Public Secrets

L.A.” He swore, fumbling with the buttons of his shin.
“Here.” Quickly, Bev did them up. “She’s going to be all right, Bri. Emma’s tougher than she looks.”
He could only nod and take a moment to hold her against him.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I T WAS DARK . There was pain, a dreamy, distant pain that drifted sluggishly through her body. Like a warm red ocean it seemed to cover her, weigh her down, so that she was trapped away from air and light. Emma tried to rise above it, to sink below it, but couldn’t seem to outmaneuver the dull ache. She found she could accept that. But not the dark, not the quiet.
She struggled to move. There was panic when she realized she didn’t know if she was standing or sitting or lying down. She couldn’t feel her arms or legs, just that nagging, somehow fluid ache. She tried to speak, to call out to someone, anyone. In her mind she screamed, but no one answered.
She knew she had been hurt. All too well she could remember the way Drew had looked at her. He’d been waiting for her. He might still be there, watching her, waiting in the dark. This time he would…
But maybe she was already dead.
She felt more than pain now. She felt anger. She didn’t want to die. Moaning in frustration she strained, using all her strength and will, just to open her eyes. They might have been sewn closed for all the control she had over them.
A hand brushed her hair. She sensed it, just the whisper of a touch that rammed screaming panic against the pain.
“Rest, Emma. It’s all right now. You have to rest.”
Not Drew. Neither the voice nor the touch was Drew’s.
“You’re safe now. I promise.”

Michael. She wanted to say his name, grateful not to be alone in the dark. To be alive. Then a dark red wave rolled in and covered her.
She drifted in and out for most of the night. Michael knew the doctors had said she would sleep straight through. But it was fear that had her fighting off the sedatives. He could feel it pumping out of her each time she surfaced.
He talked to her, repeating the same assurances hour after hour. His voice, or the words, seemed to calm her. So he sat, and watched, and held her hand.
He wanted to do something more. None of his training or his years on the force had taught him this kind of patience. To sit helplessly by while the woman he loved waged her own silent battle. Her lovely, elegant face was broken and bandaged. Her slim, soft body, bruised and battered.
They said she wouldn’t die. There would be pain, physical and emotional, but she would live. The extent of the trauma could only be judged later. And he could only wait. And regret.
He should have pushed her. Michael cursed himself over and over as he listened to her deep, drugged breathing. If he had applied the right pressure at the right time, he could have convinced her to tell him just how bad things had been for her. He was a cop, for God’s sake. He knew how to get information.
But he had backed away. Wanting to give her time, and privacy. Christ. Privacy. He rubbed his hands over his face. He’d given her privacy when she’d belonged in protective custody. He’d given her time when he should have had the New York cops issue a warrant.
Because he hadn’t done his job, because he’d let his feelings get in the way, she was lying in the hospital.
He left her only once, when Marianne and Johnno arrived from New York.
“Michael.” Johnno gave him a quick nod of recognition and kept a hand on Marianne’s shoulder. “What happened?”
Michael rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes. The lights in the corridor blinded him. “Larimer. Looks like he got into her room at the hotel.”
“Oh God.” Marianne clutched the little stuffed dog. “How bad?”

“Bad enough.” An afterimage of Emma sprawled on the hotel carpet flashed into his brain. “He broke three of her ribs, dislocated her shoulder. She’s got some bruised internal organs, I don’t know how many contusions and lacerations. And her face…They don’t think she’s going to need any extensive surgery.”
Jaw clenched, Johnno stared at the closed door. “Where is the bastard?”
“Dead.”
“Good. We want to see her.”
Michael knew that the doctors were annoyed enough with him, but he’d used his badge to persuade them to let him sit in her room. “You two go ahead. I’ll clear it with the nurse and wait for you in the lounge.” Like Johnno, he stared at the closed door. “They’ve got her sedated.”
He gave