Chapter 14 Shiloh
Fourteen
Shiloh
I paced the waiting room, hugging myself in my cardigan.
Hospitals were always so cold. I remembered when I had my appendix out.
Twelve years old and scared to death and shivering under a thin blanket before surgery.
But Bibi was with me the whole time, holding my hand, stroking my hair, and telling me they were going to “fix me up, good as new.”
A sob rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down.
She’s going to be okay. She has to be.
I paced and gnawed my lip. A string was unraveling at the cuff of my sweater. I felt like I was unraveling too, waiting for the doctors to finish their tests. Helpless. No plan, no checklist to tick off that would get me through this.
Then Ronan strode through the door.
He didn’t stop at the front desk but came straight to me.
I didn’t have to say anything; he enveloped me in the safety of his arms, and I closed my eyes and clung to him, letting him hold me up.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d shared a burden with anyone.
Ronan took it wordlessly, and for a few precious moments, I stayed in the shelter of him.
He smelled fresh from a shower and clean.
Warm. His heartbeat in my ear was steady.
When I stepped back, the fear and anxiety swooped in, but I felt more like myself and ready to face whatever lay ahead. As if Ronan had loaned me some of his strength.
“What happened?” he asked as we took a seat in the waiting area.
“We were watching a movie,” I said. “She seemed fine. But when she got up to go to the kitchen, she stumbled a little. I jumped up and tried to hold her steady, but she kept falling slowly, slipping out of my grasp.” Tears gathered in the back of my throat.
“She fainted or…collapsed. I don’t know.
Her eyes were fluttering, and she was mumbling a lot.
I called an ambulance, and now I’m just waiting.
God, the waiting…” I dragged my hands over my hair, my elbows on my knees. “If something happens to her…”
I closed my eyes, unwilling to think of a future without Bibi.
Not yet. Please. I’m not ready yet.
Ronan said nothing, but when I looked up, his face was drawn with worry, his lips a thin line.
“I know why I called you first,” I said. “Because you care about her too. And because I was kind of falling apart, and I knew you’d hold me together.”
“Shiloh…”
“I never do that. Let anyone help. Thank you for being here.”
He started to speak, and then a tall doctor with dark hair and a kind face stepped in from the double doors. “Barrera?”
I shot to my feet…and so did Ronan.
The doctor strode forward in blue emergency room scrubs and a white coat. “I’m Dr. Fenton. I understand Bibi is your grandmother?”
“Great-grandmother. How is she?”
“She’s doing fine. Resting now.”
A sigh of relief miles deep gusted out of me, and I tipped sideways into Ronan. His arm went around me, reassuring and strong.
“What happened?”
“She’s had an episode of hypotension or low blood pressure,” Dr. Fenton said.
“We’ve run some tests and have ruled out any adrenal or heart valve issues.
We’re going to recommend a change in diet and fludrocortisone to boost blood volume.
Overall, she’s in good health, and I’m optimistic she won’t need further treatment.
But we’ll want her to see someone in a few weeks and regularly after that just to be sure. ”
I nodded, taking in every word, clutching tightly to optimistic and good health. “Whatever she needs. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”
The doctor smiled. “Bibi speaks highly of you, Shiloh. She said you take excellent care of her.”
Not good enough. Tears threatened again, but I willed them back. “Can I see her?”
“She’s stable now and sleeping. Better to let her rest and come back in the morning.”
“But she’s alone…”
“And sleeping,” Dr. Fenton said gently. “Which is what she needs.”
I nodded reluctantly. “Okay. Thank you. I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”
“How are you getting home?” Ronan asked.
“I drove. I followed the ambulance. They wouldn’t let me ride with her. God, that was the worst drive of my life. Not knowing…”
I shivered, and his arm around me tightened and then let go.
We walked to the visitor parking. I fumbled my keys out of my bag with shaking fingers, and they dropped to the concrete. When I bent to get them, Ronan was there. His large hand closed over mine.
“I got it.”
I managed a smirk. “You think you can handle her?”
He didn’t tease or poke fun. “I got it,” he said again.
Everything about him was steady and solid.
He walked me to the passenger side and opened my door, then went around and got behind the wheel.
I sank into my seat, his competence and quiet capability putting me at ease.
There was something inherently masculine about a man behind the wheel that even in my exhausted, wrung-out state I appreciated.
Ronan handled the Buick as if he’d driven it a hundred times, expertly maneuvering the huge car out of the parking lot.
At my house, he pulled into the garage and was at my side before I could even step out of the car. I wondered if I were about to throw every feminist sensibility out the window and let him carry me inside, caveman-style.
Ronan led me into the house and stopped in the kitchen, unsure. “You want to rest on the couch or…”
“In my room. I’m about to pass out. Being terrified is fucking exhausting.”
He nodded. Now that the immediate danger was over, I was acutely aware of how alone we were. Our kiss came back to me, a kiss unlike any I’d ever had before. One I could feel somewhere deep inside me.
But he’d broken it off suddenly and left me alone in the car, cutting me loose.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” I lied.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “Good night.”
He started to go, and the fear swept back in. A night alone stretched in front of me.
“Wait.”
He turned.
“I…I…” My jaw worked soundlessly. I had no idea how to tell him I needed him. I’d never said the words before.
Ronan nodded as if he’d heard me, and his hard expression softened. “You want some water?”
“Now that you mention it…”
“Go lie down, and I’ll bring it,” he said, and I knew what he was doing. Sparing us the awkwardness of walking into my bedroom together.
In my room, I turned on the rainbow lights; they gave a soft glow that was soothing after the harsh hospital fluorescents. I sank heavily on my bed and kicked off my shoes. My strength was draining out minute by minute. I tipped over and curled up on my side, head on the pillow.
Ronan came in, a glass of water in hand. His inherent sexiness that was raw and potent was made beautiful by the multicolored lights.
He set the glass on the nightstand next to a photo of Violet and me when we were kids. His gaze swept the room, taking in my art and scribblings and ceramics, his hands in his pockets as if to keep from touching anything.
I pushed myself to sitting and took a long pull of water. I set the glass down with a shaky hand and nearly knocked it off the table. Ronan’s hand shot out and steadied it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I curled back up. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t think so.”
He nodded again and took off his jacket, revealing a black T-shirt. In the dim light, he was mostly black—shirt, hair, the tattoos that inked his perfect arms. He sat on the floor beside my bed, his jacket tucked behind him like a pillow.
“What are you—”
“I’m staying until you fall asleep.”
I studied his profile, his lips that had been on me, my mouth, my skin…
A pleasurable shiver slipped through me, then faded out. Something had spooked him that afternoon we kissed. His own baggage maybe. Stuff he wouldn’t tell me.
“I’m no better,” I muttered, my thoughts getting ahead of my tired brain and escaping.
Ronan’s head turned to me. “What?”
“I didn’t tell you everything. Back at the hospital.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“I know. Neither one of us are very good at this—talking about our stuff. I need to, but I can’t if you’re all the way down there on the floor.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m not going to ask anything of you, Ronan. We’re not…compatible,” I said with an ache in my chest. “Or maybe we have too much stuff in the way, but…I’d like you to come up here. No kissing. I know you think that was a mistake.”
He stiffened. “Shiloh…”
“It’s okay. It was. Because I’m kind of a mess, though no one knows it. But I want to come clean a little. Okay?”
He hesitated, then nodded. I scooted over until my back was touching the wall, and Ronan sat on the edge of my full-size bed.
His weight made it dip, my heart dipping with it, my stomach fluttering.
He took off his boots and then maneuvered his large body to lie down next to me on his side so that we were face-to-face in the dark.
This close, the masculine beauty of his face resting on my pillow was almost overwhelming. I shut my eyes.
“I didn’t think it was possible to be this tired.”
“You should sleep.”
“Then I’ll be alone. And I’m so tired of being alone.”
Ronan said nothing for a moment, then sighed, his breath warm and clean. “Me too.”
“It’s my fault though.” I forced my eyes open and nodded at the photo of me and Vi.
“We were so close. She used to tell me everything. But you can only do that for so long without getting anything in return. I mean, my first call in the hospital should have been to my best friend, right? But it was you.”
Ronan’s voice was low and rumbling in the dark. “I’m not sorry about that.”
Another dip in my stomach, as if I were drunk or on a kiddie roller coaster at the boardwalk. “Me neither.” I inhaled, then exhaled. “A few hours before Bibi fell, I walked in on her talking on the phone with my mother.”
“Okay.”