He cupped her cheek, looked into her eyes, his gaze soft. “Hey, don’t you worry. That’s why I’m here. I’m going to make sure you’re safe. You just rest.”
But then the doctor was there. He sent Zach outside in the hallway and examined her, shining a flashlight into her eyes, asking her questions, making her squeeze his fingers, getting her out of bed with a nurse to spot her so he could check her balance. The throbbing inside her skull was so much worse when she stood. By the time she’d crawled back into bed again, she had what felt like a migraine.
She lay back in the bed, eyes closed, the pain overwhelming, then felt warm fingers take hers, a hand gently stroking the hair from her face.
“We’ll get her some morphine now.” That was the nurse.
“Just a few more minutes, and you’ll feel a lot better.” Zach’s voice soothed her.
“Don’t leave me, please.” She hated how needy she sounded, but she couldn’t help it. She was afraid and in pain, and shedidneed him.
“I’m not going anywhere. Just rest.”
Then the nurse came and injected something into her IV. She felt a warm sensation in her arm. Almost instantly, her pain slipped away.
Holding on to Zach’s hand, so did she.
ZACH WATCHED NATALIE’S eyes drift shut, unable to take his gaze off her.
He’d never been more afraid in his life than on that long drive to the airport when he’d believed she was dead. By the time he’d reached the United ticket counter, the online news reports claimed she was alive but en route to the hospital. Terrible images had come to his mind, images of men torn apart by IEDs in Iraq, mangled limbs, charred bodies.
But here she was, in one battered but beautiful piece.
Zach wasn’t a religious man. He’d seen things in combat that defied the existence of a caring, compassionate god. But to see her, alive and whole, felt like a miracle.
IGNORING PEARCE’S REPEATED calls to his cell phone, Zach left a sleeping Natalie with Sophie, Kat, and a pretty, pregnant blonde who’d kissed him on the cheek and introduced herself as Tessa, Darcangelo’s wife. He walked out to the private ER waiting room, where he found Joaquin gone and Hunter, Darcangelo, and Rossiter with their kids.
It looked like a nursery. Two preschoolers sat on the floor playing with blocks, one a little girl with dark brown curls and big blue eyes, surely Darcangelo’s daughter, the other a little boy with sandy brown hair and green eyes who was the spitting image of Hunter. A little girl with strawberry blond hair toddled unsteadily along the edge of the furniture not far from Hunter’s protective reach, while Rossiter cuddled a sleeping baby girl with coal black hair.
Zach stopped in his tracks, the sight throwing him off. He didn’t like babies, didn’t care for children. Or at least he didn’t think he did. But these little ones were so damned . . .cute. Little bits of sweetness, each one of them was tiny and helpless and utterly innocent. Some part of him—some part he wanted to disown—gave a big, unmistakable “awww!”
What the hell is wrong with you, McBride?
He’d known the three men were married. He supposed Natalie might have mentioned they had kids, but he hadn’t paid attention to that part. But seeing Hunter in his SWAT uniform holding a pacifier . . .
And what will happen to his kids if he gets killed in the line of duty?
The men looked up.
Darcangelo stood. “How is she?”
“The doc checked her MRIs and evaluated her and says it’s a bad concussion. They gave her some morphine, so she’s sleeping. She was pretty coherent, though she can’t remember the explosion.”
Hunter’s little girl lost her grip on the edge of a chair, plopped down heavily onto her diapered bottom, and began to cry, her precious little face the very image of distress, her tiny world temporarily shattered.
Hunter picked her up, kissed her. “It could have been a lot worse.”
“You said it, Hunter.” Rossiter gently settled his sleeping baby in her car seat and covered her with a small blanket decorated with Indian designs. “That was too damned close.”
Which reminded Zach of the bone he had to pick with the three of them. “She said she told you she saw one of Cárdenas’s men yesterday. Why didn’t you get her off the streets entirely or at least put a watch on the newspaper?”
“Okay, that’s fair.” Darcangelo took a step in his direction. “But why didn’t you tell us that you were after Cárdenas for murdering Americans on U.S. soil? We’d have taken what she reported yesterday much more seriously if we’d known Cárdenas was capable of that.”
“Not sure how you got that bit of info. My mission was classified.”
Hunter got to his feet, daughter in his arms. “If you thought there was any chance he would strike at her here in Denver, you should have told us. We’d have done everything we could to protect her. Instead, you flew off to D.C. and left her here to face this alone.”
Guilt churning in his chest, Zach reined in the urge to get in Hunter’s face. The man might not like him, but he was Natalie’s friend. And then there was the baby in his arms. The sweet little thing had quit crying, her head resting against her daddy’s Kevlar while she sucked her thumb, itty-bitty tears on her chubby cheeks.