The Missing

hospital parking lot. And that was a huge improvement over the first day or two after she woke up. Then she hadn’t been able to take a breath or blink without him asking.

    But she didn’t mind.

    She was awake for him to ask, right?

    But Taige did sincerely hope that he wouldn’t still be asking her that every ten minutes or so for too much longer. Of course, it would be easier to lie to him if she could move without hurting, if she could breathe without hurting. She’d always healed pretty fast, but she’d never been hurt this badly before.

    With all her heart, Taige hoped she wasn’t ever hurt this badly again. The stitches in her chest itched, her muscles hurt, her bones, breathing. Just breathing took some effort right now. She had to concentrate and make sure she didn’t breathe too deeply, because if she took regular breaths, it hurt. Yeah, it was an art, trying to breathe just deeply enough that she managed to get enough air, but not so deeply that she made those abused muscles and healing tissues and bones ache.

    Logically, she knew she shouldn’t have left the hospital yet. They’d only been able to take the chest tubes out a few days ago, and the lung specialist wasn’t too thrilled with her lung function either. The fact that they had let her leave the hospital was nothing short of a miracle.

    The doctors hadn’t wanted to let her go, but she’d made up her mind that she wasn’t going to stay in that damn hospital another day. Even if she had to walk out on her own two feet. So what if she collapsed before she made it to the parking lot?

    Fortunately, Cullen had offered a compromise. She could leave the hospital, go home, and a private duty nurse would visit her twice a day for the first few days. Cullen had said he’d be staying with her. It wasn’t like she’d be alone, and she’d be a hell of a lot more comfortable if she was some place—okay, any place—other than the hospital.

    She wanted to go home, and if that meant promising to eat three square meals a day that included lots of leafy green stuff, chugging down sixty-four ounces of water, and popping vitamins, then she’d do it. So long as she got to go home.

    Then Cullen drove right past her house. She glanced at the gravel drive that disappeared into the trees and then back at him. “Cullen . . .”

    But before she could ask where they were going, he did turn.

    Her heart skipped a beat or two and, forgetting herself, she gasped. Once she’d recovered from the pain that caused, she blinked through her tears and stared at the house in front of her.

    It had been on the market for nearly two years. It was beautiful, custom-built from the ground up, and the price tag was a little high. But the For Sale sign was missing from the little patch of grass by the mailbox. “What are we doing here?”

    He glanced at her. “I bought it.”

    “You bought it.”

    He slid her another glance and then looked away. Nervous. Cullen was nervous. There was no mistaking that look. “You bought it.”

    No response.

    “Why?”

    His eyes narrowed. “Because your house doesn’t have room for me and Jillian, and I don’t plan on letting you out of my sight for a while. If you don’t like it, too bad.”

    “Exactly how long is a while?”

    For a minute, he didn’t answer, and she started to think he was ignoring her . . . or maybe he hadn’t heard her. But then, in a quiet voice, he said, “The rest of my life sounds pretty good to me.”

    The sheer, intense emotion in his voice was enough to have her eyes start to burn from tears, her throat go all tight, and her heart swell. Unsure of how to respond to that, Taige didn’t respond at all.

    They pulled to a stop in front of the house, and for a minute, they just sat there staring at it. The walls were stone, giving it an old-world look, and there were a lot of windows—really big windows—sparkling in the early morning sun. The door was painted a bright red, and as they watched, it opened, and a small girl came barreling through, running down the steps with a huge smile on her pretty little face.

    For a second, Taige almost didn’t recognize her.

    She hadn’t ever seen that girl with a smile on her face. Not once. In reality, Taige knew she’d only physically seen the girl twice. Once when they’d found her in the cabin and then once in the hospital while the girl was in a drug-induced sleep. In all the dreams, all of the weird little visions that had come to