*   *   *

ALLIE WOKE ALONE. She knew even before getting out of bed that her house was empty, Mick gone, and it weighed on her heart. It wasn’t like him to leave without saying good-bye.

She got up and checked her phone. Nothing.

He’d been so weird the night before. Even the sex had been weird. Strained. Desperate. But she’d had some sense of giving him something he needed. She’d thought it would be enough.

Her body was sore from the workout he’d given her. It would have felt good if she didn’t feel this sense of dread. She got in the shower, blasting the hot water to ease some of the aches, trying to figure out what to do as she washed her hair.

Should she try to call him? Or give him the space that men sometimes needed to clear their heads?

It was obvious he didn’t want to discuss how the conversation at his parents’ house had left him feeling. She understood it—as much as she could, anyway. She tried. But his family obviously adored him—they certainly didn’t find him lacking, didn’t treat him any differently. He did it all to himself. Didn’t he have to find some way to deal with it eventually? That’s what she didn’t quite get. Didn’t he want to?

If only he would let her help him.

She shut off the water, stepped out to dry herself and saw her bruises in the mirror—the marks on her thighs and arms and breasts from the ropes. They hadn’t even done any heavy impact play, but he’d used a lot of knots—that was what had marked her. That and his teeth in a few places. Normally she would have gloried in her marks, but this morning she knew they’d come from a place of desperation and pain, and it only made her chest go tight with concern for him. And a little impatience.

Where the hell was he?

She wrapped her hair in a towel and herself in her robe and went into the living room to boot up her laptop and check her email. Sure enough, there was one from Mick.

Allie,

Sorry about my early departure—I woke up and found a message on my phone from one of my clients. I didn’t want to wake you. I’ll be tied up with this job all day. Talk to you later, babe.

Mick

Babe. That’s what he called her when he needed to distance himself. Not baby, like he usually did. Not princess. Not that she needed to see that to know. He’d called her babe last night. Had had sex with her only from behind. Had hardly looked into her eyes since they’d left his parents’ place.

She’d felt his emotions, even though he’d tried to hide them from her. She knew him, and she’d felt it bone deep. And she understood with just as much clarity now that the email was a lie. There was no client. No message. No job. Only his anger and the guilt that had been eating him up for most of his adult life.

And there was nothing she could do.

She’d be thoroughly pissed if she didn’t get how much he was hurting. It made her hurt.

Tears welled in her eyes. She wiped them away, frustrated. Mick was just going to have to work through this himself. There wasn’t a damn thing she could do for him. Because he wouldn’t let her. She’d have to wait and see if what they had together was reason enough for him to do what he hadn’t done in years. Move on.

*   *   *

IT WAS ALMOST ten that night when her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID before answering.

“Hi, Jamie.”

She wasn’t in the mood to chat—it had been one of those endless, dragging days while she pretended her feelings weren’t hurt, pretended she hadn’t been practically sitting on top of her phone—but maybe he’d talked to Mick.

“Allie, Mick’s hurt.”

“Well just launch right into your agenda without even saying hello, why don’t you? And he’s the one who left this morning without saying a word to me.”

“No. Hurt, Allie. He’s in the emergency room.”

“What?” Shock coursed through her, then panic. “Tell me.”

“He took a pretty hard hit to the head. Lost consciousness for at least a few minutes, apparently. Someone dropped him off here—I don’t even know who. The hospital called me—I’m in his cell phone as his emergency contact.”

“Oh my God. How bad is it?”

“He’s having a CT scan now. But he was awake. Alert enough that he made me promise not to call you.”

“He asked you not to call me? Did he think I wouldn’t find out? Jesus.” She pushed her hair out of her face, blew out a breath. “Okay. Okay. I appreciate you calling. Thank you, Jamie.”

“Of course. I thought you should know.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“I don’t think you need to come down here. Mick said—”

“Are you kidding? I’m coming!”

She hung up before he could argue any further. She didn’t care what Mick had told him. They didn’t even know how bad it was, and wouldn’t until they got the scan results. She wasn’t going to just sit at home waiting for the bad news.

She slid into a pair of sandals, remembered to grab a sweater along with her purse and headed out the door.

*   *   *

WHY WERE HOSPITALS always so white?

She hadn’t had the need to walk into a hospital too many times in her life—once as a kid when she’d sprained her ankle falling off her bike, again in Paris when she’d burned her hand on an oven, the last time to visit a friend who’d been in a mountain bike accident. And of course in high school they had all rushed to the hospital the night Brandon died, everyone huddled together in these same sterile, garishly lit hallways. She got the chills just thinking about that awful night.

But this was where Mick was, and she had to see him. See if he was okay. She didn’t think she could stand it if he wasn’t.

Her jaw clenched as she walked into the emergency room and up to the desk.

“I’m here to see Mick Reid. He was brought in tonight.”

“Are you his wife?” the woman at the desk asked.

“I’m his . . .” But what was she? “Are you going to let me in if I’m not?”

“I’ll have to check.”

She blew out a breath. If he hadn’t wanted Jamie to call, he certainly wasn’t going to invite her back there to see him.

She leaned over the desk and said quietly, “Look. Mick is my boyfriend, for lack of a more grown-up term. He’s been injured. I need to see him. Please. Or find our friend—he called me to come down here.” A small lie, but she didn’t care.

The woman was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Okay. You can go back. He’s in . . .” She tapped a few keys on her computer. “He’s in number four.”

“Thank you.”

She gripped her sweater in her hands as she moved through the heavy automatic doors.

She passed an open curtain, caught a glimpse of an empty gurney. Her stomach knotted.

Papa being taken away on the big metal bed, his face covered. Why did they have to cover his face? He couldn’t breathe right if they covered his face.

Except he hadn’t needed to breathe.

Her heart hammered, a fast, staccato beat. She walked faster, found curtain number four. She took a breath, pulled it aside and stepped through.

Mick lay on the hospital bed, his eyes closed, his face white as a sheet except for the dark bruise forming on his temple.

God, please no . . .

Papa being loaded onto the white bed on wheels, his head bruised where it must have hit the piano when he’d . . .

Mick opened his eyes.

“Allie? What are you doing here?”

She shook her head, unable to speak as fear and love and anger suffused her, forming a cold, nearly incomprehensible ball of emotion.

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”

“I guess . . . you can probably guess.”

“How badly are you hurt?” she asked.

“It’s just an MTBI.”

“A what?”

“A concussion. The scan looked fine. No blood clots or anything. I’ll be fine. It’s fine.”