Free Reconciled for Easter by Noelle Adams Page B

away. Words she’d never heard before.
    I’m right here. Baby, I’m right here beside you. I’m not going anywhere. Please come back to me.

Four
     
    Instead of the muffled, echoing voices of before, voices from the past, Abigail heard only silence.
    She was conscious of a fierce pounding of her head, and she saw nothing but blackness.
    For a long stretch of time, this frightened her. The world had turned dark, silent, and unrevealing. But gradually she thought of something she might be able to do about it.
    Very slowly, very carefully, she edged open her eyes.
    The sterile light of the room hit her vision and caused a jolt of pain to shoot through her head. With a gasp, she squeezed her eyes shut again.
    “Abigail?” The thick voice was soft, male, and familiar. It was clearly in the room now, not echoing through her head like before. But she’d never—not once—heard his voice sound like this. “Abigail, baby, are you there?”
    He sounded so anguished she couldn’t bear not to answer. “Maybe,” she croaked, the one word ripping through her dry throat.
    She heard another noise. It still seemed to come from his presence, but this one she definitely couldn’t identify. It was utterly foreign to everything she’d ever understood about him. It sounded choked, stifled, guttural. Broken.
    But it confused and intrigued her enough for her to try to lift her eyelids again. She managed just the slightest crack, her eyelashes shading the worst of the light. This time, it didn’t hurt quite so much, so she raised them a little further.
    Thomas sat in a chair beside her. His face was pale and damp, as if he’d been perspiring, but his expression was composed, just slightly strained.
    “What happened?” She forced herself to shift her eyes around her, and she discovered she was in a hospital room. As instinct caught up to her before anything else, she gasped, “Mia?”
    “Mia is fine. We were in a car accident,” Thomas said softly. “You took a significant blow to the head. You might not remember the accident. That’s normal.”
    She tried to think back, recall anything about being in car accident, but it hurt too much to make her mind work that way. As awareness continued to come back to her, she was suddenly conscious of the way her whole body hurt.
    She glanced down and saw bindings on her arm.
    “You broke a bone in your arm,” Thomas explained. “And cracked a couple of ribs.”
    “Oh.” She swallowed. When she was able to get her eyes focused on Thomas once more, something about his expression made her heart pound in fear.
    He looked perfectly calm, perfectly stoic. But she saw some sort of pained emotion shuddering under the surface of his absolute composure.
    “Am I...” She cleared her voice. “Am I all right?”
    “Yes. Broken bones and some bruises. The hit on the head was the most serious thing.”
    Despite his words, she knew it wasn’t that simple. Her hands started to shake under the blanket. “Am I...Am I disfigured or something?”
    “No. You have some bruising and broken skin, but all of it will heal.” His mouth twisted slightly. “Does it feel like you’re disfigured?”
    “No, but something is wrong. Why do you look like I’m dying?”
    Thomas took a deep breath and exhaled it hoarsely. “You’ve been unconscious since the accident. We assumed it was a severe concussion and you’d shortly become conscious again.” He swallowed so hard she could see it in his throat. “You were unconscious for almost three hours. That’s a really long time for a concussion. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
    And then Abigail understood. Thomas had been worried about her. Worried that she’d slip into a coma or even worse. That was why he looked so stiff and guarded.
    The wave of emotion she experienced at this realization was almost more than she could handle in her current state.
    “I think I’m all right.” She tried moving her arms and legs very slightly. Everything