by Rya Stone
“Don’t tell me what he needs,” Daphne snapped.
Cassie saw the change, saw it slide over the other woman’s face. Her eyes grew darker, her mouth tighter. Even her voice, when she spoke again, had changed. “He needs what only I can give him,” she said.
“And what’s that?” Cassie whispered, both fascinated and horrified.
“Protection.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What?”
Daphne smiled darkly. “Only I can keep him safe.”
“From what?” Cassie struggled to still her pulse, which was trying to make up for the beats it had skipped.
Daphne smiled again, revealing rows of little white teeth. “From the coyote.” And then she whispered, “He’s here. He’s been watching.”
Chills shot down Cassie’s arms.
“Only one visitor at a time,” a voice said at the foot of the bed. A nurse Cassie hadn’t seen before stood there, staring at her coldly. “You need to go. Family has precedence. Hospital rules.”
“Don’t worry, Jase,” Daphne said, bringing a hand to his brow. “I won’t leave you.”
Cassie slapped her hand away. “You’re not his family.”
“She can stay,” the nurse interrupted, and Cassie noted the twitch in her tight smile. “You have to go.”
Seriously? She wanted to see a copy of those rules. Sounded like they were probably handwritten. On parchment. That’s how outdated it all sounded. “Hold on—”
“No, you hold on,” Daphne said, and Cassie could have sworn the woman bared her teeth. “This shit with you and Jase? It ends now. Get out and don’t come back.”
Cassie saw red. She saw Jase’s red blood, staining the water and smeared across the boat deck. “You want to have your friend throw a ridiculous rule at me? Fine,” she said. “But I’d like to see someone around here try to enforce it.”
Daphne looked to her friend, and momentary doubt swept over the nurse’s face. Ha! I knew it. Daphne apparently didn’t because when she flicked her gaze back to Cassie the same angry insistence still marred her pretty face. Even if Daphne didn’t, Cassie knew she’d won the battle. But Daphne wasn’t getting the deeper message here, either. Cassie spoke softly and evenly. “Even if I’m not here, I’ll still be in his bed.”
Daphne rose to her feet. “You think that’s permanent?”
There was no getting through to her, and something told Cassie to quit while she was ahead. Some deep possessiveness told her different. “You slashed my tires, hoping it would run me off but it only brought us closer together.” She’d probably just set herself up for more vandalism. Or worse. She didn’t care.
“I didn’t slash your tires, bitch. But it doesn’t matter,” she said. “You’re just a fuck to him, and that’s all you’ll ever be.”
“Yeah, well, he obviously prefers to fuck me over you.”
“Think so, huh? Ask him when we were together last. I bet you’ll be surprised at the answer.”
She would have leapt across the bed if Jase’s bandaged leg hadn’t prevented it. Instead, she pushed up, meaning to slide over the bed railing, when his arm clamped down over her shoulder.
“Daphne.” His voice held the husk of a forty-year smoker. “Out.”
“Honey—”
“Get out.”
Daphne narrowed her eyes. “She’s the one who needs to go. Karly said family only, and she—”
“We related?” he asked, cracking an eyelid. “We married?”
“But—”
“Karly,” he said, both eyes now open. “I swear to God…” He swallowed, still trying to shake the sleep from his voice. “Get her out of here or you’ll be meeting with your boss first thing in the morning.”
The response was immediate.
“Daphne,” Karly said, wrapping a hand around her friend’s arm. “Out.”
Cassie tried not to flash Daphne a triumphant smile as the dethroned faerie queen snapped up her purse. She just didn’t try very hard.
Karly backed out of the room behind Daphne.
“Babe…”
“Shhhh. She’s gone.”
“Babe…”
She sat bolt upright. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know…feel weird.”
He looked weird, too. Glassy eyes. Clammy skin. She tore off the bed and hit the door.
“Karly!”
She didn’t know the woman, but she at least knew she took her job seriously. Proving this, Karly spun on her heel, calling over her shoulder for another nurse.
By the time the nurses emerged from Jase’s room, she’d worn a path in the hall.
“He’s fine,” Karly told her. “He just had a bad reaction to the pain medication.”
“Thanks, I—”
“I’m sorry about what happened with Daphne.” The nurse turned away, ending the conversation.
Alrighty then.
Still riled, Cassie peeked into the room to find Jase completely sedated.
Had that really been necessary? Jeez. Marian General was completely whacked, and she couldn’t wait to be gone. Looked like it would be even longer now… And furthermore, what the hell had just happened?
She’d…she’d seen Daphne…change.
She backed into the hall, staring at the open door, the curtain. At some point she started jogging, past the nurses’ station and into an open elevator that held an orderly and a bin of laundry.
“Ma’am, this is the service elevator.”
“Huh?”
“Going to the basement.”
“Oh. Can I get off on the first floor?”
“Uh…I guess.”
“Thanks,” she muttered, staring at the number buttons near the elevator door.
When the elevator chimed, the orderly had to tell her to get off. She wandered down a few halls before locating the main waiting room. Double glass doors led to a meditation garden, though it was more like a smoker’s lounge. It happened to be empty, and she found a bench in the far corner, surrounded by bamboo.
She sat, staring at a trickling fountain.
He’d experienced the same thing she had in the boat. And it scared the hell out of her. She knew she’d never want anyone else like she wanted Jase. What she didn’t want was Daphne, spewing her crazy all over his hospital bed. She didn’t want big scary brothers with shotguns or men named Oscar Martinez, who may or may not want to harm him…and her.
Land feuds, drug mules, dead neighbors…
The man of her dreams came with a shit-ton of baggage—baggage she’d told herself she could lug around because Jase was, well, Jase. But would his baggage put him in the hospital again? Require more stitches, more blood tests, things she’d seen enough of already? And would she—could she—stick around to find out?
She’d be lying to herself again if she said his rough edges didn’t turn her way on. But his hand around her neck during sex wouldn’t kill her. This Oscar Martinez might.
“Cassie?”
She raised her head from where it sat, cradled in her hands.
“Clint.” She blinked around. It was near dark, and the footlights along the gravel paths had switched on. “What are you doing here?”
His cold eyes moved over her face. “Came to sing a few lullabies and shit. Guess you beat me to it.”
“Yeah.” She fought the smirk. “Morpheus already tucked him in.”
Clint snorted, and Cassie tried to picture him with a mythology book in hand. Instead she saw two scared kids discovering an underworld right beneath their noses.
“Clint?” Oh, God she wasn’t sure she was ready to have an actual conversation with him, but it was Big Decision Time. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot,” he said, eyeing her skeptically.
“Last night, you said what happened between Daphne and Jase damn near killed him. Did you mean that literally or figuratively?”
Clint’s mouth twitched, like he was biting the inside of his cheek. “Both.”
Not what
she wanted to hear. “Can you explain?”
Clint let out a long breath. “Maybe I should let Jase do that. It’s…complicated.”
Ya think? “I’m having a hard time with it. I don’t know if I can do this. Hospitals, disturbed exes, scary brothers…other things.”
Clint raised his brows. “Scary brothers?”
She fought off a flush of embarrassment. Clint didn’t look so scary now, not standing in front of a meditation fountain with his hands shoved into his faded denim pockets. In fact, he looked tired. And worried.
“Please give me something. I don’t want anything more than to run upstairs to Jase’s side. But if I do that, I don’t know if I can leave, and…” She didn’t even know what she was saying, what she wanted Clint to say, just…something. She needed it so much she didn’t bolt when Clint sat down beside her.
He gave her a long sideways look. “When we were kids, maybe ten, twelve? We found this coon, injured. Coyote or bobcat or something got ahold of it. It was laid up under this deadfall near the river, a place we liked to go hide out, pretend we were mountain men or some shit. Anyway, Jase wanted to save the damn thing, went all the way back to the house, found one of those small varmint traps, brought it back, wrangled the coon in, God knows how. The whole time I was tellin’ him, dude, that thing’s wild, it’s gonna scratch and bite you, it’s probably carrying some disease. But he was dead set on nursing it back to health, making it whole again so he could set it free, just so another predator could catch it.
“He wouldn’t listen to reason, talked Mom into taking it to the vet. He even built it a cage, spent hours with the thing, tending to it, trying to tame it. Never did. It bit the hell out of him one day, and sure as shit, the bite got infected. Bad. He damn near died from that infection. It kept coming back. He missed months of school. And still…still…he cried like a fuckin’ baby when Dad shot the thing.”
Clint’s admission sent chills up her arms. Jase…wild and gentle and steadfast and hurting, putting his safety on the line for another soul, even as a boy.
“When he met Daphne—”
“They’ve been together since childhood?”
Clint looked at her oddly. “No…no, they met after he came back from Afghanistan. He tried to save her, too. She was worse than the coon.”
That didn’t surprise her. “Is that what this is? He wants to save me? From what? I wish to hell someone would let me in on the big secret here.”
“Maybe it’s not you who needs saving.” Clint paused, searching her face. “And maybe you need to ask yourself whether you’re willing to get bitten.”
Her question exactly. Thanks, Clint.
“That boy’s got it bad for you.” Clint stood, his word choice destroying any chance she could join him on steady legs. “So before you ask yourself if you can handle all the shit comes with it, maybe you should ask yourself if you’ll ever meet another man like him.” Clint grimaced, but it wasn’t quite a sneer. “Sorry if that doesn’t sound girly enough to translate, but that’s the best I got.”
She met his gaze with nothing but a whisper. “Thanks.” And she meant it this time.
…
Late afternoon light poured through the curtains Cassie had thrown open before Jase awoke. Yeah, his girl wanted to get him out of there badly enough to wake him from his slumber.
“Can I stay?” she asked the nurse who’d come to check his leg and change his bandages.
“Okay with you?” the nurse asked.
“Of course.” Cassie had already seen worse, and something told him his girl could handle about anything. He suppressed a prideful grin, despite the pain radiating from his leg, as the gorgeous woman at his bedside—the one he still couldn’t believe had given herself to him on a pier—braced her curvy body and curled her fingers around the side rail opposite the nurse.
The day nurse, Mary, wore daisy-printed scrubs, a ponytail, and looked all too cheery for the work she was about to perform. Humming a vaguely familiar tune, she collected what seemed like miles of gauze as she exposed his wounds. Cassie sucked in a breath when the last, sticky-looking lengths of cotton fell away.
When he’d first seen his leg in recovery, Jase hadn’t expected so many cuts. But he definitely felt them, especially now.
“It looks good,” Mary said, dabbing around with a sterile pad. “The swelling’s gone down considerably. How’s the pain?”
“Tolerable.” Though he gritted his teeth to keep from wincing as Mary continued her ministrations.
The veteran nurse lowered her chin and gave Jase a stern look. “You don’t have to brave through it, just let us know. It doesn’t do you any good to be in pain.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, not about to chance another bad reaction.
“Looks like you’ll still be going home today,” Mary said. “You need to keep the dressings clean and see us in about a week to remove the stitches. Other than that, I think you’re good to go.”
Cassie’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“He’s doing remarkably well from what I can see,” Mary said. “But don’t you think this boy isn’t in pain.” The nurse frowned. “I’m pretty sure he’s just trying to put on a show for his girl.”
He couldn’t deny that.
When Mary had gone and Jase wore fresh gauze, Cassie asked, “What did it feel like?”
“I hardly felt it at all at first.”
Her eyes drifted to his leg, now covered by a blanket. “Seriously?”
“Adrenaline. I’ve seen it before, felt it even.” During the Second Battle of Fallujah. No, it was after, in that shithole village. Bleeding from two bullet holes already, the explosion had sent him to the furthest reaches of lucidity. All he remembered of the aftermath was the sand and gravel, moving under his fingers as he clawed his way to a doorframe. And he’d felt something similar as he’d raced to the boat. “It blocks out everything else.” The real pain came later.
“I had no idea what to do with that shark,” she admitted. “I almost cut it loose at first. Then I decided to get it into the boat. And then I couldn’t get it into the boat.”
“A lot of men would have struggled with that shark. You did great. I’m not kidding.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“Then you pulled me into the boat. You yanked the anchor out of the water and slammed the throttle.” He shook his head, impressed by the heart she’d exhibited throughout the ordeal, by the fierce determination to stop the bleeding and get him to shore. Hell, to see him comfortable. Imagine that. “You should have seen yourself, Cass. Broke those fucking waves—”
“Knocked you around the boat—”
“The look on your face when you overshot the canal—”
“So you like the streaming tears and snot look?”
“—pure determination.”
“In a flimsy bikini top.”
He grinned up at her. “The best part.”
But the best part was her complete lack of self-awareness about the whole thing. He knew she blamed herself for hooking a shark and not knowing how to handle it. But how was that her fault? If anything, it was his. He shouldn’t have left her vulnerable. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. And despite all her doubts, he knew her words and actions had come from someplace deeper, where true emotion dwells. That he’d touched it blew the hospital pants or gown or whatever the hell right off him, and he smiled up at her. “So tell me, what were you planning to do when you got the shark into the boat?”
“Climb onto the console?”
He threw his head back, laughing.
She socked him in the shoulder. “And what would you have done if a shark really had come after you?”
“I’d have punched it in the nose for trying to steal my bait.”
“Are you serious?” Her jaw sagged in the cutest way possible.
He shrugged, grinning. “They’re sensitive there.”
Chapter Eighteen
He couldn’t get Daphne�
��s face out of his head. Her voice…
The coyote.
He’s here.
Watching.
She’d said that. Daphne had said that. Despite the drugs, he’d heard her. And despite the fact that Cassie’s sweet body molded to his and her soft breath hit his chest with every exhale as she slept peacefully beside him, Jase couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop hearing Daphne threaten the one thing he treasured most. The thing he treasured above his brother, his land, and his company. Hell, even his own life.
Cassie’s presence at his bay house in the wake of his injury had solidified his growing attachment to her. She’d waited on him, as much as he’d let her, and despite the sexy little sponge baths and the fact that she tried her damnedest not to burn dinner, it went so much deeper than that. She’d shared parts of herself that she could never take back. And he’d own them forever.
She’d read him some of her short stories, which weren’t as fantastic as he’d imagined, but more like modern fairy tales, and he’d made love to her afterwards, imagining himself the hero in her tales.
Most importantly, she’d introduced him to her mother on a speakerphone call that had left her in tears when, about halfway through, her mother had confused him with Reid and bawled him out for the latest in a string of affairs he’d had no clue about. When her mother hung up, Cassie had thrown her phone across the room. With tears streaming down her face, she’d come at him. Expecting that he’d need all evening to calm her down, she’d shocked him by taking his mouth in a heated, angry kiss. Then she’d proceeded to strip him naked, crawl on top of him, and work out her frustration until she was sweaty and breathless. Then, he’d rolled her over and loved her, with his lips, his tongue, his body. He’d whispered things in her ear he’d never told another.
She made him feel things no one else ever had. And he was about to kick her out.
The coyote.
He’s here.
Watching.
He was out of time and unprepared for it.
