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Authors: Susan Stoker

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Crash turned slowly, making sure his hands were visible at all times, and spoke to the two men standing in the doorway, their hands on the Tasers attached to their belts. “My name is Dean Christopherson. This is my girlfriend, Adeline Reynolds. This is our room; you’ll find both our names on the registration.” Thank God she’d insisted on adding his name. “I entered our room this morning to find this man,” —he used his head to indicate the unconscious Douglas—“on top of her with a knife to her throat. It looks like he choked her, and was in the process of cutting off her clothes. We fought, I disabled him.”

“Holy fuck,” the second man stated unprofessionally, reaching for his walkie-talkie to call for backup.

“She needs to go to the hospital,” Crash stated unnecessarily.

“That her dog raising bloody hell out in the hallway?” the first security guard asked.

“Yes. His name is Coco. He’s her service dog. He was locked in the bathroom and when he got out, he ran out of the room to raise the alarm.”

“He did a good job,” the man answered dryly. “Will he respond to you? We couldn’t get near him. Now that we’ve got the situation under control, maybe you’ll see if you can’t get him to calm down.”

“I’m not leaving her,” Crash stated adamantly.

Just then, Coco stopped barking. The cessation of sound was almost alarming.

Torn between wanting to make sure the dog was all right and not leaving Adeline, Crash looked apprehensively at the door.

After a few tense moments, Chief appeared, holding Coco’s leash. Crash let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God,” he stated.

“What the fuck?” Chief barked, not intimidated in the least by the two hotel security officers. “I had a bad feeling and thought I’d come up to make sure you both were all right before I headed back to San Antonio.” Taking another step into the room, and finally seeing Douglas’s bleeding body, Chief’s face turned to stone and he took a few steps inside the room, his eyes not leaving the unconscious man on the floor.

“Sir?” one of the security officers said hesitantly. “If you would please stay back until the situation is under control.”

Chief’s gaze went from Douglas to Adeline, and his face hardened further. “Motherfucker. I’m an idiot. He was watching her. It’s no coincidence that he got to her in the twenty minutes I left her side.”

Crash agreed, but didn’t comment. He slowly lowered his hands.

“Sir?” the officer said again. “You need to step back and wait in the hall.”

Then, if possible, the situation got worse.

Coco sat at Chief’s feet and started pawing his leg—alerting him to the fact that Adeline was going to have a seizure.

Chapter 19

A
deline woke up slowly
. She hurt. Her neck. Her arms. Her shoulders. And she had no idea where she was or what had happened. She smelled antiseptic and there was an incessant beeping that was annoying because it wasn’t stopping.

Feeling as tired as if she’d stayed up all night, Adeline kept her eyes shut, trying to work through where she was and why she felt so off. After only a moment, she remembered.

The conference.

Douglas.

Not being able to breathe.

And his threats on what he’d do to her when she woke up.

Her eyes popped open and she flinched at the bright light. Without thinking about anything other than getting away, Adeline rolled as hard as she could to her left—and ran into some sort of metal bars.

“No!” she croaked, not recognizing her own voice. Sitting up, she scrambled to get her legs free from the confining blanket covering them and tried to scoot downward to exit the bed that way.

“Jesus, Adeline! Stop! You’re safe! I’m here.”

She paused and whipped her head to the right. Dean.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, beautiful. It’s me. I’m here, you’re okay. You’re in the hospital.”

“D-Douglas…” Her voice trailed off. She was so confused, and had no idea how Dean was there, or even where “there” was.

“He’s been arrested.” He took her head in his hands and forced her to look at him. “You’re safe. Hear me?”

Adeline nodded, not taking her eyes from his. “He-he…forced me into the room. He was insane. Saying that I led him on, that he wanted to date me, that he’d been courting me.” She paused, trying to remember what else he’d said.

“Go on, get it all out.”

“He thought I was having sex with both you and Chief. He had his hand on my throat and I couldn’t get him to let go. He was going to hurt me with his knife.”

At that, Dean enfolded her awkwardly into his arms. He lowered the safety rail on his side of the bed and sat down, bringing her into his embrace fully.

“D-D-Did he hurt me?” Adeline choked out.

Knowing what she meant, Dean hurried to reassure her. “No, beautiful. I got there in time. Then Coco broke out of the bathroom and barked his head off, running up and down the halls until more help came. He didn’t get that far. I swear. You’re okay.”

Adeline pulled back and whispered, “Why were you there? I told you not to come.”

He smiled at her tenderly. “I know you did. But I never was a very good listener. I left work around one-thirty in the morning. I decided that we’d argue in person. There’s no way, knowing you’d had a crap day and night, I was
not
going to come up to be with you. Adeline, I love you. There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Things won’t always be smooth between us, we’re both too passionate and hardheaded for that, but I’ll do whatever I can to make sure too much time doesn’t pass before we talk it out and make up. That’s what I was doing.”

“Thank God,” Adeline breathed. “I was so scared.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

Adeline laid her head on Dean’s chest and snuggled into him as best she could. “You got there. That’s what counts.”

After a moment, she lifted her head again. “Where’s Douglas?”

“Jail,” Dean told her without pause. “Things got a little crazy at the hotel, but with your condition and Chief’s account of what happened the night before, he was taken in. Unfortunately, you’ll need to talk to the detective sooner rather than later, to give
your
account of what happened, to make sure he stays behind bars. But for now, all you need to know is that you’re safe.”

“Things got a little crazy?” Adeline asked nervously.

Dean sighed and brought a hand up to smooth her hair back from her face. “Yeah. Coco alerted and you had a seizure.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah.”

“It was bad, wasn’t it?” Adeline asked.

He nodded. “Grand mal. Lasted quite a while. If I’m being honest…you scared me to death, beautiful.”

“I knew I felt weird,” Adeline commented. “But I’m okay?”

“For now.”

She knew what that meant. “I’ll make an appointment when we get home to talk to my doctor about scheduling the surgery as soon as possible,” she whispered.

Dean kissed the side of her head. “Will you marry me?”

Adeline’s head whipped up at his words. She stared at him with wide eyes. “What?”

“Will you marry me?” Dean repeated calmly.

She continued to stare at him in disbelief.

He chuckled. “Marriage, beautiful. Man and wife. Rings, you in a white dress, me in a tux, all our friends there.” He got serious and kissed her gently on the lips before continuing, “I love you, Adeline Reynolds. I want to marry you. Spend the rest of my life with you. Make babies with you. I would do it tomorrow if we could. But the bottom line is that I want you to understand, from the tips of your beautiful toes to the top of your head, that I love you no matter what. In sickness and in health, Adeline. I don’t care about the outcome of your surgery except for the fact that it’ll reduce your seizures.”

“And if I don’t know who you are afterward?” Adeline asked in a whisper.

“I’ll still love you.”

“I can’t do that to you,” she protested. “It’s not fair.”

“You’re not listening to me, Adeline. I’m never going to love another woman the way I love you. Never. Whether I marry you or not. Whether you remember me after the surgery or not. It’s not going to change the way I feel. If it happens, I’ll simply have to work hard to make you love me all over again. If I could do it once, I’m confident I can do it a second time.” His cocky smile warmed her. “If the shoe was on the other foot, if I got hurt on the job, knocked in the head and didn’t remember you…would you walk away?”

“No,” Adeline gasped, horrified. “Never.”

Dean didn’t say anything, simply stared at her, his point made.

A tear escaped, and Adeline didn’t even try to stop the ones that followed. “Yes, I’ll marry you. I love you, Dean. So much that I’m scared something’s going to go wrong. I don’t want to lose what we have.”

“We won’t. I swear it.” He brushed away the wetness on her face with first one thumb, then the other.

He tipped her head up and kissed her gently and sweetly. “As soon as the docs give the okay, I’ll get you home and we can make plans for both our wedding and the surgery. That sound all right?”

Adeline sucked in her lips then reluctantly nodded.

“What?” Dean asked.

“It’s just that…the conference. There were a lot of really interesting sessions I wanted to go to.”

Dean chuckled and looked around surreptitiously, as if making sure they were alone, then whispered, “Chief is still there. He took your place and is taking notes for you.”

“What?” Adeline asked in shock. “He is?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“Because he knows how important it is to you.”

Tears filled her eyes again. “But…I don’t really even know him. I was so mean to him last night and I haven’t even gotten to apologize yet. I don’t get it.”

“Adeline. You’re my girlfriend. He knows that I love you. That means
you’re
as important to him as I am. Which means he’ll bend over backwards making sure you get what you need…just like driving you up to Dallas and making up an excuse to do it, and sleeping on that miserable excuse for a couch all night to make sure you were safe. Just like I’d do for Sledge and Beth, if it was her. It’s what true friends do.”

“Oh shit, now I’m crying again,” Adeline moaned. “It’s just so sweet…I didn’t expect it.”

“You should also know…”

Dean paused dramatically and Adeline couldn’t help but chuckle. “Lord, what?”

“He’s handing out your business cards to as many people as he can and letting everyone know you had to leave the conference early, without saying why, and that you’re looking for a new position.”

Adeline put her hand up to her forehead and rubbed.

“If that place that interviewed you last week really wants you, they’d better step up their game. I got a text from Chief this morning and he said there were at least four people who really seemed interested. They’d seen the James Wolfe campaign, and after he told them you, not Douglas, were the brains behind it, they couldn’t take your card fast enough.”

“He’s gonna make some woman a wonderful husband,” Adeline noted. “If he’s this nice to me, a chick who’s just his friend, I can’t imagine what he’d do for someone he loved.”

“I’m not sure he’d realize a woman was interested in him that way if she hit him over the head,” Crash said dryly. “He’s kind of oblivious.”

“Really? That surprises me. He doesn’t seem to miss much,” Adeline noted, wiping the rest of the tears out of her eyes.

“I haven’t talked to him about this, mind you, but I think he’s simply used to being looked down upon because of his heritage, so he assumes anyone who wants to sleep with him would only do so either because he’s a firefighter or because of his looks.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Adeline spat, more like her old self. “I can’t believe women would do that . . . well, I get the one-night-stand thing, but to be that shallow is screwed up. Seriously, I’ll have a talk with him.”

Dean laughed out loud. “Yeah, let me know how that goes.”

“Okay, maybe a talk isn’t the best idea, but still. That’s crazy, Dean!”

“It is what it is. I’m hoping that he’ll meet a woman out of the blue, kinda like I met you, who will knock him off his feet and make him see what he’s been missing before he can think too much about it. He’s a lot like me, protective and bossy, so whoever he finds is gonna have to be able to overlook his flaws . . . just like you’ve done with me. Now, let me go find a nurse. I was supposed to notify them the second you woke up. The doctors wanted to keep you here until you woke so they could make sure you were okay. They might do a few tests and they’ll send the results back home to your doctor. We’ll get out of here as soon as we can though.”

“I’d appreciate that. Thanks for being here.”

“You don’t have to thank me, beautiful. There’s no place I’d rather be. Oh, and Coco is currently being spoiled rotten by the nurses. They’ve kept him at the desk, keeping him entertained.

“Awesome,” Adeline said tiredly.

Dean leaned down, kissed her one more time, ran his fingers lightly over the bruises on her neck, and said, “Lay back down and relax. I’ll go find a nurse.”

“I love you, Dean.”

“And I love you, beautiful. Rest. We’ll be on our way home shortly.”

Adeline lay back and closed her eyes. Her neck still hurt, as did her arms. She still felt off, but somehow her spirit felt lighter than ever.

Dean asking her to marry him before her surgery told her everything she needed to know. He would be there for her . . . no matter what. Through sickness and health.

Chapter 20

T
wo months later
, Adeline sat in bed, her sister sitting cross-legged at her feet, Coco snoring lazily next to her. It had been both a deliriously happy and tough couple months for her.

On the happy side, she’d been offered the job by the company she’d interviewed with before the fateful conference and confrontation with Douglas, and they’d been more than willing to wait until after her surgery for her to start.

Because of everything that happened with Douglas, and a conversation with the lawyer Dean had procured to represent her, her current company had agreed to maintain her on their payroll as she recuperated, thus keeping her insurance active. Adeline didn’t ask how the lawyer had helped them come to that decision, but she wasn’t going to protest. Having the money situation taken off her plate was a relief.

Dealing with her medical issues wasn’t as fun, however. She’d been through video EEG monitoring, MRI scans, as well as neuropsychology testing. The doctor had even had a brain mapping done to try to evaluate the surrounding areas of her brain to determine what kinds of issues she might experience after the surgery.

Her procedure was a resection surgery. The surgeon removed the part of the brain that was causing her seizures, in her case part of the temporal lobe. Luckily, this was not only the most common type of surgery for epileptics, but also the most successful, with sixty to seventy percent of patients being free of seizures that caused unconsciousness as a result.

She had to continue taking medicine, but over time her doctor hoped she’d need less and less. There had still been risks, of course. She could have lost her memory, lost either her vision or speech, and even suffered from paralysis.

But Dean hadn’t let her dwell on the negatives. He’d kept her focused on the positives, taking each one of her seizures in stride, and not seeming to let it bother him that they’d increased to around two a day before her surgery.

When he was working, her sister or Beth kept her company, Beth having no problem being at Dean’s condo instead of her own house…especially with Coco there. Spending time around her dog had cemented Beth’s decision to adopt Second, and training him so he could be her assistance dog. She’d found that there was something calming about being around a dog, and when Coco jumped into her lap and licked her face after she’d had a panic attack, Beth told Adeline that she was able to pull herself together much faster than if she’d been by herself.

Alicia, Beth, and Dean had pitched in, along with the rest of the guys at the station and her family, to help plan the wedding. It hadn’t been fancy, but it’d been as beautiful as Adeline could ever have imagined. They’d decided to have it in the early afternoon, when she’d be least likely to have a seizure.

The lawn behind the fire station was set up with tents and tables, and they’d used the ladders of the firetrucks to make a sort of arch. Dean knew a retired county court judge who’d agreed to officiate. Adeline’s parents and sister were there, as were all of Dean’s law enforcement friends, their girlfriends, and of course, every firefighter who wasn’t away on a call.

Not only that, but Dean’s parents showed up with his little sister in tow. Dean had wanted her there, but wasn’t sure they’d be able to make it work, since she couldn’t travel by herself. Laura had screamed when she’d seen her big brother and had run toward him with a smile on her face a mile wide. It was one of the most touching things Adeline had ever seen in her life.

When Dean introduced Adeline to his sister, it took a while for Laura to warm up to her, but by the end of the day, she’d freely hugged and kissed Adeline as if she’d known her all her life.

The wedding itself was both beautiful and hilarious at the same time. Laura kept getting up off her seat and coming up to the altar and hugging her brother in the middle of the ceremony. His firefighter and cop buddies weren’t afraid to give Crash wedding advice…also in the middle of the ceremony, and Adeline hadn’t been able to stop smiling.

She had held it together until Dean had recited the words “in sickness and in health” during his vows to her. He’d paused right before that line, leaned forward, and taken her chin in his hand. He tilted her head up and kissed her, saying the words against her lips. It was beautiful, and such a Dean thing to do.

They’d spent the rest of the night partying and enjoying the time spent with their friends and families, only disappearing once when Coco alerted, going back into the same small room they’d been in when she’d had that first seizure all those months ago. Somehow it seemed appropriate.

Dean was given a week off after their wedding and they’d spent it holed up in his condo instead of traveling somewhere for a honeymoon. They’d made love on every surface and piece of furniture, and had poured over online websites looking for a house that appealed to them both.

Even with all the good stuff in her life, Adeline was very ready when it finally came time to have the surgery. She’d been worrying and stressing over it and was relieved when it came time to head to the hospital early one morning.

The surgeons had clipped her hair short over the section of her skull that would be removed during the operation. She’d cried a little, but Dean had simply kissed the side of her head where the surgeon would cut into her brain and reminded her that it would grow back.

The last thing Dean said to her before she was wheeled out of her room was, “Love you, beautiful. In sickness and in health. I’ll see you when you’re out.”

Crying right before undergoing brain surgery wasn’t exactly what she’d expected to be doing, but cry she did.

She didn’t remember going under the anesthesia, but vaguely recalled the surgeon talking to her and asking her to do things like lift a finger, or move a foot, in the middle of the operation. It took about four hours, and she’d spent one night in the intensive care unit, and another four days in a regular room. The first couple of days had been extremely painful, and she’d spent a lot of time sleeping through the pain, thanks to the heavy doses of narcotics she’d been given.

The first time she was truly aware of the world around her, she opened her eyes to see Dean asleep in the recliner next to her, Alicia reading a magazine in another chair at the foot of her bed, her mom sitting next to her sister watching television and, surprisingly, Chief leaning against one of the walls of her room.

Her first thought was relief that she’d immediately recognized each of them, and the next was how much her head hurt.

“Dean?”

His eyes popped open as if she’d yelled his name and he immediately stood up and hovered over her.

“Hey, beautiful.”

“I remember you.” It wasn’t exactly what she wanted to say, but her eyes were heavy and moving was painful.

“I’m hard to forget.”

Her lips quirked upward and she blinked—a long, slow closing of her eyelids, then raising them slowly as if they weighed a hundred pounds. “Love you,” she slurred.

“I love you too, Adeline. The surgery went great. You haven’t had a seizure since. The doctor is optimistic,” Dean told her softly.

Adeline closed her eyes and said simply, “Okay.”

She felt the pressure of his lips on her forehead, then his whispered, “Sleep, beautiful. I’ll be right here.”

As if his words were the permission she’d been waiting for, she drifted off again.

* * *

A
s the days went by
, the pain slowly ebbed to manageable levels and she’d been allowed to go home. She didn’t have the energy to do much more than shuffle to the bathroom and back to bed, but the doctor had said that was normal and not to push it.

She’d only had one small seizure, and it had been over almost before it started. Adeline had called it a miracle, but Dean had only smiled and kissed her gently.

After two weeks, Adeline made Dean go back to work. He was driving her crazy, hovering and being paranoid about every little ache and pain she had. He’d only agreed to go if someone stayed with her.

So Alicia was now sitting on the end of her bed, tasked with being with her for the day, and her parents were coming over that evening to spend the night. Beth and Penelope would be visiting tomorrow, and her parents were coming back over to spend the next night as well. Then Dean would be back on the third day.

It wasn’t exactly ideal. “I feel like I’m a pain in the butt and hate that everyone has to babysit me,” Adeline complained to her sister.

“We’re not babysitting you, sis,” Alicia said with a laugh. “If anything, it’s really nice to be able to spend time with you. You’ve been working really hard and I’ve missed hanging out.”

“Yeah, okay. Good point,” Adeline conceded.

“Any word on Douglas?”

“He’s currently in a mental health facility. The prosecuting attorney told us that it was likely the case would never go to trial because Douglas was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. He’d been taking medicine to control it since his teens, but had recently stopped taking it when he joined the company for whatever reason. One of his alters apparently got obsessed with me, to the point where he was following me around and taking pictures of me without my knowledge. When I didn’t fall into his plan to date him, he got pissed.”

“Jesus. I hadn’t realized,” Alicia said, eyes wide.

“I know, neither did I. In Douglas’s apartment, the police found a compartment in his floor where he’d hidden pictures, papers from the job, and even a paper cup I’d probably used. There were also handcuffs and rope that they think he was going to use to tie me to the bed or something. He’s said some stuff to his doctor to the effect that he wanted to keep me and never let me go.” Adeline shivered at the thought, but continued, “He, and his lawyer, are denying culpability in the kidnapping and assault charge due to the crime being committed by a different identity state. It’s all kinda confusing and scary, but the prosecuting attorney told me and Dean that if it did go to trial, and they tried to claim not guilty by reason of insanity, it most likely wouldn’t fly and he’d be found guilty.”

“And how are you with all that?” Alicia asked.

“Honestly? I don’t care what happens to the man, as long as he stays away from me and Dean. The detective said he’d keep us informed on what happens with him, and the attorney said the same thing. For the moment I’m safe, and I refuse to waste any more time thinking about him.”

“I’m not sure you’re dealing with what happened to you,” Alicia said in concern, putting a hand on her sister’s leg. “You didn’t talk to a psychiatrist about it.”

“I don’t need to,” Adeline said, then shook her head and held up a hand when her sister opened her mouth to protest. “I
don’t
. Look, I know I almost died. If Dean hadn’t decided to ignore my hissy fit the night before, I
would
be dead. I get that. But I’m
not
dead. And Dean came up to Dallas to talk to me, to make things right between us. He ignored the mean things I said to him on the phone. I’m okay with what happened because I realized that no matter how independent I am, no matter that I’m a thirty-four-year-old woman with a disability I’ve lived with my entire life, it’s okay to lean on others to help me out.

“Yeah, it sucks that it took a psycho to make me see it, but Chief stayed the night with me to make sure I was okay, even after I was a bitch to him and told him to leave. He stayed because he cares about me and Dean. Then Dean did the same thing, driving up in the middle of the night, after working all day. I couldn’t get away from Douglas by myself. But that’s okay because Dean and his friend had my back.”

“I don’t get what that has to do with seeing a psychiatrist,” Alicia said honestly.

“All my life, I’ve felt like a burden. To you, to mom and dad, to the people around me, and it’s all because I always tried to be so independent. But Dean made me see that independence doesn’t mean I can’t lean on someone else. When I have a nightmare, Dean holds me and lets me talk about it. When my head hurts, he gets me drugs. He lets me be me, and I know down to the marrow of my bones that when I need him, he’ll be there. That’s why I don’t care one thing about Douglas. If he gets out of prison, Dean and his friends will be there to protect me…and I’ll let them. I’m not afraid of him.”

Alicia’s lips curled into a huge smile. “You really are okay about it, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“You know that Matt and I will also be there if you need us, right?”

Adeline nodded. “Yeah. I do. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Tired?”

“A little.”

Alicia swung her legs off the bed and stood. “I’m gonna make peanut butter cookies while you nap.”

“My favorite,” Adeline said, informing her sister of something she already knew.

“Yup.”

“Love you, sis.”

“I love you too. I’ll pop back in later to check on you.” Alicia squeezed Adeline’s leg and slipped out of the room.

For the thousandth time since she’d woken up in the hospital to see Dean hovering over her, and realizing she remembered him and everyone around her, Adeline felt like the luckiest woman in the world.

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