Lisa Kleypas - Smooth Talking Stranger

"Ella."

The sound was so quiet, I barely heard it through the blood-rush in my ears.

I turned to look down the hallway.

A man was coming toward me, his lean form clad in a pair of baggy scrub pants and a loose T-shirt. His arm was bandaged with silver-gray burn wrap. I knew the set of those shoulders, the way he moved.

Jack.

My eyes blurred, and I felt my pulse escalate to a painful throbbing. I began to shake from the effects of trying to encompass too much feeling, too fast.

"Is it you?" I choked.

"Yes. Yes. God, Ella…"

I was breaking down, every breath shattering. I gripped my elbows with my hands, crying harder as Jack drew closer. I couldn't move. I was terrified that I was hallucinating, conjuring an image of what I wanted most, that if I reached out I would find nothing but empty space.

But Jack was there, solid and real, reaching around me with hard, strong arms. The contact with him was electrifying. I flattened against him, unable to get close enough. He murmured as I sobbed against his chest. "Ella… sweetheart, it's all right. Don't cry. Don't…"

But the relief of touching him, being close to him, had caused me to unravel. Not too late. The thought spurred a rush of euphoria. Jack was alive, and whole, and I would take nothing for granted ever again. I fumbled beneath the hem of his T-shirt and found the warm skin of his back. My fingertips encountered the edge of another bandage. He kept his arms firmly around me as if he understood that I needed the confining pressure, the feel of him surrounding me as our bodies relayed silent messages.

Don't let go.

I'm right here.

Tremors kept running along my entire frame. My teeth chattered, making it hard to talk. "I th-thought you might not come back."

Jack's mouth, usually so soft, was rough and chapped against my cheek, his jaw scratchy with bristle. "I'll always come back to you." His voice was hoarse.

I hid my face against his neck, breathing him in. His familiar scent had been obliterated by the antiseptic pungency of antiseptic burn dressings, and heavy saltwater brine. "Where are you hurt?" Sniffling, I reached farther over his back, investigating the extent of the bandage.

His fingers tangled in the smooth, soft locks of my hair. "Just a few burns and scrapes. Nothing to worry about." I felt his cheek tauten with a smile. "All your favorite parts are still there."

We were both quiet for a moment. I realized he was trembling, too. "I love you, Jack," I said, and that started a whole new rush of tears, because I was so unholy glad to be able to say it to him. "I thought it was too late… I thought you'd never know, because I was a coward, and I'm so-"

"I knew." Jack sounded shaken. He drew back to look down at me with glittering bloodshot eyes.

"You did?" I sniffled.

He nodded. "I figured I couldn't love you as much as I do, without you feeling something for me, too." He kissed me roughly, the contact between our mouths too hard for pleasure.

I put my fingers to Jack's bristled jaw and eased his face away to look at him. He was battered and scraped and sun-scorched. I couldn't begin to imagine how dehydrated he was. I pointed an unsteady finger at the waiting room. "Your family's in there. Why are you in the hallway?" My bewildered gaze swept down his body to his bare feet. "They're… they're letting you walk around like this?"

Jack shook his head. "They parked me in a room around the corner to wait for a couple more tests. I asked if anyone had told you I was okay, and nobody knew for sure. So I came to find you."

"You just left when you're supposed to be having more tests?"

"I had to find you." His voice was quiet but unyielding.

My hands fluttered over him. "Let's go back… you may have internal bleeding-"

Jack didn't budge. "I'm fine. They already did a CT, and it was clean. They want to do an MRI just to be sure."

"What about Joe?"

A shadow crossed Jack's face. Suddenly he looked young and anxious. "They won't tell me. He wasn't doing well, Ella. He could hardly breathe. He was at the wheel when the engine exploded… he may be really fucked up."

"This is a world-class hospital with the best doctors and the best equipment," I said, one of my hands settling carefully on his cheek. "They'll fix him. They'll do whatever they have to. But… was he burned badly?"

He shook his head. "The only reason I got singed a little was because I had to push through some burning debris to find him."

"Oh, Jack…" I wanted to hear everything he'd been through, every detail. I wanted to comfort him in every way possible. But there would be time for that later. "The doctor was talking to your family in the waiting room. Let's find out what he said." I gave him a threatening glance. "And then you're going back for the MRI. They're probably looking for you right now."

"They can wait." Jack slid an arm around my shoulder. "You should see the redheaded nurse who was wheeling me around. Bossiest woman I ever met."

We went into the waiting room. "Hey," I said in a wobbly voice. "Look who I found."

Jack was immediately surrounded by his family, Haven reaching him first. I stood back, still breathless, my heartbeat galvanized.

There were no wisecracks as Jack embraced his sister and Liberty. He turned to his father and hugged him, his eyes glittering as he saw the runnel of a tear down Churchill's leathery cheek.

"You okay?" Churchill asked in a rusted voice.

"Yeah, Dad."

"Good." And Churchill touched his son's face with a sort of gentle cuffing pat.

Jack's jaw quivered, and he cleared his throat roughly. He seemed relieved to turn to Hardy, with whom he exchanged a manly half-hug back-pat.

Gage was last, taking Jack by the shoulders and surveying him intently. "You look like shit," he commented.

"Fuck you," Jack said, and they embraced each other roughly, the two dark heads close together. Jack gave him a few forceful thumps on the back, but Gage, mindful of his brother's condition, was far gentler.

Jack swayed a little and was immediately pushed in a chair.

"He's dehydrated," I said, going to the water dispenser in the corner and filling up a paper cup.

"Why aren't you on an IV?" Churchill demanded, hovering over him.

Jack showed him his hand, where an IV needle was still inserted and anchored with tape. "They used a fourteen-gauge needle, and it feels like a six-penny nail was shoved into my vein. So I asked them for something smaller."

"Pussy," Gage said affectionately, rubbing the top of Jack's rough, salt-stiffened hair.

"How's Joe?" Jack asked, taking the water from me and drinking it in a few gulps.

They all exchanged glances-not a good sign-and Gage answered carefully. "The doctor said Joe has a concussion and a mild case of blast lung injury. It may take a while for the lungs to get back to speed, maybe up to a year. But it could have been a lot worse. Joe's in respiratory distress and has borderline hypoxia-so they're treating him with supplemental high-flow oxygen. He'll be spending some serious time in ICU. And he can hear out of one ear, but not the other. At some point a specialist will tell us if the hearing loss is permanent."

"That's okay," Jack said. "Joe never listens anyway."

Gage grinned briefly, but sobered as he stared at his younger brother. "He's going in for surgery right now, for internal bleeding."

"Where?"

"Abdomen, mostly."

Jack swallowed hard. "How bad?"

''We don't know."

"Shit." Wearily Jack rubbed his face with both hands. "I was afraid of that."

"Before they corral you again," Liberty said, "can you tell us what happened,Jack?"

Jack gestured for me to come to him, and he pulled me into his warm side as he spoke. It had been a clear morning, he said. Fishing had been decent, and they had gotten an early start back to the marina. But on the way they'd seen a huge brown seaweed mat, about an acre in size. The mat had formed its own ecosystem with algae, barnacles, and small fish, all living amid the accumulated driftwood and mermaid purses.