Southern Seduction (36 page)

“Awful,” he rasped.
“Water.”

Brooke poured water from a pitcher by the bedside with trembling fingers.
She held the glass to his lips, and he took several sips of the cooling, reviving liquid. When he’d finished, she sat the glass back on the stand and returned her attention to him. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but she was afraid she’d hurt him.

“What else can I get you?” she asked.

“A gun,” Travis said in a deep ragged voice.

“A what?” Brooke asked, she couldn’t have possible heard him correctly.
“You must be delirious. You’ve been unconscious for three days. Why would you want a gun?”

Travis winced in pain as he tried to move.
“I’m going to shoot that son of a bitch like I should have the first time.”

“George D’Aquin?” Hesione’s father was the only one Brooke could think of.
“Why?”

“Because he is the one who’s been trying to kill me.
This time, one of my men saw him and they caught his foreman who confessed. The foreman was also the one who pushed you from the boat,” Travis said. He tried to sit up. The effort was too great. He sank back to the pillows with a wrenching groan. “Damn. I think my entire body aches.”

Brooke knew by the set of Travis’s jaw that her headstrong husband was going to be hard to get along with.
Then she remembered the last time he’d been shot. She’d had to leave his care to Mammy because he’d been absolutely impossible.

But now she was his wife, and Brooke was going to take care of him if it killed both of them.
And she wasn’t taking any nonsense from him, either.

“I guess you would feel terrible.
After all, a building fell on you. You’re very lucky that you survived. Two of the men who were with you did not.”

“Which two?”

Brooke thought for a moment. “John and Jeff, I believe I heard someone say.”

“Help me sit up,” Travis ordered.

“A please might be nice,” Brooke informed him.

“All right, please,” he grumbled.

Brooke smiled as she placed several pillows behind his back.
It was like trying to tame a wild
animal
, she thought as she struggled to get Travis up and in place. And to think a moment ago, she’d
been praying for his recovery
.

“Thank you,” Travis said then gawked at her a long moment.
“You look like hell, my dear.”

Brooke raised an eyebrow.
“Thank you so much for the compliment.”

Travis reached for her hand.
“You’re always beautiful to me, but you do look tired. I see dark circles under your eyes.”

“I guess so,” she snapped.
“I’ve been sitting in this chair for three days, wondering if you would live or die. Unfortunately you lived. And what are the first words out of your mouth? An insult.”

Travis chuckled.
“I know you don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” she replied.
Brooke tried to jerk her hand from his. “You haven’t said anything nice to me since you’ve woke up. I’m beginning to think I prefer you the other way.”

Travis ignored her.
“You said I’d been out for three days?”

She nodded.

“In that case, how about Merry Christmas, darling,” he said.

Travis had such a boyish look about him
, much like a bad child who knew he’d been bad but was trying to charm his way out of a punishment. The look melted Brooke’s heart. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

“I don’t have any mistletoe,” he said with a grin.
“So I guess I can’t kiss you.”

“I don’t need mistletoe,” she told him leaning over the bed.
“The only thing I need is you.”

“In that case, my dear, y
ou should be exceptionally happy for the rest of your life because you definitely have me now and always.”

“And you’ll always have us, too,” Brooke said as she kissed him.

Travis pulled her up on the bed with him and gazed questioningly into her eyes. “Us?”

Brooke presented him with an enormous smile.
“It seems your plan worked better than you expected.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re going to be a father, Travis Montgomery,” Brooke told him.

Many expressions filtered across Travis’s face, but the last one was the best. Brooke finally saw true love in Travis’s eyes and she knew that she had found something she never through she would ever have.

Brooke had truly found happiness in a man’s arms.