Free HAYDEN (Dragon Security Book 5) by Glenna Sinclair Page B

feet that could indicate reduced circulation, a change in blood pressure that could indicate further muscle damage. I was not the kind of patient who moved through life uneducated. I knew what was wrong with me and I knew what my prognosis was. I was only here because Megan couldn’t accept it.
    “I’d like to send you over to the hospital for a few more tests,” the doctor said, sliding back over to the counter on his little stool and scribbling on the computer tablet to add his notes to what was already there.
    “How long will that take?”
    He shrugged. “A few hours.” He sat back and looked at me. “You’re here from Texas?”
    “Yes.”
    He studied my face a long moment. “If I were you, I’d go home and enjoy the holidays.” He stood, laying his hand heavily on my shoulder. “But, if you do the tests, we should have the results in a few days.”
    “We’ll do the tests,” Megan said.
    The doctor looked from her to me, and then simply nodded. “Good luck, Miss Wagner.”
    The moment he was gone, Megan was bringing me my clothes.
    “Arrogant man, isn’t he? But, again, he’s the best cardiologist in the country, so I guess he has a right to be.”
    I didn’t say a word. I just got dressed and climbed into the back of the chauffeured car that was hired to take us around the city. Later, at the hospital, I found myself thinking more and more about Hayden as I lay on a gurney, waiting for some underpaid, overworked orderly to come take me to my MRI, my arm aching where they’d inserted the IV line. I could see a bruise forming around the needle already. What lie would I tell Hayden about that? Would he believe me?
    He liked to kiss the inside of my elbow. He said he liked the way I moaned when he kissed me there, but I thought that it was something else. I thought that he liked kissing me in all the places that were hidden during the day.
    I’d always thought I’d save myself for my wedding day. Not just because that’s what my mom told me to do, but because I wanted to be sure that the man I gave myself to really loved me, and that we had a relationship that would last. But when Hayden touched me and kissed me the way he did in that hotel room, I realized that was a moment I’d never experience again. I couldn’t help myself.
    Maybe my mother was right. Maybe my soul was tainted by my father’s unsaved soul. Maybe I was always destined to become a fallen woman.
    I’d always feared this moment—the moment when I became the woman my mother said I would be, the woman she claimed Megan to be. But I’d never realized just how much fun it would be.
    For the first time in my life, I felt like I was really living. I felt alive in a way I’d never felt before. And Hayden…just the way he looked at me made me feel things I’d never realized existed. Things I’d assumed I wasn’t capable of. I wanted nothing more than to go back to Houston and crawl back into bed with him. I’d worry about my soul some other time.
    I wanted to live while I was alive. And I wanted out of this damn hospital. I’d spent enough time in the hospital.
    “Hey, Megan…”
    But just as I said her name, the orderly arrived.
     
     
    We were free of the hospital late Monday night. I wanted to go to a Broadway show or a nightclub, but the tests had left me tired. We ended up having room service hamburgers and watching reality television. Then I slipped off to my room and crawled into bed, my phone cradled in my hands.
    “How are you, beautiful?” Hayden asked over a text.
    “Missing you,” I typed, hesitating before I pushed the button. Did that make me sound too needy? Too invested? But then he came back, the same sentiment sent from his phone.
    “What are you wearing?” came next, making me laugh even as a blush burned over my cheeks.
    “I’m more than a thousand miles away.”
    “But you’re still mine.”
    It was a double-edged sword when he said that. I wanted to be his. I wanted to know that he wanted no one