The Missing

on him like a meteor crashing to earth, fast and unstoppable. One minute he was thinking about that quick nap and how much good it might do him, and the next, he was under. Arms folded across his chest, legs stretched out and crossed at his ankles, his chin tucked against his chest, Cullen slept.

    Out in the hallway, the nurse paused at the door, the supplies she needed for rebandaging her patient’s various injuries already out and ready on the treatment cart she pushed in front of her. The sight of the man, though, sound asleep in that damned uncomfortable chair had her stopping in her tracks. She heard the squeak of wheels behind her and looked up to see one of the housekeeping staff pushing a folded-up cot down the hallway. She held up a hand, and he stopped. “Just leave it there,” she said, keeping her voice low.

    The guy finally crashes, there was no way she was going to wake him up just yet. Wasn’t like the cot would be much more comfortable than the chair, anyway. She glanced at her chart, gauged the time. Ms. Branch’s wounds were healing well enough, and she could hold off an hour before she changed the bandages.

    That hour wasn’t much. This man looked like he needed a week horizontal. During shift changes, the nurses had talked about their unusual ICU patient. They didn’t get too many patients come in with a collapsed lung, an injury from a whip, and an escort that consisted of federal agents and a best-selling fantasy author.

    A bestselling author who hadn’t left the patient’s side for more than ten minutes at a stretch, and then only to get food or call and check on his daughter. A bestselling author who was currently sleeping by the patient’s bed and, to her knowledge, this was the first time he’d done more than catnap for five or ten minutes.

    This was no catnap. Already his chest was moving in the slow, steady rhythm of deep sleep. Since he hadn’t woken up at the sound of the cot’s squeaky arrival, she figured he wasn’t going to wake up for a little while, not until he rested some or she woke him up.

    No, an hour wasn’t much, but it was the best she could do right now. Too bad he hadn’t waited until after she’d changed the dressings on Ms. Branch’s wounds. He could have managed two or three hours before shift change.

    EVEN before Cullen opened his eyes, he knew he was dreaming.

    Instead of the steady beep of hospital machinery, he heard the crash of waves into the sand. Instead of the cool air that smelled faintly of antiseptic, he could smell the ocean and the scents of summer: hot sand and sunscreen.

    Yeah, he knew he was dreaming, but still he panicked. The sound of the heart monitors was the only thing that kept him sane right then, and not hearing them was enough to have his own heart speeding up in panic.

    Body braced, he opened his eyes.

    And then he sagged.

    Taige.

    She stood staring out over the blue green waters of the Gulf, her arms crossed over her chest, her hair blowing back from her face. Incongruously, she still wore one of those ugly, utilitarian hospital gowns. It flapped around her body, a body that was too thin and battered.

    The sight of her was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and once more, the panic inside him welled up.

    Shit—she wasn’t . . .

    Stop it! She hadn’t survived those first hours only to die now. Still, when he finally opened his mouth to speak, he had to clear his throat twice, and his voice cracked on him. “Taige?”

    For a second, she didn’t respond, and then she turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder. “Hey.” A faint grin curled her lips. “You look like hell.”

    “You look beautiful.” And he meant it. It didn’t matter that her hair was tangled, that she still had that dull, grayish cast to her skin, or that she looked like she needed a month’s worth of decent, home-cooked meals. She looked absolutely beautiful to him.

    Her grin spread into a full-out smirk, and she laughed. Plucking her hospital gown away from her chest, she gave it a disgusted look. “Yeah, I bet. I look ready to walk down a runway, don’t I?”

    That wry, self-deprecating humor finally managed to break through the ice surrounding him. He crossed the sand in four long strides and grabbed her, not thinking about the injuries that had put her in the hospital bed. These were dreams—sort of. Whatever was physically hurting her didn’t really exist here.

    Pain of the nonphysical variety was