Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Somewhere, Christmas music was playing.
He could hear the music, could even name the song. “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.”
Darkness surrounded him. The music kept playing.
“I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams…”
He wanted to be home for Christmas. Home—to him, home was Melody. Melody and her dimpled smile and her green eyes. And the sweet, sweet sound of her laughter. He thought that, maybe, her laughter had been what he missed most over the last year. Her laughter had always been the best damn gift.
He’d wanted to spend his life making her happy. Making her smile. Making her laugh.
He’d wanted a Christmas tree. Wanted decorations and stockings hung by the chimney and kids who laughed and baked chocolate chip cookies with him and Melody. He’d wanted all the joy that everyone else seemed to get so easily.
While he’d had such coldness in his life.
He’d wanted…
Melody.
“I don’t know why you think you get to sleep all day, but it’s just got to stop. I believe you’re the one being Sleeping Beauty right now, so when I kiss you, I fully expect you to wake up, stare straight into my eyes, and vow to love me forever.”
Her soft lips pressed to his.
Not a dream. A dream had never felt so real. He should know. After all, he’d had plenty of dreams about Melody over the last year.
“Wake up,” she pleaded. “Stare straight into my eyes. Vow to love me forever.”
His lashes slowly lifted. The darkness faded. The music kept playing. A light blinked, on and off, from somewhere nearby. And Melody—his Melody—leaned over him.
She smiled. A slow smile that stretched her full, unpainted lips, that made her dimple flash at him, and that lit her gorgeous, green eyes. “Hello, Sleeping Beauty,” she told him.
He jerked. Reached for Melody. Hauled her down onto him even as his mouth crashed into hers.
“Victor! Victor, no! You had a bullet lodged in your back! You had way too much blood loss!” She pushed at him. Kissed him a bit longer but then pushed again and broke free. “Victor.” Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes gleamed with what could have been both tears and joy. “You scared the hell out of me.”
He stared straight into her eyes. “I will love you forever.”
Her breath caught. “Heard that part, did you?” A nod. “I thought you were waking up. Your breathing changed. And, well, you also whispered my name.” Her smile came and went again. Came and…went.
Worry clouded her features. “How do you feel?”
He stared at her. Smudges under her eyes. Tousled hair. Wrinkled clothes.
Absolutely freaking beautiful.
Then he looked around the room. His hospital room. A small Christmas tree had been set up in the corner. The blinking lights came from the tree.
“There wasn’t a big selection in the gift shop. The two-foot tree was a real find,” she murmured. “When I was staying in the hospital, I hated that my room was so stark. It always felt so cold.”
His gaze slid back to her.
“I didn’t want it to be cold when you woke up.”
How could he be cold? She was there.
“Victor.” Her brows pulled low. “Should I get a nurse? How do you feel?”
“I feel like it’s Christmas morning.”
Her eyes flared with alarm. “It’s not. Not yet. We still have a few days left. The doctors warned me that you might be confused coming off the anesthesia, but…I’m gonna get the nurse, just in case.” She turned away.
His hand flew out and curled around her wrist. “You’re here.”
“Y-yes.” She seemed even more worried as she glanced back at him.
“You love me.”
“Yes.” Not as worried. More definite.
He nodded. “Then it feels like Christmas morning.” Or, at least, what he imagined a wonderful Christmas morning would feel like. Pure joy. Hope.
For the first time in so very long.
Her breath rushed out. Then she was the one crushing her mouth to his again. Kissing him passionately. Frantically.
And he heard the music playing and he was happy. Finally.
“I’ll be home for Christmas…”
For real this time. No more dreams.
The next time Victor opened his eyes…
“Melody is back.” Sebastian Mage leaned on his cane and stared down at Victor. Hatterson waited behind him. “So you need to get your ass out of this bed.”
Victor blinked.
“Did you hear me? Melody is back,” Sebastian repeated as he rammed his cane into the floor for emphasis. “She’s telling me that you two are going to get married.”
Uh, yeah, as soon as I can get my ass out of this bed.
“She said you loved her.” Sebastian beetled his brows at Victor. “Do you love her?”
“More than anything.”
Sebastian rammed the cane down again. “Good.” His shoulders slumped. “I can’t…I can’t always be here for her.” He licked his lips. “You will, though…you’ll be there for her…when I’m not?”
“I’ll get my ass out of this bed,” he swore. Where the hell is Melody? “And I’ll be there for her. Count on it.”
Sebastian nodded. “She was gone…” His gaze shifted to the Christmas tree. The lights flickered on and off. On and off. “Gone too long. I…thought she’d forgotten me.”
For a time, she’d forgotten them all.
Sebastian’s gaze returned to Victor. A big smile lit his features. It was a smile that Victor had not seen in months. “She loves me.”
Victor grabbed the bed’s railing. Pulled up with his left arm. He felt a burn in his back. Along the right side. About two inches away from his spine.
Thank Christ that bullet didn’t get closer to my spine. Thank—
“I don’t think she should love me.” Low. Sad. “But she does.” Sebastian heaved a sigh. “I…miss her mother.”
Was the older man going to confess to her murder again? Because a nurse had just bustled in and that could be tricky to explain right then—
“I wish I could go back in time. Show Helena that I loved her. Show her how much she meant to me.” Sebastian swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Show my daughter, will you? Every single day. Show her.”
Hatterson edged forward. “He’s having a good day,” he told Victor.
Yes, yes, Sebastian clearly was.
Hatterson curled his hand around Sebastian’s shoulder. “Victor took two bullets for Melody,” he informed the other man. “I think he’s doing a good job of showing her how he feels.”
“Technically three bullets,” Victor said, cocking his head to the side. “If you count the graze at the estate.” A graze that he now saw had been carefully bandaged by someone at the hospital. Maybe by the nurse who was bustling closer? “Ah, can you give us just a minute?” he asked the nurse.
She frowned but nodded. Quickly, she backed out. The door closed behind her.
Sebastian’s grip tightened on his cane. “I know about your father.”
Victor felt shock roll through him.
“You think…you think I never checked you out? Before I gave you my whole company?”
Behind him, Hatterson inclined his head. “I did my research on you.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say something?” Victor demanded.
Sebastian shrugged. “Why didn’t you?”
Because at first, I wanted to destroy you.
Sebastian nodded. “I always planned to give everything to you. Just didn’t realize you’d be taking my daughter, too.”
“I love Melody,” Victor stated. He wanted to be very clear on this point. “I’m going to marry her.”
Something that looked very much like peace swept over Sebastian’s features. “Then I can rest. I’ve been…tired.”
He could see the other man fading. “I know.” Softer.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian told him. He stared hard at Victor. “I’m so sorry about…” But his words trailed off. He blinked. Looked around the room. His breath rasped out a little harder. “I’m sorry about…” His eyes scrunched. He glanced at Victor. “I—”
“I know,” Victor said. He did. “Everything is okay.” It would be.
Sebastian exhaled. Silence ticked past. Then, “Melody is back.”
Victor swallowed again. Smiled. “Yes.” An exhale. “I’m gonna get my ass out of this bed and marry her.”
Sebastian’s eyes gleamed. “Good. Good. Always thought…she was sweet on you.” He shuffled for the door. The cane banged against the floor.
It opened before he could reach it. Not the hospital nurse this time, but, instead, Sebastian’s personal nurse, Tracy Ryder. She reached out for him. “I’ve got some coffee ready for you outside.”
Hatterson began to follow them out.
“Hatterson!” Victor’s voice came out like a hard bark. Yeah, he was already feeling better. Feeling better and he had one focus.
Where in the hell is Melody?
Hatterson glanced back at him.
“A word. Alone.”
“I’ve got him,” Tracy murmured.
Sebastian and Tracy slipped away.
Hatterson ambled to the foot of Victor’s bed. “Melody is with that Ice Breaker guy, Hunter,” he said, clearly reading Victor’s mind. “They’ve got loose ends that they are trying to tie up. And you have two guards stationed outside your room. Calista and Luis. Melody insisted that they stay close.”
He didn’t need guards. He needed information. “Brant McKee.”
“What?”
Not a what. A who. “Brant McKee.”
Confusion first, then understanding appeared on Hatterson’s face.
“That prick from when Melody was a teen? Why the hell are you asking about him?” But he leaned over the bed.
“Did he have something to do with this mess? Because I warned him—Sebastian and I both told that little prick that if he ever came within fifty feet of her again, he was dead.”
Victor locked his jaw. “He hurt her.”
“Broke three of her ribs.” Flat. “So I broke twice as many of his. You don’t hurt our Melody and just walk away.
” He shared a long look with Victor. “Guessing the detective learned that fact, didn’t he?
Word is that he’s the one who took her. Melody said—said she remembered him.
Being in the car with her. And when the EMTs were trying to save him, they ripped open his shirt.
The bastard had some kind of scar on him that Melody was freaked about. ”
Because she’d stabbed her attacker when he’d held her in that cabin so long ago.
“The detective didn’t make it, FYI,” Hatterson informed him bluntly.
No, Victor hadn’t thought that the man had. “I aimed for the heart.” Only fair, since the bastard had tried to take Victor’s heart.
You took Melody.
“Haven’t thought about Brant McKee in years.” Hatterson rubbed a hand along his beard. “Was he involved? Did he help? Thought we taught that prick a lesson. You never, ever put a hand on a woman. I showed him what pain felt like.”
“He’s running for attorney general in Maryland.”
“Oh, the fuck he is.” Hatterson dropped his hand. “That can’t happen.”
“It won’t.” Victor grimaced as he twisted on the bed. “Time to get my ass out of here.”
“Yeah, well, in spite of what Sebastian said, good luck with that,” Hatterson informed him. “Don’t think the docs intend for you to be home before Christmas. Your ass is gonna be staying here for a bit.”
Victor stilled. “Then the docs need to think again. I will be home for Christmas.” He’d be with Melody. This Christmas and every Christmas that came after.