Cavanaugh's Bodyguard (22 page)
Read Cavanaugh's Bodyguard Online
Authors: Marie Ferrarella
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Suspense, #Contemporary
She opened her mouth twice, but retorts didn’t come. A third attempt had her saying, “Okay, fair enough.” She looked around on either side of her on the bed. “Where’s the call button?”
“Why do you want the call button for?” He was on his feet beside her. “Do you need the doctor? Are you in pain?”
“To get the nurse. Not necessarily. And yeah, pretty much,” she said, answering all three of his questions in order.
His suspicions raised, Josh eyed her closely as he asked, “Why do you want the nurse?”
Her mouth curved. “To help me get dressed and out of here so I can get back to my apartment and have you stand next to my bed,” she told him, her eyes saying a good deal more. “Weren’t you paying attention to what you just said?”
Much as he wanted her to himself right now, her place was here until the doctors thought she was strong enough to go home. “You’re not going anywhere,” he informed her sternly.
Bridget raised her chin, ready for a fight. “You can’t boss me around.”
“I saved your life,” he pointed out. “Technically, it now belongs to me, so yeah, I can boss you around if I want to.”
She eyed him for a moment and just when he thought she was going to put up a fight, she quietly asked, “And what do you plan on doing with this extra life you’ve got on your hands?”
He said the first thing that popped into his head. “What I’d like to do is shove it into a closet to keep it safe.”
She laughed softly, relaxing. Suddenly very glad to be alive. And that he had been there to save her. “There are laws against that, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. I guess the only other way to keep watch over you and make sure you don’t do something else to get yourself killed is to marry you.”
After what had just happened in the last few days, she would have thought that she was prepared for anything. Apparently, she wasn’t.
Her mouth dropped open and she stared at Josh for a long moment before finally deciding that she was hallucinating again. She had to be. There was no way her carefree, footloose partner had just voluntarily offered to give up his no-strings-attached bachelorhood by proposing to her.
With that thought racing through her head, she felt her eyelids getting heavy again. Before she knew it, she’d nodded off.
“Talk about being cool,” Josh murmured, adjusting her blanket. “She falls asleep in the middle of my marriage proposal.”
* * *
When she opened her eyes again, there was no light shining in through the hospital window.
It was nighttime, she realized.
Her eyelids didn’t feel heavy this time, but her eyes did feel gritty. And then, as before, she saw that she wasn’t alone.
Seeing him made her smile from the inside out.
“You’re still here,” she said to Josh in a voice that sounded both surprised and pleased.
Sitting beside her bed, he brightened. He would never tire of seeing her open her eyes, Josh thought. Each time he saw her do it, it felt like he was experiencing a minor miracle after that awful scare he’d endured.
“Still waiting for an answer,” he told her mildly.
She tried to center her thoughts. “What was the question again?”
He phrased it formally now. If there had been any jitters associated with this, they had long since left him. “Bridget Cavelli-Cavanaugh, will you marry me?”
She drew out the moment before answering him. “Aren’t you supposed to say something like, ‘I love you,’ before you ask something like that?”
She was stalling. Why? “You already know I love you.”
“No, I don’t,” she protested. “I’m not a mind reader.”
He grinned wickedly. Bridget was back, he thought, loving every second of this. “That wasn’t my mind you were staring at the other night.”
“Don’t try to distract me.” She took another deep breath. Mercifully, this one hurt a little less. “I’m waiting.”
“I love you,” he told her very seriously, then impishly grinned as he asked, “Now will you say yes?”
“You really want to do this?” she asked incredulously. Part of her still believed that there was a punch line somewhere in the offing.
“Yeah,” he told her, gently brushing her hair away from her face. “I really want to do this. I know I can’t talk you into playing it a little safer and not charging in without thinking it through, but I at least want to be able to fill every moment of my life with you whenever I can for as long as I can.”
“Then I better not say no,” she concluded.
This had gone easier than he’d anticipated. Bridget could be very perverse at times. “If you do, I’ll just have to keep asking you until you finally break down and say yes.”
“Then this’ll save us both a lot of time,” she concluded, tongue in check.
“Saving time. I’m all for that,” he agreed
Her eyes told him just how much she loved him. “As long as you’re for me, nothing else matters,” she whispered.
“Always,” he promised.
Bridget cocked her head slightly as she regarded him. “Are you going to keep talking, or are you going to kiss me?”
Josh didn’t answer, at least not verbally. Lovingly framing her face with his hands, he went with door number two.
* * * * *
ISBN: 9781459226272
Copyright © 2012 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella
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