Haynes, K. R. - The Light in Her Eyes [In Her Eyes] (Siren Publishing Classic) (32 page)

Chloe shrugged her shoulders. “So I lied to the doctor? No big deal. I’ll do it again if I feel there’s a need for it, too.” A blush rose to her cheeks at the thought of Randall’s punishment. “I’ll take whatever punishment he dishes out to me, because he would be alive then.”

“Good point, gorgeous, good point.” Grabbing her hand, Mick walked Chloe to the elevator, while Mary J spoke to the remaining members of Randall’s team waiting for an update on his condition. The ride up to the ICU was a rather quiet one. Wiping the back of her hand across her eyes, removing all moisture there, and taking a deep, steadying breath, Chloe stepped out into the corridor when the elevator doors opened.

They found Randall’s room easily enough. Chloe tried hard not to focus on the beeping of the machines or the tubes going into his body. Or the fact his body was covered in bandages. Even the tips of his fingers had cuts on them. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she stared at him. “I don’t know what to say to him or where to touch him,” she murmured.

Mick said quietly to her,
“Just let him know you’re here, sweetheart. All Randall would want to know is that you’re here with him.”

She glanced over her shoulder at Mick and told him, “I’m not leaving his bedside. You know that, right?”

“I figured as much. I’ll go advise the nursing staff in a minute that you are to remain with him. That should at least avoid them kicking you out.”

“I’d love to see them try,” she scoffed at him, before returning her gaze back to Randall. His face was covered in fine scratches. Tracing a fingertip around the unscathed area along his jaw, Chloe bent down to whisper in his ear. “I’m not leaving your side, Jon. You hear me? I’m not leaving you, and you most certainly aren’t leaving me either, Sir.”

Resting her head down on the pillow above his shoulders, Chloe quietly sobbed to herself. Mick came over and rubbed her back with his hands as her body shuddered from her sobs. He left the room not long after to go speak with the medical staff. She would be forever grateful for Mick being here with her and detailing with the nursing staff.

Pulling up a chair by his bedside, Chloe made sure she wasn’t in the way when the nurses came in to check Randall’s vitals and change his dressings. Plonking her tired ass down into the ugly lime green chair, she rested her fingertips on an unbandaged part on his arm. She needed to have some form of contact with him, to feel his warmish skin beneath her fingertips. To know that Randall was fighting to stay with her, to stay alive, was something Chloe needed from him.

Chapter Forty-Eight

He’d been in a medically induced coma for four days straight now. However, the doctors had made the decision that Randall had progressed well enough to be brought out of it. So they had given him some drug to help him wake up. That had been hours ago and Chloe still waited for some sign Randall was coming to.

She knew when he did wake up he wouldn’t be impressed when he found out she had hardly slept in days, had barely eaten, and had only left his bedside to use the bathroom. She had showered, forced to by Mary J and Mick. They had all but dragged her into the en suite bathroom and locked her in there. They told her she wasn’t coming out until she showered and dressed in the spare clothes Mary J had brought in for her.

She had only picked at the food they both had pushed at her to eat. No matter what she ate nothing had any taste. Chloe had to force the bits of food she did eat down, knowing Randall would not be pleased if he found out she had forgone food as well as sleep. Not to mention the part about her being his so-called newly wedded wife.

Hell, the idea of being his wife stirred up a warm, fuzzy feeling in her chest. Chloe rather liked the idea of being known as Mrs. Jon Randall.

The thought that that would have been impossible if he had died set up an ache in her head and in her chest. She could have lost him.

She rubbed at her temples as pain engulfed her head. She had lost him once already. Ten years ago, he had broken her tender teenage heart. Looking down at him, Chloe realised the reason she couldn’t remember him, couldn’t remember their time together, was because she had blocked it out. Somehow, just the thought of losing him again was enough to trigger her memory and remove the emotional block she had placed there to protect her heart from the pain his departure from her life had caused her.

All those years ago, all those memories she couldn’t recall before now, came flooding back to her in a hurry. The first time she saw Jon after school. It had been an unseasonably warm summer’s day. The sun had blazed high in the later afternoon sky as she ducked into a cafe. And there he stood. His sky-blue eyes shimmered with mischievousness. A shy smile graced his lips when he accidentally bumped into her. Then at her sixteenth birthday party, she had been standing at a table full of unopened presents. Randall had grabbed her hand and pulled her outside. They both ran hand in hand up to their oak tree at the back of her parents’ house. He had given her his birthday gift then. “My precious one, my only one, happy birthday,” he had whispered to her. He had given her the print, just like he had given her the painting of that exact print a few weeks back.

All her memories of her time spent with Randall returned to her. Those missing six months of her life she couldn’t remember, all recalled now.

Brushing back his matted hair off his forehead with her fingertips, Chloe leaned down so her lips were caressing his ear as she spoke to him. “You may have left me once, Jon Randall, but you will not be doing it again. You hear me? Never again will you leave me and break my heart.”

* * * *

He heard a voice, one he recognised, but at the same time the voice seemed too distant, too far away. Randall found himself wanting to reach out to the voice but his arms wouldn’t work. They were much too heavy to lift. His mind too foggy, clouded from the drugs they pumped into him, to figure out whom the voice belonged to. He heard them mutter something about him not leaving them. Where was he going? He wanted to tell them he was in no shape to leave. His mouth wouldn’t work though. It felt like he had sand or cotton wool stuck in there.

His eyes, he wanted to open his eyes. He needed to see if she was there with him. His precious, would she be here? Where he was he had no memory of. Pain, there was lots of pain though, everywhere. His body felt like it had been hit by some hundred-tonne truck.

Randall remembered then the bomb explosion he’d been in. His body had been slammed violently against the brick wall from the force of the blast. Shit, he must be in a hospital then.

He had to open his eyes though to know for sure. Gradually he cracked open his heavy eyelids. Automatically he squinted at the harsh light filtering in through the cracks in the venetian blinds. “Light…” His throat was raw, making the whispered word sound harsher than it was meant to.

Randall heard a gasp, then his name.

He turned his head slightly to the soft feminine voice. “Light, hurt eyes,” he croaked out again.

The blinds were closed and the painful glare finally removed. Opening his eyes more, he saw a tear-stained, angelic face hovering above him. “Chloe,” he said, her name a mere whisper falling from his dry cracked lips.

“Jon!” Her soft hands came upon his face, caressing him. “Thank god, you’re awake.” Her relief echoed in her softly spoken words.

“Awake, yeah,” he mumbled out to her.

Something cold brushed against his lips. Ice. Looking up, he saw Chloe rubbing an ice chip across his lips. Opening his mouth, she slipped the ice chip inside. He moaned, relishing the cold moisture on his tongue. “More?” she asked him.

“More.”

His energy evaporating quickly, more ice brushed across his lips. His eyes drooped down, sleep coming at him hard and fast. The feel of moisture dripping onto his cheek had him realising Chloe was crying. Without opening his eyes, Randall whispered lethargically to her. “Don’t cry, precious. I’m…here.”

“You’re right here with me, alive,” he heard her say before he fell asleep.

Chapter Forty-Nine

For the past few days, Randall had been in and out of consciousness. The combination of the pain and the medication sapped his energy, forcing him to sleep rather than stay awake. And, well, the body healed quicker when you were asleep, so he just went with it. Knowing Chloe stayed with him gave him great comfort. He could feel her presence in the room, even when he was asleep. So rousing from a restless night’s sleep to find she wasn’t in the room with him had Randall slightly concerned. Had something happened to her?

“Hey, bro, you’re awake.”

Peering up at his old friend, Randall asked him, “Where is she? Where’s Chloe?”

“She’ll be back in a sec, mate. Mary J dragged her downstairs to grab something to eat before she fades away.”

“Fades away?”

“Well, close to it. Your woman hasn’t exactly been eating or sleeping properly since your accident.”

“Is that so?” Randall half smirked at his old friend upon hearing this about Chloe. He shouldn’t have been surprised that she wasn’t taking better care of herself. Mick nodded his head. There was something else his old mate wasn’t telling him. Something else about Chloe, he’d bet. “What aren’t you telling me, Mick?”

He watched as his friend glanced over his shoulder, like he was checking to make sure the coast was clear. “Mick, what aren’t you telling me?”

“Ah, how do I put this? You see, Chloe got it into her sweet little head of hers that the only way she could see you or stay by your bedside, was to tell the doctor she was your”—Mick cleared his throat—“wife.”

“Come again?” Randall asked, completely dumbfounded by his friend’s statement.

“She told them she’s your wife, newly wedded if I recall correctly. Congratulations, by the way.”

Randall dismissed Mick’s congratulations remark with a wave of his hand. “Shit. Wow. I don’t know if I should be flattered by it or downright pissed at her for lying.”

“Well, you better figure out which one it is and soon, ’cause I can hear the women coming back down the hall as we speak.”

* * * *

Chloe sauntered into Randall’s room, half expecting to find him still asleep. So she was a little taken aback at seeing him sitting up in bed chattering casually away to Mick. “You’re awake,” she said to him.

His gaze turned to where she stood in the doorway to his room.

“Now, why does everybody keep saying that to me when they see me?”

She gifted him with a smiled. “Because you’ve spent the good part of the last eight days asleep, that’s why.” She walked up to his bedside and stared down into his sky-blue eyes. “Jon,” she sighed softly to him then bent to sip lightly at his lips. God, she couldn’t wait to take him home. Chloe would do almost anything to curl up naked against his body. Just to feel his warmth, to feel his love for her once again.

Seeing his eyes dart to Mick then back to her, Chloe swallowed hard. Traitor, she wanted to say to Mick when he glanced in her direction. He had told on her. Randall knew about her little white lie. Play it cool, she told herself. Don’t admit anything unless he asks, then tell him the truth. Good plan.

Mary J and Mick vacated the room pretty quickly after saying their good-byes, leaving her finally alone with Randall.

“How are you really feeling today, babe?” she asked him.

“How am I feeling? Like shit, precious. Now get your ass up onto this bed and lay down with me.”

She must have had a stunned look on her face after hearing his not-so-subtle order, going by the smug smirk he gifted her with. Chloe couldn’t help but be hesitant in lying down with him. Christ, he was still recovering from his injuries and was probably still in a lot of pain, not that he would tell her of course due to the stupid male pride thing he had going on.

The doctor had already warned them both that physical contact had to be kept to a minimum until Randall made a full recovery. But she missed him. She missed the way his arms felt wrapped securely around her. She missed the way his warm breath tingled her skin when he murmured against it. Randall might need the closeness from her, but she also needed it from him, too.

So carefully she climbed up onto the hospital bed to lie down beside him, and mumbled to him about how the nurses would not be happy with this. “I don’t give a damn about the nurses, little girl. Come. Here. Now.” He held his arms out wide for her to crawl up into. Chloe laid her head down near his shoulder and sighed when his arms came around her.

“I’ve missed you, precious. Missed your warmth, missed your scent. Hell, I’ve just missed you full stop.”