“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” He shook hands with Rob as he left.
Rob turned to her. The hesitantly hopeful look on his face made her extend her arms to him from where she sat on the edge of the bed.
Stepping into her embrace, she felt him relax a little. “Are you okay?” she asked.
He let out a barking laugh before looking down at her. “Sweetheart, you’re the one in here. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry.”
He gently cupped her chin in his palms. “Please don’t ever apologize to me for this. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I feel like I’m putting you through hell.”
“I’d go through it a thousand times to have you with me. Besides, it’s not your fault.”
There was another knock on the door. The deputy opened it. “Shayla Daniels is here to see you.”
Laura felt an emotional surge roll through her. She jumped up off the bed, ignoring painful protests from all the still-sore spots in her body. “Yes!”
Rob watched as Laura rushed over to Shayla and engulfed her in a hug.
I wish she was that happy to see me.
He immediately hated himself for the thought.
I think I need to spend some time talking with Tony. He didn’t want Laura to get even a hint of some of the thoughts that had crossed his mind. He was smart enough to know they were from his own insecurities, not because of her.
Shayla carried a small plastic storage tub in her hands and walked over to set it on the tray table. She popped the lid off, revealing it was full of dark-chocolate-covered peanut butter candies. “Buckeyes,” she said. “Go ahead.”
He didn’t miss how Laura glanced at him first, almost as if seeking his approval. He smiled and nodded. She reached in and picked one, then took a tentative bite.
Her face lit up. “Oh. My. God. This is great!” She shoved the rest into her mouth and reached for two more.
Shayla smiled, her eyes looking a little too bright. “You always loved them. Love them,” she corrected herself.
Laura stopped chewing, her gaze dropping to the floor. “No, it’s okay,” she softly said. “I guess I did kind of die, in a way.”
“No, you didn’t,” Rob firmly said.
“Didn’t I?” She finally raised her gaze to look at Shayla before it landed on him. “I feel like I did. I feel like I was just born, in a lot of ways. I don’t even know what my favorite color is—”
“Blue,” Rob and Shayla said.
She stared at the remains of the candy in her hand as if seeing it for the first time before she put the rest into her mouth and chewed. “That, and the fact that I love eggplant parmesan and Buckeyes won’t help the police figure out who did this,” she softly said. She popped another one into her mouth.
Rob ached for her. It warred on every level of his soul with the hatred he felt for whoever had done this to her.
To both of them.
Rob and Shayla spent the rest of the morning with Laura, talking, going through pictures, sometimes more than once. He even went down to the cafeteria to get lunch for him and Shayla and brought it back to the room. Around three, he had to leave to walk Doogie. Shayla volunteered to stay with Laura.
They both looked at her, as if wanting to know if it was okay. She’d had her head buried in one of the older photo albums again, slowly staring at each picture, trying to coax the stubborn memories to step forward.
She finally realized they were waiting on her. “Oh. Sure. That’s okay.”
She hated how sad Rob looked. He telegraphed his emotions through his body language, through the expression on his face. She hated even more that she knew it was because of her, of what had happened to her. At least she felt more at ease around him today. The more time she spent with him, the more she knew yes, she had loved him, and he loved her.
She just couldn’t fricking remember it.
Setting the album aside, she reached for him, letting out a soft sigh when he stepped into her embrace while she sat on the edge of the hospital bed. She closed her eyes and once again pressed her face against his shirt. Today, he’d dressed in jeans and a blue, collared, short-sleeved shirt, not his paramedic uniform.
“Shayla has my number if you need me.”
Laura nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
She’d even put the ring back on, more to keep it from disappearing than anything, but she still didn’t have any tangible memories to rely on.
He kissed the top of her head and moved to step back, but she held on and looked up. After a moment he leaned in and kissed her forehead, lingering a few seconds before straightening again.
She released him.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he said. “Do you want me to bring you dinner?”
“Please!”
That won her another smile. “I’ll keep it easy and get us a pizza. Shayla, will you be staying?”
“If it’s okay?”
He gave her a brief, friendly hug. Laura could see it was far more platonic than the hugs he’d given her so far, no wistful lingering to his motions. “Of course it’s okay,” he told her. “If it’s okay with Laura.”
She nodded.
When Rob left, Laura felt more than a little pang to see him go, but she was looking forward to the alone time with Shayla.
“You won’t get in trouble for taking the day off, will you?”
“Oh, no. I have vacation time built up. When…” She faltered and looked like she nearly burst into tears before forcing a smile. “When Rob called us, I immediately put work on notice that I might need to take time off. They’re okay with it.”
“That’s nice of them.” She popped another candy into her mouth. “These are sooo good.”
Shayla sat in a chair next to the bed. “The past couple of years, we’ve made them together at the holidays. Us and Leah, Loren, Tilly, and Clarisse. We get together at Leah and Seth’s. They’ve got a big kitchen. We do a massive bake-a-thon for all our holiday stuff on one Saturday or Sunday. We each have our own favorite recipe, in addition to other stuff we make.”
“What do I make?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh. My. God. I should have made those last night!” She clapped a hand to her mouth and looked like she was a breath away from crying again. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry!”
She really didn’t want Shayla to start crying. If she did, Laura knew she would be right behind her. “It’s okay. These are great.”
“You always make shortbread cookies. You have a recipe that was your mom’s. You said you used to help her make them every Christmas when you were a little girl.”
Laura felt the hitch in her breath. “I can’t even remember my parents. Rob said he can’t get in touch with my brother.”
Shayla nodded. “He’s a bush pilot in Montana. It’s not uncommon for him to be out of touch for a week or two at a time if he’s out in the back country.”
“Am I close to him?”
Shayla shrugged. “Pretty close, I guess. You’ve talked about him before, give us updates when you hear from him. He’s older than you by a couple of years. You’ve never said you guys were on bad terms. You and Rob talked about going out to visit him later this summer, to visit Yellowstone.”
“Yellowstone? That’s…” She closed her eyes and concentrated. “That’s a big park, right?”
“Very. He lives near there.”
Hazy images swam into her mind, along with the memory of the smell of…
“Sulfur?” She opened her eyes and looked at Shayla.
Shayla wore a puzzled expression. “What?”
“Sulfur. The smell of sulfur. Or…something.”
“Oh. Yeah, you said you can smell it all over the park because of the thermal features. I’ve never been there, though.”