“I know you will,” he whispered. “But you are so stubborn.”
I lifted my chin. “I have to be.”
He traced a finger down my damp cheek, and then with care, swiped away the tear I hadn’t even realized I’d shed. “I know, querida. But you are not alone.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “How many more steps do you want to take?”
I blew out a breath, relief and love filling my chest despite the worry threatening to smother me.
“Walk to the shower? Then perhaps you can help me clean up?”
His eyes flashed. “When you’re ready.”
We didn’t have time for me to wait until I was ready, I needed to be ready now. As it was, I let him balance me, but he moved at my slow shuffling pace as we made our way to the bathroom. Curling my fingers against his side, I sagged against him when we made it, and when he raised his brows, I nodded. With care, he lifted me and carried me the last two steps forward and set me on the counter to help me strip out of the shift.
I didn’t glance down at the bones jutting out of my shoulders or hips. I didn’t look anywhere but at his solemn countenance as he shook his head. “You will get stronger, Valda.”
“I believe you.” I pressed a hand to his cheek and he leaned into the touch. “Until then, I will lean on you when I can.”
“What happened to leaning on me?” Andreas waited for me at the head of the trail as I approached. My two bodyguards trailed behind me, neither had even broken a sweat, and I’d soaked right through the ribbed top and shorts I wore.
Campbell shot me a smile from where he stood a couple of feet behind Andreas. Like me, Andreas didn’t go anywhere—even on the tiny island I had grown up on—without one or two of Dirk’s men trailing us. They’d set up a camp of sorts deeper into the interior and built a structure they used not far from where my mother’s lab remained hidden.
It had taken me a couple of days to get my legs under me. A couple more past that before I could walk longer than ten feet without the need to collapse. I’d taken my first walk on the beach three days ago. We’d made it to the water and then back. Today, I’d managed a light jog for half a mile. Then I’d walked back. The strain pulled at every muscle in my back and along my legs.
But I found myself craving it.
I was stronger.
I grew stronger every single day.
Not strong enough. Not yet.
But soon.
“You were sleeping,” I answered him. “And you don’t do near enough of it.”
His inelegant snort accompanied his sharp shake of his head. “How long have you been waiting to give me hell about that?”
Reaching the trailhead and only moderately breathless, I pressed a hand over Andreas’ heart. The steady thump of it seemed to vibrate through me. “Oh, only since I woke up and saw how little you’d been taking care of you.”
Campbell smirked, but he wasn’t watching us. His gaze, like those of my bodyguards, remained on a constant swivel. I doubted anything moved, not even the birds, that he didn’t know about.
Then, because I had been working on not being rude, I focused on Campbell. “Good morning.”
“Ma’am,” he said with a dip of his chin. “You look better.”
“You’re very polite,” I complimented him. “I look like a dishrag. But I’m getting there. Do you have a report?”
“I do, but it can wait until you have showered and eaten.”
Normally, I’d have bristled over the fact that he’d made the decision for me, but Campbell wouldn’t withhold news about Dirk and Hatch. They were looking for them with every resource not spent on securing us here. Another reason I pushed to regain my strength and mobility.
We needed to get off this island if we were to find them. I wouldn’t be the weak link.
Not anymore.
“Have you eaten?” I asked him as they fell into step with me and my pair split up, one ahead and one behind. They moved with an almost preternatural silence. If not for so many years with Dirk, it would probably unnerve me. But in some ways, I’d known most of his men just as long.
Even if I was only just now beginning to retain their names.
Another change I needed to make.
So many.
I didn’t sigh, though. Like all implementations, it would take time, observation, and repetition to guarantee that I didn’t backslide into previous behaviors.
They needed me present.
I needed me present.
“Not yet, ma’am. It’s Billy’s turn to cook, and he makes a mean stack of pancakes.”
Mean stack.
I chuckled. “Would you mind making a little extra for Andreas and I, Billy?” I framed the question to my bodyguard ahead. “If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition? Then we could join you for the briefing and food.”
Two birds, one meal, as it were.
“Not at all, ma’am,” Billy said without glancing back. “Do you have a preference for meat?”
Not particularly.
Although…
We were almost to the secure door, and Andreas moved ahead to press his palm to the scanner. I’d added him to all of the biometrics. If we should ever have to return here, I’d add them all. I’d even given Campbell authority to get inside, though I’d asked him to refrain beyond an emergency.
He’d agreed easily enough.
“It was sausages you were cooking yesterday?” I’d smelled the spicier meat on my way up from my morning walk.
“That was Durham, ma’am,” Billy said over his shoulder, but the flash of teeth and the quick smile softened the correction. “We have more, and I can fix them for you.”
“Only if you’re making them for everyone.”
Andreas hid a soft laugh as the air pressure released on the sealed door and it glided open.
Campbell nodded to us, the three of them forming a human barrier as Andreas and I slipped inside. They wouldn’t leave that position until we were secured. Then at least one, if not more, were always on watch nearby as well as scattered over the island as they moved in a patrol pattern.
The skill and dedication honed into all of his men only made me miss Dirk more. Pain fisted around my heart. It had been more than a month. Endless weeks with no news. There had been contact, then…nothing.
Or at least, nothing they had told me.
That would change today, though.
I understood the need to protect me while I recovered. But I needed to know what we faced. I needed to know what they faced.
Because I was getting them back.
Andreas leaned against the counter as I stepped into the shower. The rake of his gaze over my skin left prickles in its wake, but I concentrated on the hot water sluicing over my skin and rinsing away the sweat before I turned to duck my hair under the water. I’d cut it the day before. Andreas hadn’t been happy when he found me holding scissors to the heavy braid I’d made of my hair and hacking the length.
During the years I’d spent trapped in the memoriam, it had grown longer than I’d allowed my hair since I was a child. The cut had offered me a relief that was as much emotional as it was physical. The weight of lost years could not be so easily shorn, though.