“Wow.”

“I know, right? I was really scared this time in a way I never have been before.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to talk it all through after the docs do their thing.”

“They better not come at me with needles.”

He raised his head to meet her gaze. “Do what they tell you to do so you can come home where you belong.”

“You called my dad?”

Nodding, he said, “I talked to him and Celia.”

“I haven’t even asked you about your first day at the White House.”

He cracked up laughing. “Who the fuck cares about the goddamn White House?”

“What’s happened to you? You’re swearing like I do.”

He lowered his head so he was speaking directly into her ear. “You happened to me. You make me crazy and frantic and out of my mind with fear and desire all in the same day.”

Sam smiled with pleasure and gratitude for him, for the second chance she’d been given and all the blessings in her life. “I do what I can.”

“I love you so much,” he whispered. “So fucking much.”

“Love you just as much. Maybe even more.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

He looked down at her for a long moment, smiling softly before he kissed her.

They were giving the EMT one hell of a show, but Sam couldn’t be bothered worrying about it. She was back in Nick’s arms, and she didn’t care about anything else but him.

Chapter Twenty-Two

They came at her with needles—lots of them. The cut on her neck and two on her legs required stitches, which in turn required several shots. After a couple of predictable jokes about punching her frequent-flyer card, Dr. Anderson got down to business, insisting on an IV to get antibiotics into her to prevent infection. And then there was the tetanus shot he’d given her because God only knew what kind of germs were on the razor wire.

By the time they were done with her, Sam felt like a tired, sore, cranky pincushion. Nick never left her side for a minute, holding her hand through each needle stick, wiping her tears when the pain became too intense. Once the tears started, she couldn’t seem to stop them as it came down on her how much worse this day could’ve been.

Though she desperately wanted to go home to her own bed, Anderson insisted on admitting her for observation.

“We need to call Scotty,” Sam said once she was settled in her room and the tears had stopped—for now.

“I already called him and told him something happened today at work and you were hurt but you’ll be fine. He said to tell you he hopes you feel better, and he’ll come see you tomorrow. Graham and Laine are staying with him tonight. Everything is all set.”

“You’re sure you told him it was nothing to worry about?”

“I did.” He brushed the hair back from her forehead, tucked it behind her ear and wiped away more tears with the sweep of his thumb over her cheek. She wanted to purr from the sweet pleasure of his touch. Even with everything hurting, she couldn’t get enough of him.

“Come closer.”

He’d removed his suit coat and tie hours ago and had rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. “How much closer?”

“All the way up here with me.”

“We’ll start a scandal if they catch me in your bed.”

“Since when do we care about scandals?”

“True.” He worked his way around the IV tube and onto the bed next to her. Somehow he managed to get one arm under her neck and another around her middle without causing her a second of pain. He was just that good.

Sam settled into his embrace and breathed in the scent of him greedily. “God, you smell so good. You always smell so good. Have I ever told you that?”

“I think you have.”

“Do I still smell like gas?” The nurses had helped her to take a shower but the hospital soap hadn’t been scented and wasn’t able to do much against the pungent odor of gasoline.

“A little.”

“I need my stuff from home.”

“We’ll worry about that tomorrow.”

“I don’t like smelling like gas,” Sam said as new tears filled her eyes. She didn’t like being a weepy female either, but in light of what she’d been through that day, she’d decided to give herself one day to wallow in it before she got on with her life.

“It’s okay, baby. Everything is okay now. Why don’t you try to sleep?”

“I don’t want to sleep. I want to lie here with you and smell you and talk to you and touch you.”

“Samantha, sweetheart, you’re so tired. It’s okay to sleep. I won’t leave you for a second.”

“You must be hungry.”

“No way could I eat. Not yet.”

“Your reception at the White House! I totally forgot. I’m such an awful second lady.”

Laughter made his chest rumble. “Stop it. You’re exactly what I want, just the way you are.”

“I was going to be there. I swear I was.”

“I know that.”

“I want to see your new office as soon as possible.”

“We’ll do that. We’ll do everything you want.”

“I want to go back to Bora Bora for our anniversary.”

“I already scheduled the plane.”

“Damn, that’s right. We’ve got our own plane now. Maybe this new job of yours won’t totally suck.”

“Maybe not.”

“Do you like to ski?”

“Do I like to ski? What does that have to do with anything?”

“When I was in that basement, I was thinking about all the things I don’t know about you. Skiing was one of them.”

“I love to ski. I don’t get to do it as often as I used to when I lived in New England, but we can go sometime if you want to.”

“I suck at it.”

“I’ll teach you all the tricks.”

“So what happened with Scotty that you said you’d tell me later?”

“We can talk about it tomorrow when you’re feeling better.”

“I’ll never sleep worrying about whatever it is.”

His deep sigh put her immediately on alert. Then he told her about Andy’s investigator finding Scotty’s biological father and how the man hadn’t known he had a son. “He wants to meet him before he’ll sign away his rights.”

“That can’t happen! If he meets him, he’ll want him. Anyone would!”

“Babe, settle down. You don’t want to tear open your stitches and have to go through that again.” He settled her back against the pillow. “As I told Scotty when we talked about it earlier, he’s old enough to tell the court what he wants. And he wants to be with us. He was quite adamant about that. But he also wants to meet his biological father. I answered a lot of questions about how it’s possible a man could not know he fathered a child.”

“I hate that he has to deal with this after everything he’s already been through.”

“I do too.” He caressed her arm, his fingers moving lightly over her skin, setting her entire body on fire for him, as if she hadn’t withstood a major trauma that day. It didn’t matter. If he was close to her, she wanted him. “He got quite upset when I made the mistake of referring to the guy as his father. ‘You are my father,’ he said. He almost made me cry.”

“That’s so sweet,” Sam said, blinking back tears. “He chose you as much as you chose him. Don’t ever forget that.”

“It makes me crazy to think of him having another father,” he confessed. “Which makes me feel like a jealous child.”

“I don’t blame you for feeling that way. I do too. I don’t want any other parents in his life either, but we’re going to have to take him to meet this guy, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. Andy said the other option would be to continue as his legal guardians without formally adopting him.”

“That’s not an option. I want it legal.”

“So do I and Scotty does, as well. Besides, now the guy knows about him. We don’t want him making trouble for us later. Better to deal with it now on our terms rather than later on his.”

“He can’t take him away from us, can he?”

“Not with Scotty wanting to be with us. Andy was very clear that the courts listen to kids his age on these things. I’ll tell you what he told me—try not to worry. This is procedural stuff and we have to deal with it to get what we want. We’ve got a great lawyer looking out for us.”