Spellbound - Cara Lynn Shultz [117]
“Give me that,” I pouted, grabbing the scratchy tissue and blotting at my nose.
“By the way, your aunt went to make a phone call.” Brendan changed the subject. “You’re just in for observation now, you’re going home in a few hours.”
“She’s here? Is she mad?”
Brendan shook his head, amused. “Mad? No, crazy girl. She’s worried about you.”
Then he chuckled. “I think she can’t decide if she hates me because I’m always somewhere around your troubles, or if she approves of me because I always do what I can to help you.”
“She’ll approve of you,” I promised, coughing and wincing at how it burned my throat. Brendan frowned and gingerly touched my neck, which I had no doubt was a billion shades of purple. “What about you—is your family here?”
“Oh, I’m more or less discharged, I’m just waiting for my parents to get me.” Brendan kissed my fingers as he talked. “They’re being helicoptered in from some Smithsonian thing in Washington. So I don’t know how much time we have right now.”
I grabbed his hand, clutching it tightly in spite of the pain that ricocheted through my body.
“I can’t believe I almost lost you,” I said, reaching out to touch Brendan’s cheek. He leaned into my touch as a few more—okay, a lot more—tears escaped. He wiped them away gently before handing me another tissue for my nose.
“Brendan, do you think we broke—” I stopped short, afraid to say the words. Afraid to jinx it.
“Don’t think about it right now, Emma,” Brendan soothed, his eyes shining with the same hopeful emotion.
“No, tell me!” I pleaded. “Do you think we broke the curse?”
“I hope so,” Brendan murmured, his voice shaking. “Emma, when I got there, and you were so scared—I felt my heart break. I thought that was it.”
“It was supposed to be. But you saved my life,” I whispered, letting the tears come in earnest this time.
“It’s my fault you were ever in danger.” Brendan shook his head, his green eyes downcast. “I almost killed you.”
“No!” I grabbed his hand more tightly. “You saved me.”
Brendan pulled my hand up to his lips again. “You’re the one who saved me, Emma. In more ways than just pulling me up off the rocks. You’ve changed my life.”
He gently placed my hand next to me in the bed, then pulled himself out of the chair, wincing a little as he held his hand to his rib cage. Then Brendan leaned over me, touching his lips to mine very softly.
“I love you, Emma. Always.”
Chapter 22
Thanks to the concussion and fractured ankle, I was pretty much confined to my bed for a week.
“I feel like I’m on house arrest,” I grumbled after a few days. Brendan just told me I was under arrest for being “dangerously sexy.” I rolled my eyes at him—which ached like crazy at the time—but I had to admit, hearing Brendan call me “sexy” was worth going a little stir-crazy. Especially when I looked like the loser in a boxing match. Besides, my vision would sporadically get really blurry—and the last thing I needed now was to go walking off into traffic. Especially when a search of the Turtle Pond turned up nothing but turtles. Meaning: Anthony was out there. Somewhere.
The thought terrified me, especially since Brendan was well enough to return to school almost immediately.
“I’m scared he’s going to attack you on the subway or something,” I fretted on the phone to Brendan, the night before his first day back.
“Emma, I’ll be fine.” Brendan laughed, like I was worried about him crossing the street and he found my concern endearing.
“We don’t know where he is.”
“I didn’t want to tell you this, Em, but my dad’s got some security on retainer. Ex-cops, that sort of thing,” Brendan admitted. “It’s just for a little while. I have no idea who they are, but they’re just supposed to keep an eye out to make sure Anthony doesn’t get near either one of us.”
“Near…either one of us?”
“Yeah, he’s got security for you, too,” Brendan confessed. “What can