No, those were footsteps on the wood floor. Quiet ones. Whoever it was thought he was asleep, was trying not to wake him. They’d turned on the hallway light.

  He tried to push a word out of his throat. “Help…”

  Instead, he choked on a near laugh. Wouldn’t it be a fucking joke if it was a burglar? He kept a handgun in the nightstand. His hunting rifles were in a locked case in his closet. They did him just as much good as the phone.

  The person was at the doorway, a silhouette. A woman whose slight figure was so beloved and familiar, but not at all expected. Great. He really had moved into hallucinations. It was all right. He’d take her anyway he could get her.

  “Daralyn…” He spoke her name hoarsely.

  “Rory.” She flipped the light switch, turning on the lamp beside his bed. She was wearing her jeans that were a faded light blue color, and the store T-shirt, the women’s version in a salmon color with yellow lettering. She had an oversized cardigan over it that gathered at her forearms. Her long hair was braided in a tail that rested over her right shoulder, on her chest.

  While he took that all in, he was vaguely aware she made a little cry at the sight of him. Then she was at his side, her hands on him.

  She was real. As he realized it, he gripped her, so fast and hard it startled her, but he couldn’t ease up. She was real, her softness, her scent. That scent he’d know anywhere. He wanted to bury his face against her throat, her hair, but he was suddenly way too aware of how disgusting he must smell right now.

  “I’m here.” She touched his face. He realized he couldn’t open his right eye because water was dripping into it. She took the hem of her T-shirt, wiped it, and he saw the blood stain the fabric. “You banged your head,” she said.

  He must look pretty out of it if she was explaining the obvious.

  “Yeah.” He coughed, and then the cough took a firm hold, bucking him forward against her. It made his head hurt worse. She held him, moved around him, showing surprising strength as she shifted him into a full sitting position, back straight against the foot board, which helped him breathe better.

  She kept her hand on his shoulder as she pulled her phone out of her back pocket. As she lifted it to her ear, she was standing on her knees next to him. He let his face drop against her bosom, kept inhaling her. She stilled, then her free hand lifted to caress his hair, his bearded jaw.

  He heard her calm voice as she spoke into the phone. “We need an ambulance.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The EMTs put an oxygen mask on him because his sat rate was low. On the way to the hospital, they checked his head, cleaned it up. They let Daralyn ride with them, and she held his hand.

  At the hospital, they gave him a good once-over in the ER. Found a bad pressure sore that had broken open on the back of his thigh, same place he’d had the stitches not so long ago. They said he had the beginnings of pneumonia. The doctor gave him a firm talking-to, bordering on an ass-kicking, which he knew he deserved. He could have told her everything she told him, and in far greater detail.

  “Over the past year, your personal physician and PT have been glowing about your management of your disability and self-care.” She had the tired but shrewd eyes of an ER doc, and was a stout, middle-aged woman with a straight shooter personality he appreciated. “What I’m seeing tonight doesn’t reflect that. Have you had a recent setback, emotionally? Would you like to speak to one of our counselors while you’re here?”

  He sensed Daralyn’s troubled gaze on him. Without looking, he found her hand, gave it a firm squeeze. He wouldn’t allow her to think she was the cause of this in any way, because she wasn’t. He’d done it to himself.

  “No ma’am,” he told the doctor. “But thanks. I’m good.”

  She gave him a dubious look and typed in another note. “This report will go to your personal physician. Depending on your condition tomorrow, I’ll be recommending a follow up with him in a week, so he can check the healing on that sore and verify your pneumonia is clearing up.”

  Rory nodded, turned his attention to Daralyn. When they’d suggested she could stay in the waiting room, he’d said he wanted her here. He told himself it wasn’t simple, cold fear she’d disappear again. That he wasn’t worried that her showing up was merely because she’d come home to pack, after which she’d head back to Raleigh for a prolonged stay, or even move there.

  All sorts of crazy ideas filled his head, with only one sure answer. He really didn’t want her out of his sight.

  She leaned against the wall, her mouth tight, gaze worried. He’d gone over a hundred scenarios for her return. All of them had featured him as a guy in charge, capable of handling things. Someone who could support whatever decisions she needed to make for herself, with no need to be concerned about how it would affect him.

  So much for that.

  She listened so carefully to everything the doctor told him, he expected she could recite it like a parrot. “I’m going to admit you for the night,” Dr. Halford said. “I want to monitor your oxygen levels. If you improve enough in the next twenty-four hours, I’ll discharge you, but only if you have someone at home with you for at least a few days. I see your mother lives with you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He wasn’t going to tell her that his mother was traveling. He also wasn’t staying. He could sign himself out against medical advice, and would, if they tried to hold him. He’d rather go home tonight. Be with Daralyn alone. “Staying overnight isn’t necessary. I’m pretty experienced in caring for myself.”

  “I see that here,” the doctor responded, holding up the tablet, but then gestured to his general state, the cough that kept grabbing him, even now as she spoke. “But not here. Give it one night, Mr. Wilder. I think it’s a very good idea.”

  “I think your mother would agree,” Daralyn said.

  He glanced her way. Her expression was hard to read, but the emphasis she put behind the words had his brow rising.

  That had been a threat. If he didn’t agree, she’d call and tell Elaine.

  She met his gaze only a second before she demurely glanced down and away, folding her hands before her. It didn’t change the set of her mouth at all. She meant it, and wasn’t backing down.

  He narrowed his eyes, but brought them back to the doc. She’d apparently picked up the veiled threat as well, because amusement was laced with the concern.

  “Sounds like it’s three against one. It’s difficult to resist a woman’s will, Mr. Wilder,” she said.

  “Tell me about it,” he muttered.

  By the time they settled him in a room, he was so tired, he was practically unconscious as the orderly helped him onto the bed. He slept, though a recurring prick of urgency roused him every once in a while, his need to ensure Daralyn was still there, that he hadn’t imagined her.

  The room had a sleep chair, and she set up operations there. She’d called Johnny and Amanda first. Then, once it was a reasonable hour in their time zones, she’d called his mother and brother. He tuned in for some of it, but kept drifting in and out.

  “No, he’s okay, Elaine. He really doesn’t want you to cut your trip short. Johnny and Amanda will help with the store, and you know there are plenty of neighbors who will help if I need it. Please stay there, finish your trip. I’ll take care of him.” A pause. “I promise. When he wakes up, he’ll want to call and talk to you, I’m sure.”

  The hope being that he wouldn’t be hacking like a pack-a-day smoker by then. Which was how he’d sound if he talked to his mom now.

  Daralyn was franker about his condition with Marcus and Thomas. While they’d be more likely than his mother to listen to her when she said they didn’t need to come home, he suspected she wanted a second opinion on his condition, and how she was handling things.

  She’d always been the type of person who, once she knew her help would be welcome, would quietly step in and handle something. But as he listened, he realized there was a different quality to this. In the past, she’d projected a certain jumpiness. Any indication her help wasn’t welcome would make her back off immediately.

  He couldn’t pin down what the new ingredient was in her manner, so he gave up trying to figure it out for now. When she was done with the calls, she turned on her side so she could reach out from the chair, lay her hand on his forearm.

  They had him turned on his side, keeping him off that pressure sore, pillows propped between his knees. The doc had said he’d been close to getting a couple there, too.

  Amazing, how having her back here with him could bring total clarity. He really had been such a dumbass. He knew it. Shame would eventually set in, but that was the nice thing about exhaustion, drugs, relief, and the sight of his girl close by. Right now, things were okay.

  “Wasn’t the way I wanted you coming home to go,” he mumbled. “Are you…home? Or just visiting?”

  The question was out before he could stop himself. His heart about squeezed itself into pulp, because her expression didn’t immediately change, holding that thoughtful but hard-to-read look.

  “Dr. Taylor and I agreed I was ready to come home,” she said at last. “I was planning on coming home today, taking a morning bus back, but then…I just couldn’t wait. One of the staff at the treatment center was driving to the beach after his shift last night. He offered to take me home.”

  Her expression darkened, and she traced a line down his arm, then up to his face, fingers stroking through his beard. It was a little tangled and thick. He usually kept it clipped and groomed. He needed to tend to it. “It felt like I needed to be home tonight,” she said. “The closer I got, the more urgent it felt. Then I saw you on the floor…”

  She was sensitive to moods, and had a way of gravitating toward customers who might not be having the best day, lifting their spirits. He didn’t typically believe in psychic intuition, but he knew one thing for sure. If Daralyn hadn’t come home when she did, he would have been in far worse shape. The thought brought a harder twist of guilt.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She put her chin on the back edge of the sleep chair, her fingers sliding up and down his arm, up and down. Back to play in his beard. “What happened?”

  He stared at her. “I’m not as strong as you are,” he said simply. “I thought I was. I was wrong.”

  Her brow creased. “That’s not true,” she said quietly. “Everyone stumbles. You just stumbled.”

  “Daralyn, I can’t walk. I can’t stumble.”

  The lines around her hazel eyes creased in response to her small smile. “You know what I mean.”

  There seemed to be this bubble of softness around them, making everything okay to say, but he still hedged on it. “Thanks for making sure my mom didn’t come home,” he said. “She was really looking forward to that trip. Didn’t mean to put taking care of me on you, though. Once I get out of here tomorrow, I can handle things. I’m not looking to turn you into a nurse.”

  That was the last thing he’d ever want to ask of the woman he loved. Yeah, when he hit middle age, things might happen where he’d need more help, but that was all down the road, a different version of the same challenges that everyone faced as they got older. Not right now. But something like this cast doubt on that, would drive most women off. Or attract the ones who had an unhealthy and excessive need to be needed.

  Or make a natural submissive believe that caring for her Dom’s physical needs was the main role he wanted her to serve.

  Hell, he was stirring up a variety of unpleasant feelings. Now wasn’t the time to deal with this.

  Daralyn studied him, then she rose, circled around the bed. She slipped into it, scooted close so she could curl her body up behind his. She slid an arm over his chest, letting him find and hold her hand, tangle their fingers together. Fuck, she felt so good, pressed up behind him.

  She laid her head between his shoulder blades, her lips on the bare skin revealed between the ties of his hospital gown.

  “You are so stupid,” she said distinctly. “I love you.”

  He slept fitfully, woken by those harrowing coughs, interfering with his need to breathe. Each time he roused, Daralyn stroked his hair, his back, until he settled, dropped into sleep again. He was reluctant to let go of her hand, held it against his chest. Her fingers moved slowly over the cotton of the gown, feeling the man beneath. It was the first time she’d ever known him to be cold, and he alternated between cold and hot, still battling fever.

  Even with the worries all that caused, the second she’d laid down in the bed behind him, the tight fist around every vital organ she had eased. She was back where she needed to be.

  It had been a long time since she’d felt the kind of fear she’d experienced when she saw him crumpled on his bedroom floor, the blood on his face, and heard that horrible struggle to breathe as he tried to speak to her.

  Though he probably didn’t realize it, she was now almost as familiar with his daily health requirements as he and Elaine were. She’d always paid close attention, and being more intimate with him had only expanded her knowledge.

  She knew he wasn’t aware he’d soiled his bed, his clothes. That had frightened her the most, how disoriented he’d seemed. But once the doctor looked him over, and they had cleaned him up, gotten him into a hospital gown, put an IV in to hydrate him, he’d started talking more lucidly. It had made her feel better. It was also good that it had happened before she made the calls. Otherwise she would have told Elaine and Thomas to come home.

  Thomas had helped settle her nerves, in his usual calming way. During her conversation with him, Rory was out of it, sleeping deeply, allowing her to fill in some blanks she was missing.

  “Did he have a cold? How did he get like this?”

  Thomas’s guilt had been palpable, but she heard Marcus speaking in the background, forcefully enough that it reached her ears, even as he aimed his admonition at Thomas.

  “He’s an adult, allowed to act like an idiot without you being responsible. You should relate to that.”

  Thomas took a breath. “Truth is, Daralyn, being without you threw him for a loop. I don’t think he realized how hard that would be.”

  “Why didn’t he call me?” But she knew why. Dr. Taylor had explained it. But if he’d really needed her, he could have called. Then she thought of everything she knew of Rory, of how he felt about her, how he put her well-being far above his own.

  “You know the answer to that,” Thomas said, confirming her thoughts. “He didn’t want how much he needs you to interfere with anything that helps you.”

  “But how much he wants and needs me…that helps me so much.” It was key to what had made her able to want and need things.

  She’d told him she loved him. She’d said it. Finally, something she’d felt for so long, so deeply, it should have shown on her face like a billboard. She suspected it had, for him. But saying it still meant something.

  “Sounds like you two have some communication issues to work out.” Thomas paused. “Give him total hell, Daralyn. You deserve better than him falling apart because you had to take a little me-time.” His voice softened. “But I think he convinced himself you weren’t coming back. Not in the same way, at least.”

  “I’m not the same,” she said. “Now I’m sure being with him is exactly where I should be.”

  The smile in Thomas’s voice came through on the phone. “I expect he’ll be glad to hear that. But don’t tell him too quickly. The little prick deserves to suffer some for giving you that kind of scare.”

  She knew he was teasing. But she realized she was actually…mad. Rory knew so much better than this.

  He was a proud man. If his mother had rushed home to care for him, it would have upset and humiliated him. Normally that would be enough of an incentive for him to care for himself properly.

  He didn’t realize how hard it would be without you…

  “He loves you, and it tore him apart that he couldn't help you,” Thomas said into the sudden silence. He paused, as if deliberating, then spoke plainly. “He's your Master, but that doesn't mean he doesn't need you sometimes, desperately.”

  His voice dropped to a lower tone. “Sometimes I think they actually need us even more than we need them, but you didn't hear that from me. And since I need Marcus so much I can't imagine breathing without him, that's saying something, right?”

  She put her arm around Rory now, tunneling under the gown so she could put her palm against his bare chest, stroke through the layer of curling hair there.

  Yes. It was saying something.

  He was so strong. She wondered if he knew she felt that way. She’d watched him grow into handling and managing the store, becoming the head of the family with his mother and sister. He’d extended that mantle of care and protection over her as soon as that path had opened between them.

  She’d told him she didn’t see the chair, and she didn’t. But the chair was still there. It was part of his life, part of who he was. Every day he managed life with a body that didn’t work like most people’s, in a world that was structured for people who could walk.

  Seeing his strength, she’d thought her presence or absence would mean little in terms of its effect on that strength. If she’d been wrong, and that was the reason this had happened, Rory would never want her to know it. The why of that wasn’t hard to figure out either. He’d never want her to feel like she had an obligation to care for and protect him.

  The idea that he would think that stuck a thorn in her anger, goaded it. And that anger rested squarely in fear, from how quickly his lack of attention had put his health in a precarious place. That could never happen again.

  The nurse had come in to check his vitals. “Those medications finally kicked in,” she noted with satisfaction. “He’s breathing better, and he’s well and truly asleep.”

  Daralyn pushed herself up on one arm, gripped his shoulder. “Do you think he’ll be okay for an hour or so? I need to go home and take care of a couple things.”