Page 94
Kira squeezed his hand as the paramedic jabbed him in the upper arm. Whatever meds were in that vial kicked in, and he started to feel good.
A little too good. He sat in the camping chair and his eyes grew heavy.
But his mouth worked double time. “I told you I’d be there for you, Kira. We’re partners. Forever.”
His words sounded garbled, so he hoped they had come out in the right order for Kira to decipher.
“You’re on drugs,” she said.
“No, I’m in love. With you. In case I hadn’t made that clear.”
She kissed him on the top of his head. “I love you too.”
He watched Kira. The woman probably looked worse than she felt. Blood and dirt streaked her face, and her normally wavy hair was in disarray. But she was still standing.
And still as beautiful as ever.
The FBI would never let them work out of the same office. Yet the career he loved and had made the center of his universe suddenly seemed . . . less appealing. He couldn’t imagine living miles away from her. And her career with the FBI was just beginning.
Whatever happened to him, all he knew was that he wanted Kira to be a part of his life.
After he took a quick nap.
24
BRYCE’S HEAVY EYELIDS drifted open as rhythmic beeps lulled him out of a deep sleep. A fluorescent light blinded him, but objects slowly came into his field of vision.
“Where . . . where am I?” His parched throat barely let out a whisper.
“You’re in the hospital,” a man’s voice said. “I’m Dr. Sullivan. You just had surgery on your shoulder from the gunshot wound. We’re still amazed at how long you stayed on your feet with that wound, but surgery went well, and you should heal nicely within the next few weeks. And more good news—you don’t have a concussion.”
“Kira?”
The doctor with silver hair and thick black-rimmed glasses smiled. “You have a few people in the waiting room. They refused to leave until you were out of surgery. I’ll let visitors in, but only one at a time.”
The memories resurfaced. The cave. Finding the treasure room—which, sadly, he never saw. And Kira, fighting for her life on the edge of a cliff.
They were safe now. The case would be closed. Life could get back to normal.
But did he want normal? He wasn’t sure and that shocked him. The man who craved structure and security now wanted something . . . more.
A knock at the door spiked his pulse as indicated by the faster blip of the machine. All he wanted to do was see Kira.
“Come in.” His hoarse voice croaked.
Too bad his father shuffled in. Not Kira.
And then it clicked. His father had come to see him in the hospital.
Talk about abnormal. “Pa?”
His father sat next to Bryce in a bedside chair. Bryce hadn’t seen him willingly go anywhere in years. In the hospital lighting, he appeared frail, with saggy skin and bushy gray eyebrows. Not the intimidating force Bryce remembered from his childhood.
“Son, I’m glad to see you awake.” His dad met his gaze, then looked at the ground. “I was worried that we might lose you when I heard about the shooting and the surgery.”
“Why are you here?” Bryce’s father hadn’t shown any interest in him for fifteen years. Why now?
The old man shifted in his chair. “I’ve been a fool. It took hearing you were in the hospital for me to get off my high horse and say the things I should have expressed a long time ago.”
