Protected by my Hogg Daddy

Ghosts

Bjorn

Bjorn's gaze moved toward the hallway, toward the small framed photograph that sat on the table outside his bedroom. He didn't need to look at it to know the image. His mother, younger than Samantha was now, standing beside a Christmas tree with a smile that never quite reached her eyes. He had hated that photograph as a boy because even then he could see the lie in it. Everyone else saw a pretty woman smiling for a camera. Bjorn saw the bruise hidden beneath makeup and the long sleeves she wore inside a house that was too warm.

He had been too young to save her.

That truth had followed him longer than anything else in his life.

A memory pushed at the edge of his mind, unwelcome but familiar. His mother's quiet voice telling him to go to his room. The sound of a man's anger filling the house. Bjorn standing in the hallway with his fists clenched, old enough to understand what was happening but not big enough to stop it. The helplessness had always been worse than the fear. Fear gave a person something to do. Fear made them run, hide, or fight. Helplessness left them standing in place while someone they loved suffered on the other side of a wall. Even now, after years in the military and years leading men who trusted him with their lives, Bjorn could still remember how powerless he had felt as a boy listening to voices rise behind a closed door.

He shoved the memory back before it could take a firmer hold. He wasn't ready to spend the night walking through those memories, and he certainly wasn't ready to admit how closely they connected to the woman currently sleeping in a hospital room across town. Samantha had enough ghosts of her own. The last thing either of them needed was for him to start dragging his into the light. Yet the connection remained impossible to ignore. Every time he pictured her, he found himself remembering his mother. Not because they looked alike. Not because they sounded alike. Because they both carried the same quiet exhaustion that came from surviving things nobody should have to survive.

The room around him remained unchanged. The bed was neatly made. The dresser stood against the far wall. Moonlight filtered through the window overlooking the parking lot below. It was the same room it had always been, yet somehow it no longer felt empty. For years it had been little more than a spare bedroom used by visiting friends or club brothers who needed a place to sleep. Now, for the first time, Bjorn found himself looking at it differently. He wasn't seeing furniture anymore. He was seeing possibilities. A safe place. A locked door. A quiet room where a frightened woman could sleep without wondering if someone was going to hurt her before morning.

That thought should have settled the matter.

Instead, it only made the decision feel heavier.

If he offered Samantha this room, it couldn't be because he wanted her close. It couldn't be because the thought of her living somewhere else bothered him. It couldn't be because some stubborn, wounded part of him wanted another chance to protect someone he couldn't save years ago. The offer had to be about one thing and one thing only. Samantha needed somewhere safe to land while she figured out what came next. Everything else was irrelevant. At least that was what he kept telling himself as he stood there in the dark, trying to convince himself that the argument was still undecided.

Eventually he turned off the light and stepped back into the hallway. The apartment seemed unusually quiet as he crossed into the kitchen and grabbed his keys from the nail beside the door. Most nights he appreciated the silence waiting for him upstairs after a long day at the shop. Tonight it felt different. The quiet left too much room for thoughts he had spent the entire day trying to avoid. By the time he locked the apartment behind him and headed down the stairs, he had already decided to stop by the hospital. He told himself he was going because Samantha would be discharged soon and he needed more information before making any decisions. It sounded reasonable enough that he almost believed it.

The drive across town passed in a blur of empty roads and dark storefronts. Oklahoma nights had a way of making even familiar places seem distant. Headlights cut through the darkness as he passed closed restaurants, quiet neighborhoods, and gas stations illuminated by harsh fluorescent lights. The farther he drove, the harder it became to ignore the truth. The room upstairs wasn't really the problem. Neither was the offer. The problem was that Samantha mattered enough for him to spend this much time thinking about either one. That realization sat heavily in his chest all the way to the hospital parking garage.

Carla was waiting near the nurses' station when he stepped off the elevator. She glanced up from the chart in her hands and immediately smiled in a way that made Bjorn suspicious.

"Evening, Mr. Davidson."

"How is she?" he asked.

"Sleeping."

"Any changes?"

"Good ones." Carla set the chart aside and folded her arms. "She's eating better, moving around more, and the doctor thinks she'll be ready for discharge soon if everything keeps improving."

The word discharge settled between them like a physical thing. Carla seemed to notice the way his expression changed because her smile softened slightly.

"You know I told her you stopped by the other morning."

Bjorn sighed. "I figured."

"She asked about you." That shouldn't have mattered. For some reason, it did.

"What'd you tell her?"

"The truth."

Bjorn narrowed his eyes. "That's usually dangerous."

Carla laughed quietly. "I told her you came by before work to check on her and left before she woke up."

That much was fine.

What wasn't fine was the knowing look that appeared on Carla's face a moment later. "I didn't tell her you've been doing it every morning and every night."

His gaze lifted to hers. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me yet." She folded her arms. "I'm still trying to figure out why a man who clearly cares keeps acting like he doesn't want her to know."

Bjorn looked toward the hallway leading to Samantha's room. "Because she doesn't need another thing to worry about."

Carla watched him carefully. "Maybe."

The single word carried enough skepticism to make him grimace. The problem was that he wasn't entirely convinced by his own explanation either.

A few moments later, Carla smiled again. "Fine. Keep pretending you're not worried."

"I'm not worried."

"Of course not."

He shook his head and walked away before she could continue.

The hallway was quiet. Most of the patients were asleep, and the lights had been dimmed for the night. By the time Bjorn reached Samantha's room, he could hear little more than the distant hum of hospital equipment and the soft squeak of shoes somewhere down the corridor. He paused at the doorway and looked inside.

Someone had braided Samantha's hair loosely over one shoulder. She lay curled on her side beneath the blankets, one hand tucked beneath her cheek. For the first time since he'd found her in that ditch, she looked peaceful.

Not completely.

There was still tension around her eyes. Still a faint crease between her brows. Even asleep, some part of her seemed unwilling to trust the world around her. Yet the difference was impossible to miss. The fear that had haunted her eyes every time she'd looked at him had eased slightly. The bruises were fading. The color had returned to her face. Little by little, she was healing.

Bjorn remained in the doorway longer than he intended. Standing there, watching her sleep, he realized how impossible it had become to pretend this was all practical. Practical men didn't spend their mornings checking on strangers before work. Practical men didn't stop by hospitals every night after closing their businesses. Practical men certainly didn't spend entire evenings debating whether to offer a woman a room in their home.

The truth was inconvenient. He cared. Whatever name he wanted to give it, he cared.

He stepped a little farther into the room and slipped his hands into his pockets. Samantha didn't stir. The steady rise and fall of her breathing was the only movement in the room. For several moments he simply stood there, taking in the sight of her safe and sleeping.

"I've got a room," he said quietly. The words sounded strange spoken aloud. Maybe because they made everything feel more real.

The offer wasn't hypothetical anymore. It wasn't something he was considering or debating. It existed now. Even if Samantha couldn't hear him, the words had been spoken.

A room.

A bed.

A door she could lock.

A place where she could breathe.

That was all it had to be.

Nothing more.

He repeated the thought several times while standing there, though it sounded less convincing each time.

Eventually he stepped back into the hallway. Carla glanced up from the nurses' station as he approached, but for once she didn't say anything. He appreciated that.

"When she wakes up tomorrow," he said, "tell her I stopped by."

Carla's eyebrows lifted. "That's new."

"Just tell her."

"And if she asks why?"

Bjorn looked back toward Samantha's room. The answer came easier than he expected. "Tell her I have something to ask her."

Carla nodded slowly. This time she didn't tease him.

By the time Bjorn reached the parking garage, the night air had cooled considerably. He climbed into his truck but didn't start it right away. Instead, he sat there staring through the windshield while the events of the evening settled around him. For the first time since finding Samantha, he didn't feel like he was reacting anymore.

He was making a choice.

Everything up to this point had happened on instinct. Stopping when he saw her. Calling for help. Staying at the hospital. None of those decisions required much thought because there had never been another option he could live with. Offering her a place to stay was different. It wasn't an emergency. It was a commitment, even if only a temporary one.

The thought should have reassured him. Instead, it raised a different question. What if she said no? The possibility caught him off guard.

He had spent so much time debating whether he should make the offer that he hadn't stopped to consider she might refuse it. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Samantha was stubborn, independent, and proud. Even injured and exhausted, she fought to maintain some sense of control over her life. He respected that about her.

He also suspected it was going to make tomorrow's conversation considerably more difficult.

By the time Bjorn finally started the truck, he had rehearsed the offer half a dozen different ways. Every version sounded terrible. Every speech felt forced. Eventually he gave up altogether.

Life rarely followed prepared speeches anyway.

When he returned to the apartment above the shop, midnight was approaching. He should have gone straight to bed. Instead, he found himself standing outside the spare bedroom once again.

This time he opened the door without hesitation. The room looked exactly as it had earlier. Yet somehow it didn't feel the same.

Bjorn crossed to the bed and stared down at the neatly folded comforter. Then, before he could think better of it, he stripped the bedding and carried it into the laundry room.

Halfway through loading the washing machine, he stopped. The offer hadn't been made. Samantha hadn't accepted. Hell, she might tell him no. Yet somehow he was already preparing the room.

A laugh escaped before he could stop it. The sound echoed softly through the empty apartment. For the first time all day, the argument was over.

Tomorrow, he would ask.