Part 21 (2/2)

They tried to pull him again, but he wouldn't leave. ”Come on, baby. Don't do this to me,” he pleaded, pressing a desperate kiss to her cold lips.

”Sir, you have to get away. Let us . . .”

”No.” The woman's voice was strong and certain. ”d.a.m.n it, give him a minute. I can feel her.”

Cullen didn't even have the time to be grateful. The medics argued, but when the woman refused to back down, the rest of the agents gathered around, keeping them from Cullen.

”Taige, you're stronger than this,” he whispered, cradling her face. Dipping his head, he buried his face in her hair. Through the stink of blood and sweat, he could stil smell her, soft and sweet. Her skin was cold, frighteningly so. She was . . . No. Don't think it. He couldn't think it.

”Don't leave me, Taige. G.o.d, I love you so much.”

CULLEN had gotten used to the incessant noise of the hospital equipment. He even took comfort in the high-pitched little beep. It was strong, it was regular. Taige's heart continued to beat. The trip to the hospital was one that was going to live on in his nightmares. Twice, they'd lost her.

Twice, they had been forced to shock her heart back into beating, and each time it had happened when one of the medics tried to force Cullen to give them a little room. The second time they'd been forced to revive her, Cullen had looked at one of the medics and said, ”You want me to move again, you're going to have to kill me to do it.”

That had been three days ago. Although the medical staff hadn't been forced to revive her since arriving at the hospital, she continued to linger in a coma.

Cullen and four of the agents on the scene had donated blood. She hovered between life and death, and Cullen was right there with her.

”Daddy?”

He heard that soft, hesitant little voice, and he looked up, felt his heart squeeze in his chest as Jillian peered into the room. Cullen's dad stood behind her. They both heard the nurse's quiet voice, and Robert went to intercept the nurse as the woman said, ”Sir, there are no children allowed in here.”

Cullen tuned out the sound of his father's cajoling voice and reached out a hand to Jillian. ”Hey, baby.”

She glanced at Taige, her eyes huge and round in her face. ”She looks different.”

Yeah, she did. Taige's skin had a strange grayish cast, but she looked better today than she had yesterday. At least that was what he told himself. ”She's just sick, darlin'. She's going to be just fine.” Silently, he added, She has to be.

Jillian nodded. She glanced back at her grandfather and then at Cullen. ”Granpa didn't want to bring me up here. But I had to see you.”

”I'm glad you came, Jilly.” He forced himself to smile. ”You want to say something to her?”

”Wil she hear me?”

Blowing out a sigh, he murmured, ”I think she does. I hope she does.” Managing a faint grin, he murmured, ”I sure do hope she hears me, because I've been talking to her a lot.”

Jillian eye's widened. ”You never talk a lot.” Nervous, she edged a little closer to the bed and then reached up, brushed her fingers over Taige's arm. It was the only part of her visible that wasn't covered with tubes, bandages, or wires. ”She helped you find the bad man, didn't she?”

”Yeah.” His throat went tight, and his voice was barely more than a whisper. ”Yeah, she did.”

With a solemn nod, Jillian said, ”Now he can't hurt anybody again, right?” Without waiting for an answer, she s.h.i.+mmied a little closer to Taige's head. Cul en reached out for her to pul her away from the machines, but she didn't b.u.mp into either of them, and she carefully sidestepped all the tubes and wires. ”Thank you, Taige.”

TAIGE heard that soft little whisper. It brushed across her subconscious like a soft breeze, warm and comforting.

She thought she recognized the voice, but it was so d.a.m.n hard to think. So hard to feel, so hard to even force herself into some state of semiawareness. She'd been fighting to wake for what seemed like ages, and she just couldn't do it.

Taige couldn't open her eyes, couldn't even move. She wanted to, but any time she gained the strength to reach out, exhaustion rose up and pulled her away before she could make contact. The weight of that exhaustion killed her purpose, and she'd have to rest before she had the energy to try again.

There were people all around her, but the only one she was really aware of was Cullen.

He'd been there since the beginning. When she'd felt herself fading away, it had been Cullen who pulled her back. A few times, something or somebody had tried to take him away, and she'd felt her hold on reality slip again, felt herself falling away.

He'd forced himself back to her side each time, and she knew if it wasn't for him, she would have drifted away altogether, off into the gray, until she grew smaller and smaller and then just faded entirely. Cullen wouldn't let her, though. All around her, she could feel his strength, smell his skin, hear his voice.

She needed to touch him, though. Needed to . . .

EVER since Taige had been brought to the hospital, bleeding and hovering near death, he had lived on catnaps, vending machine coffee, and stale sandwiches. It had been exactly seven days since he had stood by, helpless, as her uncle shot her. Seven days since Cullen had kil ed a man with his bare hands.

His eyes were gritty with exhaustion, his entire body clumsy with fatigue, and his stomach was so knotted up that he doubted he could keep a meal down should he try something beyond the stale sandwiches the hospital cafeteria specialized in.

Tired as he was, he wouldn't let himself sleep. He couldn't really sleep. Not until Taige woke up. He was terrified to leave her side for more than a couple of minutes. Couldn't do it. Although logically he knew that the danger was mostly over, he still couldn't tear himself away for longer than it took to go to the bathroom or take a quick shower.

He ate by her bed, he slept next to her, and when the nurses came in to care for her, he stood at her side and watched them like a hawk to make sure they didn't hurt her. After the first day, they'd given up trying to get him to give them some privacy. They'd argued and threatened to call security, but in the end, none of them pushed it beyond a lost argument.

One or two of the smarter nurses had started waiting until they knew he was either grabbing a sandwich or using the phone in the family lounge to call home so he could check on Jilly. While he was gone, they'd slip in, do their work in speed and silence, and when Cullen returned, Taige would be sleeping in fresh sheets with her bandages changed.

”You really should lie down.”

Cullen, foggy and half out of it, didn't process what the nurse said until nearly a minute after she had said his name. She was young, pretty, and he suspected she was fresh out of college. m.u.f.fling a yawn, he just shrugged.

”What if I had a cot brought in?” she offered.

It wasn't the first time he'd been offered a cot. He started to make his normal refusal, but then he realized he was drifting off, even in the middle of trying to form some sort of coherent response. s.h.i.+t, he did need a nap. A nap of the horizontal variety and not in that torture device of a chair. ”Yeah.” Before he could change his mind, he nodded again, ”Yeah, I'll take a cot so long as they can put it in here. I'm not leaving her.”

The nurse smiled. Her teeth flashed white against the darkness of her skin, and her eyes were bright with amus.e.m.e.nt. ”You haven't left her side since they brought her up here. I didn't figure you were going to leave now.”

A nap.

A real nap.

He leaned forward and closed his hand around Taige's. ”You need to come on back now, Taige.” It was early in the afternoon yet, but he figured he had less than an hour before Jones or one of the other jerk offs in the Bureau showed up. Jones was persistent.

He showed up like clockwork every day at four, only moments after Jilly and Robert came by to bring him clothes. Cul en half suspected that Jones was following Jilly and her grandfather. Cul en knew d.a.m.n well how persistent Jones had been getting with Jilly, and when he saw the b.a.s.t.a.r.d today, he was going to make sure Jones understood that it had to stop.

Just a quick nap, and he'd be ready to face all of it: the well-meaning, intrusive nurses, the impersonal doctors, the agents who came by singly or in small groups of two or three, not to mention Jilly and her grandfather. Ready to face another day that didn't really include Taige. The only contact he'd had with her was holding her hand or brus.h.i.+ng her hair back from her face.

The nurses wouldn't let him help with anything. If he tried to so much as change her blanket, they showed up. He was starting to think the linen closet was bugged, and that's how they always knew when he was trying to either change a blanket or give her a pillow.

Hel , even move the bed around a little. Granted, he didn't really need to do any d.a.m.n thing, because the nurses were taking good care of her. Even Cullen couldn't fault their care. But just sitting there was driving him nuts.

The lack of sleep wasn't helping. The worry and lingering fear over seeing her go down, blood blossoming on the front of her s.h.i.+rt like a vicious rose-that was really driving him nuts. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it again, but it was getting harder . . . and harder . . .

It dropped down on him like a meteor cras.h.i.+ng to earth, fast and unstoppable. One minute he was thinking about that quick nap and how much good it might do him, and the next, he was under. Arms folded across his chest, legs stretched out and crossed at his ankles, his chin tucked against his chest, Cullen slept.

Out in the hallway, the nurse paused at the door, the supplies she needed for rebandaging her patient's various injuries already out and ready on the treatment cart she pushed in front of her. The sight of the man, though, sound asleep in that d.a.m.ned uncomfortable chair had her stopping in her tracks. She heard the squeak of wheels behind her and looked up to see one of the housekeeping staff pus.h.i.+ng a folded-up cot down the hal way. She held up a hand, and he stopped. ”Just leave it there,” she said, keeping her voice low.

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