Muscle twitching in his jaw, Nathan reluctantly limped out of the room as Trace looked down at his wife, noting just how beautiful she was as he reached up and gently pushed her hair out of her face. When she smiled in her sleep, he ran his fingertips along her jaw, noting how soft her skin was as he cupped her jaw and found himself leaning down so that he could press his lips against her forehead, realizing just how precious she was to him.

*-*-*-*

“Am I dying?” Samantha asked the warm, firm chest that her face was pressed against.

There was a soft chuckle and then, “No, wife. You’re not dying.”

“Then why do I feel like I’m dying?” she asked as every muscle in her body screamed in agony.

“Because you’re sleeping on the floor,” her brother bit out from the doorway where Trace had banned him.

“It’s more comfortable,” she lied because she refused to tell her brother that the real reason that she was sleeping on the floor was because she wanted to feel Trace’s arms wrapped around her.

“You need to eat, wife,” Trace said, gently pushing her hair behind her ear as he leaned down and pressed his lips against her forehead.

“Stop calling her that,” Nathan bit out evenly as Trace carefully picked her up, ignoring her brother and carried her to the bed where he carefully laid her down and pressed another kiss against her forehead with a murmured, “I’ll be right back, wife.”

Samantha reached for the comforter only to sigh when Charlie, who’d refused to leave her side since they came back from the emergency room, jumped up on the bed and laid down, hogging the comforter. With a glare, she reached over and-

“Off,” Nathan said firmly, only to be ignored. With a curse, Nathan moved to pull the dog off only to throw a glare over his shoulder when a low growl had the dog jumping off the bed and following Trace out the door.

“I hate that bastard,” Nathan muttered as he walked over and sat down on the bed next to her.

“The dog?” Samantha asked, nodding because that little bastard was definitely out to get her.

“No, the asshole that I’m going to shove in a fucking volcano,” Nathan said, sounding tired as he rubbed his hands roughly down his face before dropping his hands aside with a sigh and asked, “How are you holding up, Sammie?”

“Please don’t call me that,” she said with a glare that had him chuckling as he pulled the comforter over her.

“Why not?” Nathan asked, settling the comforter around her before climbing over her, making sure to push her over and be as annoying as humanly possible as he did it, reminding her of when they were growing up and had to share a room.

When their parents found out that they were having twins, they were thrilled. They’d been together since high school, married for less than a year, just bought their first house, and their father had finally been able to afford to quit his job and start flipping houses fulltime. Finding out that they were having twins, a boy and a girl had made everything perfect.

They’d set up adjoining nurseries, picked out names, talked about all the things that they were going to do, the vacations that they were going to take, imagined all the possibilities, and then…

They were told that the baby girl that they’d always wanted probably wasn’t going to make it. It had been difficult, but their parents had prepared themselves for the worst. They’d never realized that Samantha surviving would be the worst thing in the world that could happen to them.

Nathan came into this world a screaming healthy baby boy and she had barely managed to take her first breath before the hospital was arranging for MedFlight to take her to Portland. It had been touch and go there for a while and then, reality sank in when that first hospital bill came. That was followed by dozens more, each demanding more than the last. The insurance had paid the bare minimum and a collection from the local church had helped with meals and gas so that they could visit her, but…

It hadn’t been enough.

Her grandmother offered to sell her old house to help them with the bills, but it had already been on the verge of falling apart by that point. Her parents were faced with a choice no parent should ever have to make, keep her and lose everything or give her up, knowing that the state would make sure that she got the care that she needed. Without hesitation, their father chose her, but their mother…

Hadn’t.

While their mother had been moving in with friends from college halfway around the world, their father had been putting their house up for sale and begging for his old job back. He’d found them a small two-bedroom apartment, painted the walls of their nursery an ugly green that they used to color on, and worked his ass off to keep a roof over their heads.

They hadn’t had much growing up, but they’d had each other. Nathan was her best friend. They’d been through everything together, been there for each other, and could always count on each other. She loved him more than anything in the world, which was why knowing that he’d lied to her hurt the most.

“You’re not in the Marines, are you?” she asked, glancing over to find Nathan watching her with an unreadable expression.

“No, I’m not,” he said softly with a sad smile.

“What’s going on, Nathan? I don’t understand any of this,” Samantha said as he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer.

“You were never meant to, Sammie,” he said, sighing heavily as he pressed his lips against the top of her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, Nathan?” she asked, laying her head against his chest as she waited for him to say something that would help her make sense out of everything that happened.