“Give me a break, Jared. I got stir crazy. Needed to get up and stretch my legs.”

“And I’m sure that had nothing to do with little Mia Kensington tearing out of here like she planned to kill somebody. And she probably could, so I’d watch my ass if I were you.”

Winters grabbed the remote and turned the volume up on the television in a desperate attempt to ignore his boss. The news host’s all-American enunciation didn’t drown out Jared.

“If you want out of here, you have to earn it. I’m not going to have you almost die just to have you kill yourself.”

“I didn’t almost die. Stop with the dramatics.”

“Oh, hell. You are that stupid. Miss Thang you just sent scuttling out of this hospital? She’s the reason you’re still kickin’. I would’ve let you sleep on that mangy-assed cot until you died. But nope, not her. She was all tending to you and shit. She noticed your fever. She noticed your piss-poor responses. I didn’t. The guys didn’t. Your ass got choppered out of Colombia, and medevacced all the way back to the States. So if you think you didn’t tease the widow-maker, think again. ‘Cause you’re a dead man who was hooked up by Lady Luck. Or in this case, Mia Save-Your-Ass Kensington.”

Winters threw the remote, hoping to hit the wall across the room, but it didn’t go far. Attached to a cord next to his hospital bed, it swung back at him, and clattered against the bed rail, finally dangling inches above the floor.

“What the fuck do you want me to do?” Winters yelled, bunching his fist in the blanket.

“Get your head back in the game, and figure your shit out.”

Just like Mia, Jared spun and stormed out in a fashion far more dramatic than Winters was used to seeing in his jerk of a boss. He relaxed his death grip from the blanket and ran his hands over his face, trying to clear his mind.

Mia. Mia. Mia.

Nope. It wasn’t working. A hollow despair spread in his blood, pumped into every crevice of his body. Through his aching heart, to the soles of his feet, Winters mourned what could have been.

He threw himself back against the pillow and tossed his head to the side. His gaze landed on a cot, a pile of used blankets, and several unopened boxes of Dots.

Damn it. She was perfect in every way, and he couldn’t have her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Winters hung his head over his bathroom sink, despondent and depressed. It’d been three days since he was released from the hospital. He should’ve shaved his beard when he got home, but he had neither the energy nor the motivation. Other than Clara, nothing interested him. His mother tidied around the house, trying for conversation, and he brushed her off like the prick he was.