Thanks to Angie for the beta!
Chapter 4
Laura held the soup-filled spoon to her husband's lips and he scowled as he sipped the tepid liquid. Reclining as he was in the bed, he couldn't easily feed himself without tipping over the bowl so she'd decided to help. It was either that or drinking it through a straw – which she was nearly ready to give him.
"Really, Laura, I'm quite capable of feeding myself."
Laura's hackles, on a steady rise throughout the day as he'd stubbornly refused help from everyone, climbed into the stratosphere. He was healing remarkably well for someone who had been shot in the chest but there was no need for him to do everything himself. "You're gaining nothing by being so bullheaded."
"Just doing my best impression of you, darling," he huffed and winced when he crossed his arms across his chest.
In an admitted act of petulance, Laura simply settled the bowl in his hand, dropped in the spoon and stepped away. He was an intelligent man. He knew why she was helping him.
As he cautiously lifted the spoon, Mildred whirled into the room, a look of haughty disdain on her face.
Out of the corner of her eye, Laura noticed her husband settle the trembling hand and bowl back onto his thigh.
"That woman is the most infuriating government employee that I've ever met. And you better believe I've met my fair share." Mildred paced, annoyance more than evident.
In a surprising act of charity, Laura lifted the bowl and held the spoon to her husband's mouth. He took it without complaint after less than a moment's hesitation.
"What woman?" Steele asked after he'd swallowed.
"That hound dog Gladys Lynch."
Laura felt her hard won composure splinter at the mere mention of Lynch's name. Only that woman could surpass her husband in sending her temper from calm to raging in seconds. "What does she want now?"
Exasperation writ in every heavy footfall, Mildred continued, "Insists the Chief won't be allowed back into the country if he remains incommunicado."
Before Laura could inquire, Mildred continued. "And before you ask, she didn't seem to care that the Chief had been shot while on his honeymoon. Implied it was another deception she was gonna to add to the file."
"Send her a copy of his birth certificate and Daniel's obituary." Laura offered her husband another spoonful and he took it with a barely restrained scowl. "That will have to satisfy her until we get home."
"I'm ready now." His attempt to get out of bed was hindered by wires, exhaustion and weakness.
Laura shot him a disapproving frown but stepped back and let him try to have his way. If he fell on his face, it would be his own fault. "You haven't even been conscious a whole day yet." She held the bowl aloft so he wouldn't knock it out of her hands.
Mildred crossed her arms over her chest, set her feet and shot him a glare she usually reserved for an unruly client – or him on his most petulant days. "Not so fast, buster."
He settled in with a dramatic sigh. "I hate hospitals."
"Spent too much time in them, have you?" Laura asked, already knowing the answer. She hated to see him hurt. It happened far too often in their line of work. And he, more than her, had been the beneficiary of more than his fair share.
"Only since I met you."
Laura recoiled as if she'd been slapped but was mollified when he instantly recognized his error and snatched up her hand, an apologetic look in his eyes. Long fingers gently rubbed the soft skin, sending a not entirely unwelcome tingle straight down her spine.
"Imagine you've spent more time in hospital since you met me, too, eh?"
She had to give him props for his attempt at levity. "Oh, a bit."
Laura could see Mildred working out the stalemate, the tension she'd stirred by mentioning their INS investigator.
"I'll hand deliver 'em to her office. No sense in overnighting when I'm flying back tomorrow." Mildred produced another sheet of paper. "The police have their 'i's' dotted and their 't's' crossed so you're free to leave the country whenever the doc releases you."
Laura was impressed by the speed and thoroughness with which the Dublin police had wrapped up their case. "They could teach the LAPD a thing or ten."
"Won't be soon enough as far as I'm concerned." An unvoiced apology swam in his clear blue eyes when he squeezed her hand. Placated for the moment by the genuine remorse for his earlier thoughtless outburst, she settled her hip on the bed.
Those blue eyes danced mischievously and she couldn't hold back a grin when he added, "We have a honeymoon to finish."
In the past, Laura would have been disconcerted to admit the control those intense blue eyes held over her. She wondered at times if he knew their effect and finally concluded that he did and was a master at using it to his advantage. He simply oozed a debonair charm that even the most high class societies lacked and when he turned those smoldering eyes on her in those moments, there was nothing she wouldn't do for him.
It chafed.
Sometimes.
She was Laura Holt, after all, an independent woman who didn't need anyone, especially not a man. For the first time in, well probably ever, she really was looking forward to having nothing to do but enjoy her honeymoon. Learn another side to the man who seemed to have so many. Have that intense gaze, dashing charm and dead sexy voice all to herself for a change.
A stout man in a lab coat, wicked grin on his face, a clear sign he'd overheard their exchange, knocked on the open door to announce himself and walked right in. "Barrin' any complications, I'll be releasin' ya in a week or so but I would advise you visitin' your local doc when you get home to give ya a timeframe on when ya can get back to those," he winked at his patient, "husbandly duties."
Steele's eyes widened and his nose wrinkled in extreme disdain. "We need - permission?"
With herculean effort Laura held back a childish giggle because, after all, she was going to have to suffer right along with him.
Laura woke to a slight chill and she shifted her head as a sliver of the sunlight slipped through the shades and was currently doing its best to blind her. She rolled over on the narrow cot to make sure he was still there, still breathing, just as she'd done every day for the two and a half weeks. He was still asleep. Relaxed. Healing.
She slipped from the bed and drew the covers up over her shoulders as she curled herself into the chair beside his bed. It was because of his status, both as the new Lord of Ashford castle and renowned American private detective that she had been allowed to sleep in the room with him. She hadn't been any trouble, had stayed out of the way when the doctors and nurses came in to care for him, but she was grateful all the same that they hadn't tried to force her from his side.
Under no circumstances would that have happened.
She reached forward and lightly touched his hand before settling her head on the edge of his bed and closing her eyes.
When she woke again, it was to his fingers smoothing a strand of hair away from her face. She blinked sleepily up at him.
"How long have you been awake?"
"I've eaten, showered and dressed for the day," he said with a jovial grin.
She stared pointedly at his hospital gown.
"I daresay, the wardrobe leaves a lot to be desired." His lips twitched and she leaned forward to give him a morning kiss. He cleared his raspy throat and added. "I mean, a little color. Is that too much to ask?"
The hand closest to her circled low on her hips and drew her onto the bed beside him. He held her there and she felt no compulsion at all to move from that spot as the kiss deepened.
When the need for air parted them, he balanced his forehead against hers. "When can we, as Mildred would say, blow this popsicle joint?"
His sense of humor was one of the things she had always loved about him, even at her most irritated. "You've been spending too much time in her company."
He tilted his head at the wires protruding from various portions of his anatomy. "I'm a captive audience, Laura."
"Well, I'm sure she's grateful to have something to do now that she's back in Los Angeles." She swung her legs onto the bed and snuggled close. They'd been caught sitting like this before and no one but the more stringent of nurses pretended to care.
He took her hand and brushed the tips of his fingers across the smooth skin. If he did that to her scalp, she'd be putty; melted, gooey and malleable to his every whim. Best he not discover all her secrets just yet.
"I've been thinking." His fingers threaded through her hair and she bit her lip to keep the sigh contained.
"Always a worrying sign," she fell silent when the soft, almost hesitant tone registered. She peered at him through her eyelashes and bit her lip at the nervous heat in his gaze. "I'm sorry. Go on."
"We need rings." His voice had that tender quality that always sent electric tingles down her spine.
It took yet another moment to register; the way his fingers brushed delicately across her hand, each time slowing at the bare spot where a wedding band should rest.
She felt herself smile big, her heart melt just a little more, and agreed with a simple nod. "We do."
Laura sauntered through the door catching her husband as he stared at the ring on his hand. His eyes snapped up and he shot her a sheepish, lopsided grin, embarrassed, it seemed, to have been caught.
She'd done the same, albeit under cover of darkness, and she absolutely couldn't stop twirling it around her finger. She'd noticed him absently doing the same.
As with everything in their married life so far, even the ring selection hadn't been the usual jaunt to a reputable store to pick out the pieces. Instead, he'd insisted the best jeweler in Dublin bring his selection to them. Whether due to his charming personality or simply dropping his name; one that had been through the press ad nauseam in the last few weeks, the owner, escorted by an armed security guard, personally hand carried a large selection for them to peruse from his hospital bed.
It took all of thirty minutes to make their selections and mere hours for the bands to be returned sized and engraved.
She decided to give him the moment without calling him out. Instead, she sidled up to the bed and glanced down at the detailed plans that sat atop the wheeled table resting over his blanketed legs.
"Mikeline decided not to waste any time, did he?"
"And he's already lined up an investor. They won't start the remodel until after we've left." He shoved the table aside and pulled her to sit on the bed with him.
After a lengthy kiss that could have easily become far more heated, Laura leaned away and scrutinized his face; open, inviting, dimples displayed in a characteristic teasing smirk.
"Got my release papers yet?"
"Not yet."
Laura glanced down as his fingers encircled hers and absently toyed with her wedding band. Still difficult for him to bend at any angle, she leaned forward and gave him another kiss that he deepened to such an extent that she had to stop least he get carried away and pop some stitches. When they parted, she snuggled close and glanced down at their twined fingers.
It wasn't often she stared at her ring with him looking on but she shifted it around her finger and held it up for them both to admire. While his was a rather traditional platinum band etched with celtic symbols that represented love and fidelity, hers was far more elaborate.
Light glinted off the centerpiece stone; a pale blue diamond cut into a stylized claddagh setting. Bookended by two white diamonds it fit snugly against an accompanying band into which had been set alternating blue and white diamonds. An engagement and wedding ring all in one.
Where once she would have wished that he'd put his feelings into words she could overanalyze, she'd discovered over the last few weeks that she really didn't need all kinds of flowery declarations of love and commitment. She'd known for a while that he counted deeds the most important representation of love and, while she would never admit it out loud, she was coming around to his way of thinking.
The softness in his voice interrupted her rumination. "It looks good."
She tilted her head up and closed her eyes in expectation of a kiss that didn't come. Instead, he nuzzled his cheek against hers and she tightened her grip on his fingers.
"Thank you for not dying," she breathed in a voice tight with sudden emotion.
His response was swift, whispered. "Thank you for not letting me."
"I don't know what I'd do without you," she murmured as her eyes slipped closed and he rained soft little kisses along her cheek, forehead, nose, eyelids. In between gentle nips at her mouth, the words she'd been so afraid to say slipped out without thought, "I love you so much". Realization dawned a split second too late as she felt his mouth cease its slow, tantalizing progress across her cheek.
She inhaled sharply and tensed, uncertain how he would respond to such a sudden, unexpected confession. Especially one so close to his near death experience. She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut suddenly regretful for her outburst. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"
"Laura."
She dropped her chin to her chest. Couldn't bring herself to look at him. "Really bad timing, I know."
"Laura."
She resisted when he tried to lift her chin. Her overactive imagination fabricated all the traditional responses that followed such an inconveniently timed admission. "Just forget I said-"
"Be quiet, woman."
She'd only heard that exasperated tone one other time in her life; the lowest she'd ever felt. The night her house had been destroyed. He lifted her chin and she kept her eyes downcast, shamed at the way the revelation had come about and even more embarrassed that she'd been the one to weaken first.
Despite the growing pressure beneath her chin, she stubbornly refused to look at him. A second hand had joined the first but this time it slipped into her hair; pulled her ever closer. His lips gently caressed her cheek, dropped little gentle kisses to the corner of her mouth, weakening her resolve, and then firmly lifted her head.
Her breath caught when their eyes met and she was drawn into the searing heat like a moth to a flame. He slid both hands around her cheeks and brought her mouth into full, breathless contact with his. Absently, she wondered if the position was painful for him to maintain but the concern flew right out of her mind when he coaxed her lips open and kissed her with tender, restrained passion.
When they parted, he whispered so softly against her lips she barely recognized the words. "I do love you, Laura. You have to know that by now." The desperate, tender way he'd said them left no doubt as to their significance. No doubt that he'd said them because he meant to and not simply as an expected reciprocation to her unexpected admission.
She squeezed her eyes shut to prevent the sudden flood of tears and gasped into his mouth when his thumbs silently brushed away the few that escaped. "I do," she whispered. Those words carried a double meaning she absently wondered if he would catch. A tremor raced through him and she curled fingers around his shoulders to hang on tightly when his tongue darted into her mouth. The kiss was passionate, meaningful and fulfilling in a way that matched none of their previous encounters.
Far too soon, she found herself bereft of his mouth as he leaned back, eyes lidded with a longing that must have been mirrored in her own eyes. She could feel the tension leave his body as he settled back against the mattress.
Suddenly contemplative, she said, "I've placed a lot of importance on words in the past."
"You have."
She lifted her eyes to his. "You've taught me they're not as important as deeds."
A brilliant smile spread across his face. "I have."
She leaned back and searched his eyes. "But I wanted to say them at least once."
The tenderness in his voice sent tremors racing down her spine. He nuzzled her cheek and whispered, "So did I."
She tilted her head and met his unflinching gaze. Reached up and twined the fingers of her free hand into his hair, tugged his head down so that their lips were mere inches apart. She resisted the urge to repeat the words. There was a time and a place for such declarations. They had already been said, their meaning clear, there was no need to relentlessly obsess.
TBC
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