“Come with me.”
“Wait!” Archer stopped the womn before she could turn away. “Cassie. Is she…”
“She made it through surgery with flying colors.” The woman smiled wide. “I’m sure the doctor will explain it in more detail when you see him, but the bullets managed to miss any major organs or arteries.”
Was she saying what he thought she was saying?
“So she’s going to be okay?”
“Barring any unforeseen complications, your fiancée should make a full and complete recovery. She’s very lucky, you know.”
The woman was wrong about that. Something Archer knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the second he stepped foot into her quiet room and saw his beautiful, blonde angel asleep beneath the stark white blankets.
Cassie was still alive. He hadn’t lost her, after all. She was alive and breathing, and as he pulled the hard plastic chair near the head of the bed and took her warm, limp hand in his, he knew…
I’m the luckiest bastard in the world.
Archer woketo something crawling on his head. No, not crawling. Raking. Like someone running their fingers through his…
His eyes flew open, and his head shot up from the bed Cassie lay in. His heart filled with so much emotion he could hardly stand it when he saw those gorgeous, foggy blue eyes staring back into his.
“Hey!” He leaned up and brushed some hair from her forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been shot by a crazy, gun-wielding psycho.”
Her words were soft and a bit slurred from the drugs, but the fact that she’d just made a smartass comment did more for his aching heart than she’d ever know.
“I’m so sorry, Cassie.” His throat closed tight. “I should have been there.”
“No.” She shook her head against the stiff pillow. “You don’t get to do that. Not this time.”
“It’s my job to protect you.”
“Your job is to love me.” She cleared the huskiness from her throat. “Just like I love you.”
“I do.” He pressed his lips gently against hers. “God, baby. I love you so fucking much.” He rested his forehead against hers and squeezed his eyes shut. “When I saw you lying there, covered in all that blood, I thought…” His voice cracked but he cleared it and kept on. “I thought I’d lost you. You were so still. So cold, and I thought…I thought you were gone.”
She placed a loving hand on his arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Archer lifted his head so he could meet her gaze, once more. “Do you mean that?”
“Of course, I do.”
“Good. Because as soon as you’re all healed up, I’m going to marry you.”
The fog seemed to instantly vanish from her widening eyes. “You’re…what?”
Shit. He hadn’t intended to say that to her. Not here. Not now.
This wasn’t part of the plan. He was going to spend the next few weeks wining and dining her. Treating her the way a woman like her deserved. And then, when the time was right, he’d planned to enlist Natalie’s help in designing the best, most unexpected proposal of all time.
But now…
“I’m sorry. I’m screwing this whole thing up. This isn’t how…I didn’t plan to do this here?—”
“But you did plan to do it?”
Hearing the hope lifting Cassie’s strained voice, Archer felt a sliver of his own. “I, uh…”Fuck it.“Yeah. Yes.” He needed her to understand he was serious. “I was going to wait a few weeks. Treat you right. Date you first. You know, buy you flowers and take you to dinner. Maybe go dancing…”