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were hardly alone. 
    The hospital’s hall was full of people and the nurses’ station was right outside the door. 
    The sickeningly chipper blond haired nurse with whom Brian had pleaded for a few moments alone with the patient would be back any minute. 
    Despite all of this, Brian could not shake the feeling that the entire world had been reduced to just the two of them and the two of them alone.
    Her roommate was gone, transferred to another room, so at least Miranda now had some privacy in which to heal.  The dozen coral colored roses he had brought her were swallowed into insignificance by the horde of flowers and get well cards that adorned every inch of the ledge and small table that was in her half of the room. 
    A few bouquets of flowers had been placed in the second half of the room, now vacant.
    She had many well-wishers but none so devoted as he.
    He stood near the doorway, watching her at rest. 
    In spite of his best efforts to keep his attention fixed on her lovely face, so serene in the dark, so content, his gaze was drawn again and again to her chest.
    Not to her breasts, which he had always been attracted to but to the bandaged wound that he knew he was in part responsible for.
    He watched her breathe and was grateful to God that she was alive.
    Had she been shot a few inches lower, she would be dead, the nurse had said. 
    Her heart, other vital organs. 
    If she had been shot any higher, as Richard had been, well…
    Brian didn’t want to think about that.
    Miranda was alive.
    Alive and stable, healing satisfactorily.
    That was what mattered most.
    Her breaths came slowly and evenly, the only noise in the room, besides the soft beeps coming from the intravenous pump and the hum of activity drifting from the nursing station outside. 
    She was deep in sleep. 
    Recovering, to the best of the hospital’s ability to ensure it.
    Even at rest, in the dark, Miranda was beautiful, with a body that could tempt the saints from heaven. 
    He knew her lithe body well, in watching her from afar and in treating her wound... 
    As he looked at her, he felt a myriad of emotions. 
    He wanted to protect her, as had been – and still was – his job. 
    He wanted to hold her, to tell her that everything was going to be all right, that the doctor was sure she’d regain full use of her left arm, that good things happen to good people...
    Brian knew, looking at her, that it just wasn’t right, that a girl so lovely, so full of life could be reduced to laying so helpless in a place so stark and antiseptic.
    She belonged to the world outside of the hospital, the world of gala openings and parties and performances and the long list of men, young and old, who would be lining up as candidates waiting to take the place of Richard Alba.
    Richard. 
    How Brian hated the dead man, hated how close his criminal ties had come to getting Miranda killed.
    Brian looked again at Miranda, at the ivory face that seemed nearly as white as the pillows she was propped up on. 
    He looked at her dry lips, lips that were normally so soft and pink and kiss inviting... 
    He looked at the various tubes that were connected to her, at the alien shapes of the machines she was attached to and again thought to himself, this isn’t right . 
    As he looked at the bag of blood that was being fed to her intravenously, he was glad that he made a point of donating blood semi-annually. 
    It likely wasn’t his blood in the bag but at least he had done something right.
    She had lost so much of her own blood in the shooting...
    He remembered the slick pool of it that had filled the driver’s seat of the Mercedes, remembered how the blood had soaked through the makeshift bandage of his shirt and many more bandages en route to the hospital, in the back of the ambulance. 
    He ached inside as he thought of what could have become of her, had he not been so close at hand to staunch the bleeding. 
    He shuddered as he realized how close to death she had