Down the Darkest Road

63

Mendez followed Tanner out of Lauren Lawton’s hospital room. They walked down the dark hall without speaking, then took the elevator together down to the ground floor. Unfamiliar with Mercy General, Tanner looked both ways up and down the hall, uncertain which direction they had come from earlier.

Mendez put a hand on her back and guided her toward the ER. They walked out of the big sliding doors into the night that had grown cool and damp, and headed to the short-term parking. Seemingly lost in her own thoughts, Tanner started around the car for the passenger’s side.

“Danni,” Mendez said, finding his tongue.

She turned around and looked up at him, her face open and vulnerable in the grainy filtered light of the parking lot.

He reached his hand up and touched her cheek. She gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“Please don’t make a big deal,” she said quietly.

She was supposed to be tough, or so she thought. Kindness would be her undoing. Everything about that touched him. He leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips . . . just because.

Her breath caught. A little rush of excitement went through him despite the fatigue.

When he raised his head she looked up at him with a funny little smile and said, “About that hotel room . . .”

Dawn was just beginning to pink the sky in the east when Lauren woke to find Leah staring at her, her precious face bruised, one eye swollen nearly shut, the other as wide as a small child’s. Lauren tried to manage a smile despite the tightness of her own battered face. She slipped her hand through the railings of the beds and touched her daughter’s hand.

“Do you know how much I love you?” she whispered.

Leah nodded, not looking all that certain.

“You saved my life,” Lauren said, tears rising. “In ways you don’t even know. I owe you so much, Leah. You have been so brave, and so strong. I will never be as brave and strong as you.”

“I don’t want to be brave anymore, Mommy,” Leah said. “I just want us to be a family.”

“We will be,” Lauren promised. “We will be. We are.”