Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Penny couldn’t sit still. She paced the small waiting room in the hospital.
She’d been there for hours. But she wasn’t alone.
The room was filled with not only Pyro’s Night Stalker teammates, but mechanics, a few officers had come and gone, and other military men and women, both Army and Navy, who Penny didn’t know.
They’d all heard what happened, what Pyro had done, and had come to support her while their friend was in surgery.
Bowie was at home in the apartment they shared with Zita, with Jen, Fred, and Edge watching over her as she slept. She’d been up since the middle of the night, and even the excitement of finding Pyro couldn’t help her keep her eyes open.
Edge had volunteered to take her back to the apartment complex, and Penny was grateful.
She knew her daughter wanted to see Pyro almost as much as she did, but no one knew how long he’d be in surgery, so it was better for her to sleep.
Knowing Edge and Jen were with her lifted one worry off her shoulders.
There hadn’t been any updates from the doctor in hours. When Pyro passed out on the gurney in that house, Penny had been crazy worried, but positive he’d be all right.
But the more time that passed, the more anxious she became.
And when the doctor told her the extent of his injuries, she got even more concerned.
He was having surgery to close the hole in his thigh—that injury had nicked a major blood vessel, which was why it had bled so much—and to repair the damage to his tibia.
His knee was also messed up, but fixing that might have to wait.
Penny was worried his career would be over, but Casper reassured her that even though he’d be sidelined for a while, once his leg healed, he’d have no problem getting behind the controls of his beloved choppers.
Laryn, Mandy, and Zita were all at the hospital as well, and as much as Penny appreciated their presence, there was only one person she wanted…no, needed to see.
Pyro.
She insisted Casper tell her the entire story of what happened in the basement, what he saw when he went down there. She wasn’t allowed to see it for herself, for obvious reasons, and after hearing about the amount of blood and the aftermath of the fight that had occurred, she was glad.
Pyro was…he was her hero. There was no way around it. He’d not only protected Bowie like he’d vowed to do time and time again, he’d made sure the men who’d kidnapped her wouldn’t have a chance to do it again.
Her man was a badass, and Penny loved him so damn much. She just needed him to be okay so she could spend the rest of her life making sure he knew it.
The door to the private waiting area opened, and Penny spun, facing the doctor who appeared. His gaze was glued to her; it was the same man who’d briefly met with her before he’d gone into surgery.
“How is he?” she blurted.
It was so quiet in the waiting room, you could hear a pin drop, and Penny held her breath as she waited for his response.
“Good. Stable. He’s in a recovery room, and you’ll be able to go in and see him in an hour or so.”
Penny swayed on her feet. Thankfully, Obi-Wan was there to keep her from falling on her face.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“He’s tough. Full disclosure, his blood pressure dropped so low at one point, we thought we were losing him, but once we got some of the blood back into his body that he’d lost, he rallied.
We fixed his leg, put a pin in the tibia to stabilize it, and closed the hole in his thigh.
Also stitched up the other wounds he had as well. He’s going to be just fine.”
Penny nodded and closed her eyes. Obi-Wan steered her to a chair and she gratefully sank into it.
Suddenly, she was exhausted. She hadn’t slept the night before, and the adrenaline that had been coursing through her veins for the last several hours was finally waning.
She felt as if she could sleep for days.
But first, she needed to see for herself that Pyro was all right. Hear his deep voice, see his beautiful brown eyes looking into her own.
“A nurse will come get you when you can see him. Sorry, but only one person at a time for now,” the doctor said, eyeing the full waiting room.
“No problem. Penny will be staying with him, if she’s allowed,” Casper said.
The doctor nodded. “We’ll get a cot set up in his room for her.” Then he nodded at the others and headed out.
“He’s okay,” Penny whispered to Casper, as he knelt in front of her chair.
“Yeah. Like the doc said, he’s tough.”
Penny nodded.
“I’ll go home and get you some overnight things,” Zita told her.
Looking up, Penny gave her a small smile. “Thanks.”
“And I’ll go downstairs and get you something to eat. You have to be hungry,” Mandy told her.
Now that she thought about it, she was hungry. Starving, in fact. Penny nodded at her friend.
“And I’m gonna stay my ass right here until you get to go back and see Pyro,” Laryn declared.
Penny chuckled. And it felt really good to feel something other than horror, fright, and worry. “Thanks for being here, everyone.”
“Nowhere else we’d be.”
“Of course.”
“You guys are family.”
And it hit home to Penny that indeed, these men and women, they were family.
They might not be related by blood, but that didn’t matter.
They were there when they were needed the most, supporting them and not wanting anything in return, and would do anything necessary to keep both her and Pyro safe.
Penny had thought she was content with her family consisting of just her and Bowie, but she was wrong.
This Night Stalker family was the best thing that had ever happened to them both.
She took a deep breath and did her best to let the horror of the last twenty-four hours go. She was safe. Bowie was safe. Pyro was safe. She couldn’t ask for more.
* * *
Pyro was confused. He heard a beeping noise that made him want to rip apart whatever electronic was making the annoying sound. It wasn’t a noise he’d ever heard his chopper make before, and he couldn’t understand where he was or what was happening.
Then he heard a noise he’d recognize anywhere.
Snoring.
Well, not snoring exactly, more like extremely deep breathing.
Penny.
And just like that, the events of the last day—two days? He had no idea what day or time it was—came back to him.
For a second he panicked, thinking maybe Penny had gotten kidnapped and was being held hostage with him. But when he took a deep breath, he recognized the scents of a hospital. Thankfully he hadn’t spent too much time in them, but enough to know where he was.
He wasn’t in pain, which was a relief, because he could still vividly remember how bad he’d been hurting from both his broken leg and the stab wound in his thigh.
With effort, Pyro forced his eyes open. The room was dim but not dark. The curtains were closed across the window in his room, so he couldn’t gauge the time based on what it looked like outside.
Penny shifted just then, and all thoughts of what time it was, or which day, flew from his mind. All that mattered was the woman sitting next to his bed, her head on the mattress and her hand holding his.
His memories became a bit fuzzy after his friends had joined him in the basement, but he remembered seeing Penny there.
And he remembered something else. He squeezed her hand.
As if he’d hit her with a cattle prod, Penny whipped her head up and stared at him.
“You’re awake!”
“You said yes,” he blurted, his voice sounding weird and scratchy to his own ears.
She looked confused. “What?”
“You said that you’d marry me.”
She smiled then, and Pyro wanted to see that look on her face every day for the rest of his life.
“I did. I love you, Kylo Mullins.”
She didn’t use his real name often, but when she did, it meant something. “I love you too. Bowie’s really okay?”
“She is. She went home and slept for five hours, then she insisted Edge and Jen bring her here so she could see you.”
“She’s here?” Pyro asked, eager to see for himself that the little girl was all right.
“Yeah.”
Then he sobered. “I’m sorry.”
“About what?” Penny asked.
“For what I did. For putting her out that window. For putting your blind six-year-old out into the night, in an unfamiliar area, by herself. It was unforgivable, which I know, but I hope you’ll forgive me anyway. That you’ll both forgive me.”
Penny scowled at him. “Are you kidding me? Pyro, you saved her. You got her out of that basement the two of you were being held in before she could be sold! You gave her explicit directions on how to get to the beach and where to go. You told her exactly what to do, and as a result, she sees the entire thing as some kind of adventure. So no, I won’t forgive you because there’s nothing to forgive.
And if you ever say something so stupid again, I won’t be responsible for my actions. ”
Pyro grinned. God, he loved this woman. Her words didn’t erase the guilt he felt, but they did go a long way toward making him feel better about the entire situation.
Penny took a breath. “Bowie told me how the men appeared out of nowhere and hit you. I was a little confused how they managed to take you both, but when she said you acted all scared and weak…I got it. You couldn’t fight back when you thought it might get Bowie hurt, could you?
” She paused as he shook his head. “But after she was out of harm’s way, you did what you’ve been trained to do.
I’m so proud of you, I could burst. But, Pyro, you should know, I can’t live without you.
I need you in my life. In my daughter’s life.
Please, if you ever find yourself in some other awful, scary situation like that again, don’t stop fighting. No matter what.”
“I won’t,” Pyro vowed. “I heard you say that before I passed out. I need you too, Pen. I never knew what it felt like to love someone so much it consumes my entire being.” He studied her, memorizing her features anew. “You look tired.”