Chapter 478
[ 471 words ]
Chapter 478:
That was all. No conquest. No sudden rush of hands he did not have. No reckless attempt to steal another night from bodies already bruised and overdrawn. Just the truth, clean and painful between them.
Caroline swallowed hard. “I hate that I can’t go with you.”
“I know.”
“I hate that I have to stay here and wait for news like everyone else.”
“I know that, too.”
She looked at his braced arm, then at the splinted hand he kept so carefully still. “And I hate that you’re leaving hurt.”
Something moved across his face, too quick to name. “It’s not the first time.”
“That does not make it better.”
“No,” he admitted. “It doesn’t.”
𝗥еа𝖽 𝘄𝘪𝘵𝗁𝗼𝘂t іnt𝖾𝘳ruр𝘁i𝘰n𝗌 оn 𝗴𝗮𝗹ո𝘰𝗏e𝗅ѕ.𝗰𝘰𝘮
For a while, neither of them spoke. Outside, boots passed over gravel. A generator coughed, caught, and settled back into its mechanical hum. The camp continued around them, indifferent and relentless.
Jarrod shifted slightly, reaching not with his hands but with his presence, angling his body so she could settle closer without pressing against the brace. Caroline understood and moved into the narrow space he made for her. She rested her cheek against him and felt him exhale, slow and uneven, as if this small weight of her beside him was the only thing keeping him grounded.
“I left orders with K.C.,” he said after a long silence. “If anything changes with the hospital, he gets word to me through secure channels.”
“That sounds like a military version of asking someone to check on your wife.”
“It is.”
A faint smile touched her mouth. “Bossy even when you’re leaving.”
“Efficient,” he corrected.
“Insufferable.”
“Also accurate.”
This time her laugh came out shaky. She hated that it sounded close to tears.
His gaze lowered to her face. For a moment he looked as if he wanted to touch her cheek, but the brace stopped the right arm and the splint made the left hand useless. His frustration flashed, sharp and private. Then he bent his head instead and pressed a careful kiss to her forehead.
“Listen to me,” he said quietly. “You do your work. You eat. You sleep. You let Reed examine you when she tells you to. You don’t turn yourself into a martyr because I’m not here to drag you back to bed.”
“Drag is ambitious, considering your current condition.”
His mouth twitched. “Fine. I would order someone competent to do it.”
“Romantic.”
“Practical.”
She closed her eyes, breathing him in. “Come back alive, Jarrod.”
The humor vanished.
“I will.”
“That’s not a promise you can control.”
“No,” he said. “But it’s the one I’m making.”
She lifted her head and looked at him then. Really looked at him. The exhaustion under his eyes, the hard set of his mouth, the brace cutting across his torso like a punishment, the hand he would not admit still hurt badly enough to make him sweat. He looked like a man being asked to leave part of himself behind and march anyway.
.
.
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