“He can’t even talk and he told me to leave. He told me he doesn’t want me here.” Dovie’s voice sounded like she was dying. Like everything she had ever loved had just been taken away from her. She was shaking so hard it was a wonder she didn’t break apart. “I kept telling him how ridiculous that is. I’m wherever he is, but he just kept telling me to go. How can words hurt so much when they aren’t even spoken?”
Titus swore and then set her away from him so he could put his hands on her shoulders. “You look like hell. He can see how much you’re hurting, and he can’t do anything about it. It’s no different from when he got arrested after Novak got shot and he refused to see you. He’s trying to keep you from suffering with him. Have one of these officers take you home. Take a shower. Get something to eat and then come back and ignore whatever idiotic thing he’s trying to tell you. He wants you here. He needs you here and you both know it.”
She blinked her watery eyes and took a deep breath. “He almost died, Titus, and the person that almost killed him is his brother!”
I saw Titus dip his head in acknowledgment. “I know. But he didn’t die and that’s what matters, okay? As for Roark, just because they share half of the same blood doesn’t make them brothers. You leave him to me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and then visibly collected herself. When she opened her eyes back up they were dry and there was no longer a tremble in her lips. “Okay.”
The big cop bent forward and placed a tender kiss on the center of her forehead and it almost had me melting into the floor. He was so good with his own. They were unbelievably lucky to have him. Titus gave her a lopsided grin and moved around her to reach for the door. “Maybe he’s just cranky since he can’t smoke with his jaw wired shut. Bax without a fix is a total nightmare.”
Dovie rallied enough to smile back at him. “Maybe it’ll force him to quit.”
Titus chuckled and told her drily as he disappeared into the darkened room, “I wouldn’t count on it.”
Once the big man was gone from the hallway, her eyes landed on me. She had every right to hate me. She had every right not to trust me. But Dovie, being Dovie, just looked at me with a contemplative expression on her face as she took a step toward me.
“You need to be good to him, Reeve. I don’t know what is going on between the two of you, but I’m telling you right now if you hurt him, betray him in any way, you won’t have to worry about the boys. You’ll have to worry about me.”
A chill raced up my spine because it wasn’t a threat. She was just laying it out there as a statement of fact. If I screwed Titus over she was going to make me hurt. I didn’t doubt her. You didn’t keep a guy like Bax or survive in this life successfully without knowing how to get down and dirty.
I gulped a little bit and shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “He needs someone to care for him. All day, every day, all he does is give himself to everyone else.”
She lifted a coppery eyebrow at me. “Are you that someone? You’re going to care for him? Weren’t you screwing the guy that killed my dad and just tried to kill my man? Did you care for him too?”
I wasn’t scared of the truth, so I told her flatly, “I thought Conner was someone else, and yes, the man that I thought he was I cared for.”
She snorted at me. “Who did you think he was?”
I sighed. Admitting how wrong I had been, how easily I had been suckered in by a façade, was still hard for me. I was supposed to have more street smarts than that. “I thought he was enough like Titus that I could fall for him and make it work. I thought he was a good man, but he isn’t. He’s great at being who you need him to be, but it’s all a lie. As for being the someone to care for Titus, for now it’s me.” Because he couldn’t talk about more, and until he could, this would have to be enough.
She sighed back at me and lifted her hands up to rub them over her obviously tired face. “No one is like Titus. No one is that strong, that secure, that hard. He is his own law and his own army. Bax is never going to like you being anywhere near his brother. He won’t ever trust you.”
“I know that, but I’m sure Race didn’t like Shane being near you and eventually he had to come to terms with it. Shane doesn’t have to trust me as long as his brother does. Right now Titus and I need each other, so no matter what anyone else thinks or feels, we are a package deal.”
She considered me silently before giving me a tight nod that had her tangled red locks falling forward.
“I’ve got my hands full with my own stubborn and dangerous man. I don’t have it in me to worry about what another one is doing. Titus knows what you’re capable of, so if he’s still willing to dive neck-deep into the mire with you, who am I to question it? You should know that if you cross him, though, he has it in him to be just as bad, just as wicked, as Bax. He’s not all good guy. He hides it well but there is bad in there.”
“I know.” I stepped around her. “He doesn’t try and keep his bad hidden from me. Probably because he knows I won’t ever judge him for it.” I had more than my fair share of bad fueling me every single day, so why would I bat an eye at Titus having shades of it come to life within him from time to time? Dovie just nodded at me and we walked our separate ways.
It took me a minute to find Keelyn’s room, and when I did I was surprised to find her sitting up on the edge of her bed, fully dressed and looking like she was about to head out shopping or to run errands. It wasn’t until I called her name and she turned to look at me that I saw her arm was in a sling and she had a thick bandage peeking out of the collar of her loose-fitting top.
“Hey. You’re already up and about?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.
She blinked her wide gray eyes at me then slowly nodded her head. “I’m declaring myself well enough to leave. You actually have perfect timing. You can help me get downstairs, where the cab I called is waiting.”
I frowned at her and put my hands on my hips. “So you aren’t actually cleared to go anywhere?” Now that she was facing me I could see she had a really gray cast to her normally flawless skin. Her mouth was also pinched in a grimace of pain.
“The doctor thinks I should stay for a few more days, but I need to get out of here. I made them discharge me.”