Embattled Minds (Military Romance) (Lost And Found Series) Read Online Free

screen to listen to it, though, there was only silence on the other end. Hmm. He deleted the message and continued on.
    *****
    Ember didn’t even see the strike coming, but she certainly felt it, like a Mack truck slamming into her at full speed. White hot pain exploded in her face. Then she was free-falling for several excrutiatingly long seconds. She landed flat on her back, her head cracking against the hardwood floor. Everything went dark.
    Agony woke her, blazing through her right jaw and cheek. Tears flooded her eyes and rolled down her temples into her hair. She was afraid to move, in fear that the pain would escalate. Her stomach roiled with nausea.
    Somebody clutched her hand, squeezing and shaking her. She wanted to tell them to hold still, because they were hurting her more, but she couldn’t get her brain to shift into gear. Hazy sounds reached her ears, but it was like they were packed with cotton. Muffled.
    Taking a deep breath, she forced her eyes to open. After much fluttering and tearing from the brightness of the light overhead, she was able to focus. Her father knelt beside her, her hand cradled in his as he tried to wake her. His eyes were anguished as he realized she’d woken and was staring at him. He raised her hand and pressed a kiss to the back, but she pulled it away.
    He’d done it again.
    She lifted a hand to her jaw, and wasn’t surprised to find it grossly swollen. It throbbed with pain, and she wondered if he had broken it. Taking a fortifying breath, she opened her mouth a tiny bit.
    Fire burned down through the side of her face, neck and chest. It was all she could do not to cry out again. There was a very real possibility he had broken her jaw. She took a moment to catalog the rest of her body, but the only injury appeared to be her head. Laying here, she could feel a knot forming on the back of her skull. Possible concussion. She wouldn’t know until she got checked out.
    Using her hands, she pushed up from the floor. Dizziness made her sway on her bottom, but she breathed deeply, dragging in oxygen to stabilize. She felt his hand on her back, but it would have taken more effort to shrug it away. She just didn’t have it right then.
    She glanced at the hallway, but everything seemed to be quiet. It still looked dark outside, so she probably had a few hours before Drew woke up looking for her. How the hell was she going to explain this to him?
    She blinked, realizing she’d sat there for several minutes. She was losing time, definitely a bad sign. She needed to get up.
    Easier thought than done.
    Eventually she rolled to her hands and knees, but couldn’t formulate what to do next. When he reached down to help her, she let him, but pulled away to sag against the hallway wall. Listing to the left, she staggered down to the bathroom and flicked on the light.
    Fresh pain seared her head, and a few tears escaped her control to roll down her cheeks. Even that hurt.
    She forced her eyes open.
    God, it was bad.
    Her jaw was blazing red and swollen. Purple bruising had already started to spread out from the strike, and she knew she would be ten different colors in a couple of days. It had already started to darken below her eye. There were a couple of deeper purple lines in the main bruise, from his individual fingers. How the hell were they going to explain this away?
    He stood in the dark hallway, arms crossed, eyes haunted as he watched her.
    Ember opened her mouth to speak, but it was too painful. He saved her the trouble.
    “I’ll stay here with Drew while you go to the hospital.”
    She nodded and lowered herself to the commode while he called her a taxi.
    *****
    Zeke scanned the bar when he walked in, but didn’t see Ember right away. When he’d gotten up the courage to go in to pick up their order on Tuesday, a day he knew she normally worked, she hadn’t been there. He’d asked for her, and the hostess’s gaze had slid away, as if she had something to hide, then said something