Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Holly woke to the smell of antiseptic, the soft beep of a monitor, and Reid Fleming’s hand wrapped around hers.
That was the first thing she understood.
Not where she was or why her head felt as if someone had packed it with wet cement and struck a match behind her left eye. Not why the world was dim and too bright at the same time, or why her mouth tasted dry and metallic.
Reid was there, sitting in a chair pulled close to the bed, one hand holding hers and the other braced near his mouth as if he’d been praying, bargaining, or trying to hold himself together through sheer stubbornness.
His dark hair was mussed, his jaw rough with stubble, and his shirt had dried blood on one sleeve. Her blood, probably. That part came back in pieces she didn’t want but couldn’t stop.
Allen on her couch.
The cup on the coffee table.
Blue scratching at the door.
A gun.
Reid’s voice yelling her name.
Holly tried to turn her head toward him and immediately regretted it. Pain flashed hot across her skull, and the breath she pulled in sounded thin even to her own ears.
Reid was on his feet instantly. “Hey there. You’re awake.”
She licked her dry lips, tried to shift, and bit back a groan when more pain ripped down her neck. “Hey.”
“Don’t try to sit up.” His voice was rough around the edges.
Holly blinked, forcing the room to steady. She caught sight of pale curtains, the metal rail on the bed, and the IV in her arm. A plastic water cup with a straw sat on the table. The door to the room was closed, and the worst of the hospital noise stayed muffled beyond it.
“You’re at the hospital,” Reid told her. “They’re keeping you overnight for observation.” He reached for the water cup and held the straw to her mouth. “Small sip.”
She started to take the cup, but he gently pulled it back. “I can drink water by myself,” she said automatically.
“I’m sure you can. You’re not doing it yet. The doctor said your coordination may be off for the next twenty-four hours.”
She let him bring it back to her lips. Her throat felt scraped raw, and the water was cold enough to make her eyes sting with relief. She took two small sips before he pulled it away.
She closed her eyes for a few seconds and held on to his hand. His fingers tightened around hers, and the restraint in that small pressure told her more than a dozen dramatic speeches would have.
He was scared. Reid, who built plans and perimeters and arguments strong enough to hold up under pressure, looked as if the whole world had narrowed to the rise and fall of her chest.
She opened her eyes again. “How bad?”
“You have a concussion. Four stitches at your temple, but the CT was clear. No brain bleed.” His voice caught that last sentence. “The doctor wants you monitored overnight because you lost consciousness twice.”
“Twice?”
“Once before I got to you. Once after.”
The room slid a little, or maybe the memory did. Holly gripped his hand harder. “Allen hit me.”
“Yes, with the butt of his gun.”
Her stomach rolled, and Reid reached for the small plastic basin on the tray table. The nausea passed without becoming anything more humiliating, but she lay still afterward, breathing carefully while his thumb moved over the back of her hand. “Blue?”
“He’s safe.”
She blinked up at him. “Where?”
“With Roni. Hopper called her.”
“Hopper?”
“He helped.” Reid’s mouth tightened. “Blue found me because Allen shoved him out of the apartment and when he couldn’t get to you, he came down the stairs to the shop. I saw him at the window while I was outside with Hopper.”
“Why were you outside with Hopper?”
“I spotted him pacing near the patio gate.”
That should have alarmed her more than it did, but the name no longer carried the same fear. The memory of Hopper in the doorway came back, rough and blurred, his voice saying Allen’s name like the world had gone wrong in a way he couldn’t process.
“He didn’t do it,” she said.
“No. Hopper’s innocent. Allen is the killer.”
Her stomach flipped again. She’d trusted him, defended him. Her heart had kept reaching for the version of him who had helped her, the steady man who had known how to navigate systems and make a frightened woman feel less alone.
That man had carried a Sanctuary cup into her apartment and set it on her coffee table like a place card for death.
“He’s in custody,” Reid told her. “He confessed enough in front of all of us to make the rest easy.”
“All of us?”
“Me, Hopper, and Sweet Blue, who is getting whatever steak dinner Roni thinks is appropriate for a dog who helped save your life.”
Holly’s eyes filled before she could stop them. “He was scratching at the door.”
“He was trying to get to you.”
“I thought maybe you’d let Allen up.” Her brow furrowed. “I was so confused.”
“God, Holly. I never should have left you.” The guilt in his voice pulled at her heart. Reid looked wrecked, more than he had when she first opened her eyes. He sat again but stayed forward in the chair, one hand still holding hers as if he expected her to vanish if he loosened his grip.
That’s when she realized what a mess he was. There were bruises forming along one side of his face and a tear in his shirt at the shoulder. His knuckles were scraped. The side of his neck had a red mark that looked like it would darken by morning.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
His eyebrows drew together. “You have a concussion and stitches, and you’re asking if I’m okay?”
“Yes.”
He blew out a breath and shook his head. “Seeing you on that couch…” He rubbed his free hand over his face. “Holly, for a minute I thought you were dead.”
The honesty settled through her, heavier than the medication and sharper than the pain. She swallowed. “How did Allen get in?”
“He came through the alley while I was out front with Hopper. Hopper had come to warn us because Claire showed him the punch card. The message reminded him of something Allen had said after Emma’s trial, and Hopper told me he’d seen Allen in the alley.”
A soft huff escaped her lips. “I was right about Hopper, wasn’t I?”
“You were.” Reid leaned closer, and the strain in his voice made her look at him despite the headache. “I shouldn’t have gotten distracted. I sent you upstairs because I thought I was taking care of you, then I walked outside and left the rear access vulnerable. Allen almost killed you.”
“No.”
His jaw flexed. “Holly—”
“No,” she repeated with as much force as her aching head allowed.
“You went outside because Hopper was there and he might have been the killer. You listened to him while he told you the truth. That’s not distraction.
You believed a wounded man might be more than the worst explanation. Sounds like I’m rubbing off on you.”
He looked down at their joined hands. “I still left you exposed.”
“Allen chose what Allen did. That’s on him. And you broke down my apartment door to stop him. Thank you for that, by the way. The landlord isn’t happy, but I think she’ll let it pass since you saved her life.”
His mouth curved, small and reluctant, and the sight of it eased the awful feeling in her chest. “I’ll fix it.”
“I assumed.”
He looked like he’d aged years since she’d left him to go upstairs and feed her dog.
She remembered his voice coming through the fog in her head, telling Allen to put the gun down.
She remembered Blue’s snarl. And then Reid’s hands had been on her face, gentle and urgent, asking her what happened while the room moved in strange angles around her.
“You stayed,” she said.
He looked startled. “Of course I did.”
Once, there had been another morning, a different bed, and a version of Holly who’d woken and found him gone.
That had shaped more of her life than she had wanted to admit.
It had taught her to keep certain hopes boxed away, to build safe places from wood and brick and coffee and rules, to trust routines more than promises.
“Is it only because I’m injured?”
His brows crashed together and he huffed, indignant. “I’ll write that off to the concussion. You know better than that, Holly Bristol.”
He sat beside a hospital bed with her blood on his sleeve and fear and guilt still clinging to him, looking at her as if no one could make him leave her ever again.
“I don’t want to waste more time being careful about the truth,” she said.
“I’m concussed, not confused.” She held his gaze, refusing to let the throbbing in her head or the fear of what might have happened if it weren’t for him still shivering in her body steal this from her.
“Look, I love you, and I’m too tired to pretend I don’t.
There are too many regrets between us already, and that stops now.
We have a future to plan, and you still have to master the espresso machine. ”
Reid went very still, and for a few seconds, she worried she’d finally managed to scare the man who’d faced down a killer with a gun. Then he lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her knuckles. The breath he released against her skin trembled.
“I love you too,” he said. “I loved you then—I was just too much of a coward to do anything worthy of it. I love you now, and I’m staying.”
Her eyes burned. “You’d better.”
“I mean it.” He looked up at her, and there it was, the thing she’d wanted years ago and been afraid to want now. Not perfection or a promise that nothing would hurt again. Choice. His and hers, standing in the same room at last.
Reid rose carefully and leaned over the bed. His mouth touched hers softly, a kiss made gentler by the bruises and monitors and the fact that she couldn’t lift her head. It still warmed her all the way through.
When he eased back, his face stayed close to hers. “I still have a job at the shop?”
Holly’s smile made her face hurt, but she didn’t care. “You have a job making me happy, and knowing how to make decent espresso is a basic requirement.”
“That sounds like a demanding position.”
“It is. Terrible hours with dangerous equipment and a supervisory dog.”
“Good benefits?”
“Excellent benefits, once the doctor clears me for anything more exciting than water through a straw.”
His laugh came out low and relieved. Holly held on to it. She held on to his hand too, because the world outside the hospital room still had broken pieces waiting for them.
Allen was in custody, but grief did not disappear because handcuffs clicked around the person who had misused it.
Sanctuary would need to be cleaned, repaired, and reclaimed.
Linc would worry. Roni would fuss. Blue would probably demand an emotional support pastry.
Hopper Shaw would have to decide what to do with a life that had been organized around loss for too long.
And Holly would have to step back into the shop where Allen had turned her kindness into a hunting ground.
Not tonight.
Tonight, she let Reid fuss over the water cup, tell her again that Blue was safe, report that Linc had called twice and threatened to come to the hospital if no one gave him an update, and repeat the doctor’s instructions with enough seriousness to make her suspect he’d memorized them for cross-examination purposes.
He adjusted her blanket. He moved the call button closer. He told her no screens when her eyes drifted toward her phone.
“You’re enjoying this,” she said.
“I’m not enjoying any part of you being in the hospital.”
“You’re enjoying the instructions.”
“I respect clear protocol.”
She rolled her eyes, which hurt almost as much as smiling.
He kissed her hand again, and the teasing faded into something quieter. “You scared me. I’m going to have nightmares about that door.”
“I’m going to have opinions about a bath I never got to take.”
He gently touched her cheek. “I’ll draw you another when you’re home.”
“With lavender salts?”
“With lavender salts, a repaired door, Blue on guard, and me outside the bathroom if that’s where you want me.”
Holly closed her eyes and sighed. “That sounds nice.”
“It’s yours.”
So much in her life had felt borrowed lately: safety, sleep, quiet mornings. The belief that she understood the people who came through Sanctuary’s door.
But Reid’s hand was wrapped around hers, warm and steady, and for once, staying felt less like a promise someone might break and more like a choice they were both making.
Holly held on tight.