Beau (In the Company of Snipers Book 18)

by Irish Winters

  He’d never felt more awkward. More vulnerable. He wasn’t sick, and she shouldn’t be doctoring him. She was Alex’s wife for Hell’s sake, a queen, not some servant. Yet on and on she went, giving him no say. Soothing his ragged nerves with just the motherly touch of her hand. Being nice, everything he didn’t deserve.

  Beau focused on the room around him while Kelsey fussed. Apparently, Alex provided luxury hotel accommodations to his guests, like that was a surprise. Everything in this spare room was big. The TV screen on the wall. The window covered by room-darkening, floor-to-ceiling drapes. Even the lavish ensuite head he’d glimpsed on his way in, looked more than adequate for a family of five to shower in—at the same time. This single room made his apartment look cheap and old. Not that he wanted to live here, but once again, he was where he didn’t belong. The tender care had to stop.

  “I’ll be okay, ma’am,” he assured Kelsey.

  “No, you’re most certainly not okay,” she came back at him. “Now lean back and let me take care of you for a change.”

  This was so not happening. “No, ma’am,” he said as he returned his ass to a stern upright position, needing to be gone, and going to be, real damned soon. When he’d first released McKenna, he’d unbuckled his holster and set his weaponry on the nightstand. He’d wanted it handy, just in case. Now he just wanted it back and to be gone.

  “If she said sit, you’d better do what you’re told,” Libby Houston piped up from where she leaned over McKenna. “We might need your help.”

  Yeah, like he believed they needed him for anything. “Doing what?”

  “Holding McKenna while I bath and bandage her wounds. She’s hurt pretty bad. She might need a few stitches, and what I have to do will hurt. She might fight and—”

  “I can do that.” His gaze shifted from Libby to the brave woman in bed staring at the ceiling and fighting her tears. “McKenna,” he said to get her attention. “How you doing, sweetheart?”

  He didn’t mean to let slip that tender endearment, honest. Had in fact never said it before, not to an adult woman anyway. It just blurted out, and once he heard it out loud, it sounded right.

  She turned her head and the saddest eyes locked onto his. “I’m g-good.”

  The liar. Her lower lip quivered like she was cold, giving her away. The professional doctor-voice she’d used on him at the hospital was gone. A frightened little girl had answered him instead.

  “That’s my line,” Beau teased as he brushed past Kelsey to get closer to McKenna. “I’m here,” he said as he tugged the light blanket Libby had draped over McKenna back under her chin to cover what Libby had exposed. “There now, I didn’t hurt you when I did that, did I?”

  “No,” she murmured even as her shoulders stiffened.

  “I’m sure sorry if I did,” he said, meaning it with all his heart. Hurting for her, he tucked her tiny hands into his one good hand, while Libby worked around him. He only did that because McKenna seemed to need something to hold onto, and he knew what being alone felt like when you were battered and hurt. When you’d been humiliated and abused. When you had no one to turn to. There was no reason she had to deal with this crappy night by herself. He was here, and he meant to stay.

  But the very second his much larger, more callused fingers came into contact with her much smaller, more delicate fingers, tears ran like tiny rivers out of those pretty eyes. Aw, shit. Beau had no resistance to a woman’s tears. He sank to his knees beside her. “Hey there, don’t cry, Doc. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  Until then, he hadn’t noticed what a gorgeous color her eyes were. Green, but not dark. More emerald with tiny flecks of gold radiating from the center like tiny bicycle spokes. But so sad.

  “Th-thanks for c-coming after me,” she cried, trembling so hard he had a notion to pick her up and hold her on his lap, while Libby did whatever she had to do. To comfort McKenna until she knew she’d always be safe with him. How weird was that?

  “I thought I was going to die,” McKenna squeaked. “She would’ve killed me, Beau. How’d you know where I lived or that she was there?”

  Jesus, he loved the sound of his name on her lips. “Just a hunch,” he said as he leaned in, his nose to her nose, filling her line of sight, and forcing her to focus on his ugly face. To hear and see only him. “But she didn’t kill you, McKenna, and you’re safe now. Kelsey and Libby are going to fix you up, and honest, I’d never lie to a girl as pretty as you. You can trust me.”

  “I know,” she whispered, a ragged catch in her voice. “I do trust you.”

  Their eyes locked, and the second they did, Beau lost his breath, what was left of his soul, and quite possibly the last of his common sense. Women, for all their wisdom and intelligence, for all their willingness to pitch in when times got tough, whether in the office, in factories building warplanes or in combat, were still, and would always be, the fairer sex. They would always be tinier than most men, made more delicately and for things different than fighting and killing. For better things.

  “Not that I lie to ugly girls,” he teased, needing McKenna to keep looking at him.

  Lifting to his feet, he settled on the bed at her knee, so Libby could do her thing. Kelsey had joined Libby, and together they eased the blanket covering McKenna aside to wash and treat her wounds.

  “It’s not as bad as I thought,” Libby murmured even as McKenna cringed from being handled.

  “No, but it’s bad enough,” Kelsey replied. “You poor thing. We’ll take good care of you, McKenna. Just breathe, hon.”

  It seemed they’d had practice treating patients before, so Beau minded his business. Portion by portion, the women removed the packing that he and Maverick had hastily applied before they’d bundled McKenna into her bed sheet and raced her to safety. And portion-by-portion, the ice around his heart began to thaw.

  Helping McKenna was a new experience. Yes, he’d assisted plenty when guys got shot or injured in the field, but never had he been there when a woman went down. They were so much—smaller. Their bones thinner. Their skin lighter. Their pain so much harder for him to take. He couldn’t imagine losing a female soldier in combat. Talk about feeling like a failure.

  Methodically, Libby and Kelsey washed her wounds, repacked, and re-bandaged. Finally, the only one that remained was hidden below her breasts. But when McKenna arched back into her pillow and hissed, Beau warned Libby, “Take it easy. You’re hurting her.”

  Libby nodded that she’d heard but kept up the pressure under McKenna’s bare breast. Beau jerked his eyes off that intimate female body part he hadn’t meant to look at. But now that he had, he spared another quick glance. The tip was a lovely pink and flat, nothing like hookers’ tits in Vegas. McKenna’s breast was real. More innocent. Soft. Pure.

  “Can you please hold this packing in place while I give her something for pain?” Libby asked him. Him, the guy with just one good hand. “Press hard. That one’s going to need stitches.”

  “I can,” Beau murmured, not sure he was worthy of the honor, but damned sure not going to let McKenna down again. “I didn’t know you could prescribe pain meds,” he said to Libby. As far as he knew, Mark Houston’s wife was just a nurse. But there she was, taking charge like she meant business.

  “She can since she graduated medical school,” Kelsey murmured as she tugged the sheet out of Libby’s way. “You’re talking to Dr. Houston, didn’t you know?”

  “Huh,” was all Beau could come up with. Of course he didn’t know. He’d have to really belong to The TEAM to know Mark's wife was now a capable doctor, wouldn’t he? “Guess I should’ve called you Dr. Houston before then.”

  “Please don’t. You’re family, Beau, and…”

  He lost track of Libby’s answer when she took hold of his good hand and shoved his open palm under McKenna’s breast. The sweet thing jiggled at his touch, but when McKenna closed her eyes and hissed, he knew he’d hurt her. Closing his thumb over the plush, w
arm mound, he told her, “I’m sorry.”

  “’S okay,” she murmured as Libby came back to the side of the bed with a small hypo. It was a good thing she was a physician now. Seemed like Alex needed one on staff.

  “I hate to dope you up, but this wound is deeper. Stitching might take a while. Small sting,” Libby told McKenna before she pulled back the cover and administered the shot.

  “What is it?” McKenna asked.

  “Something to help you sleep while we finish up. I have a little quilting to do, and there’s no reason you have to suffer through it. You’ve had enough for one day. By the time you wake up, you’ll be wrapped, and all these cuts will be closed and medicated.”

  “But I want to call Dad. He’ll be worried.”

  “Take it easy. You can call him once we’re finished unless you’d rather one of us call him now. But we don’t want to scare him, do we?”

  Beau studied the calm, professional tone to Libby’s question. Mark Houston was a lucky man.

  “No, I’d rather he hears the news from me. Where… where’s Beau?” McKenna asked, a tiny note of hysteria in her voice. “Did he… did he leave me—?”

  Quick as he could, Beau peered around Libby. He wasn’t an easy guy to miss, still supporting her breast like he was, but she’d panicked when Libby stepped in front of him, and he needed to put her mind at ease.

  “I’m not going anywhere. In fact, there’s a bed with my name on it right next to yours if it’s okay with you. Isn’t there, ladies?” He hoped he hadn’t spoken out of turn. “You don’t mind if I sleep in here tonight, do you? Just tonight?”

  Libby eased his palm out from under McKenna’s breast while she readied the site for suturing.

  “I hoped you would,” Kelsey answered without a single hint of sarcasm or annoyance. “All my patients stay in this room, not like I get that many. There’s a phone on the nightstand between the beds, and feel free to use the TV if you can’t sleep or want to watch a movie. The kitchens’ down the hall if you’re hungry.” She shot him a quick smile. “Guess you already know where that is, though, don’t you? Anyway, eat whatever you like. That’s why I bought it. Anything else I can do before I tend to that hand of yours?”

  She looked straight into Beau’s eyes when she asked, and he honestly didn’t know what to say. He just stared. Wishing he were a better man for the likes of her and McKenna.

  Without asking, Kelsey’s fingers went to his face again, tracing the bloody bruises and scrapes Catalina had left behind. Kelsey had already cleaned each injury and dosed them with either ointment or butterfly bandages, but this was different. She wasn’t looking at his physical, beat-up self as much as looking for the real him. The weak little kid who hadn’t been strong enough to stop—that.

  “She got you good, huh?” That was Kelsey. She had room in her heart for oddballs and losers like him. She was the reason Beau knew Alex was smarter than he was. He had her, didn’t he?

  All Beau could manage was to nod like some high school jock out with the homecoming queen. Kelsey had that effect on him. Gracious to a fault, she never said an unkind word to anyone, least of all to him. Not once had she made him feel unwelcome, unwanted, or hurried. If anything, the one time he’d visited her house during that office picnic, she’d catered to him and made him feel special. Like he was somebody.

  “Thank you, ma’am, but I’m okay,” he murmured humbly. “I’m just staying here for McKenna. In case, you know, she needs anything. Not like she needs me. I just… I’m staying.” And that was him, tongue-tied and unsure of himself when a pretty woman, make that a real woman, got past his radar.

  Kelsey cocked her head and smiled, her brown eyes soft and forgiving. “She’s one of my best friends, and I think she likes you.”

  He shook his head. McKenna didn’t like him. He’d just been the one who’d saved her. That was all, and he knew damned well there was an ocean of difference between gratitude and actually liking a man like him. But when he made the mistake of glancing down at the sleepy lady holding onto his one good hand like she’d never let it go, his fingers tightened automatically around hers. A sneaky truth whispered over his shoulder. You like her, too.

  Already masked, Libby sat on a stool, leaning over McKenna, her chest now covered in light blue surgical draping. A plastic covered tray of instruments rested on McKenna’s stomach. A goose-necked floor lamp stood at the bedside.

  McKenna was definitely smiling up at him, albeit in a drowsy way. He felt the impact of that tender gaze all the way to his gut and into his worthless, unsalvageable soul. How could anyone torture an innocent like McKenna? Against a woman who’d done nothing wrong in her life? One who’d taken a vow to help all others? Even him.

  He didn’t understand what made people cruel, while others remained true and good and—holy. For that was what McKenna was, a holy angel from heaven sent down to earth. Not for him, though, he got that. No one like him deserved something as rare as this woman smiling dreamily up at him. Okay, so she was drugged, but still. She was worth a thousand of him.

  “Goodnight,” he told her quietly, confused why she affected him like she did. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  “P-promise you’ll... you’ll s-stay?” she asked, her eyelids heavier by the second.

  “Promise,” he whispered, filled with a sudden urge to hold her. To protect her. To make every last razor-sharp slice marking her skin better and every future scar invisible. That was all men like him were good for, to stand between the bitches roaming this land and the angels blessing it.

  “G’night,” she mumbled.

  Beau would’ve leaned over and dropped a tiny, chaste kiss to the middle of her forehead if Libby and Kelsey hadn’t been there. Every nerve and muscle in his ruggedized body certainly wanted to. Instead, he accepted the chair Kelsey had just pushed across the room to him.

  “Sit,” she told him kindly.

  So he sat. But while she double-checked the blood-soaked bandage on his hand, then changed it out with clean dressing, while she ‘Hmmm’ed’ over his bloody nose and the scratches on his face, while she ran to the kitchen for a sandwich and a bottle of water, so his stomach could handle the Percocet Libby told him to take—Beau never took his eyes off McKenna. Not once. She needed a hard man standing watch while she slept, and for this one night, he was that man. And—thank you, Jesus—that made him lucky enough.

  Chapter Twenty

  Beau waited until the women were done cleaning up and stowing their medical supplies, before he unlaced his boots and slid them under the bed. Not the one McKenna slept in, though. That seemed proprietary, like he was staking a claim, which he’d never do. Not with her. She deserved better than a rough man like him. Another doctor, maybe. Someone she had things in common with. Or a lawyer who could provide like she was accustomed to. Anyone but him.

  At last Kelsey and Libby gathered their things and closed the door behind them when they left. Beau almost relaxed. Until two minutes later. The door opened to Maverick and Alex, and why not? Beau had expected they’d have something to say. Might as well get it over with. He blew out a gut full of resignation.

  Guess I won’t be keeping that promise to McKenna after all.

  He stayed where he was, perched on the edge of the empty bed, his forearms on his knees, and his eyes on the floor while he waited for the reprisal sure to come. A fuckin’ great day this turned out to be. Save the day. Save the girl. Still not good enough.

  “When do you want me to leave?” he asked quietly, but resolutely. Might as well rip it off like one of those extra-sticky Band-Aids and get it over with. “Now? In the middle of the night? Or can I at least grab a nap before I go?”

  “Look at me when you talk to me,” Alex growled, just as quietly.

  Lifting his head, Beau met his employer’s eyes. The man could drill through solid granite with those hard, blue diamonds.

  “We’re moving you to Maverick’s ranch,” Alex bit out. �
��The sooner the better.”

  Beau swallowed hard. That figured. Why would Alex allow someone like him to stay in his house? He wasn’t part of the almighty inner circle within The TEAM. He wasn’t tight with the senior agents, Harley, Mark, or David, either. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to work for Alex. The man was unbearably abrupt, incredibly arrogant, and a pain in the ass perfectionist. Beau hadn’t done one thing right since he’d hired on, and Alex had let him know every single time.

  What was the use of arguing?

  “We need to move now, though,” Maverick said. “While Montego’s licking her wounds. Before she’s wise to what we’ve done and where you are.”

  “Agreed. We’re not certain how she’s tracking us, but she seems to have a hard-on for anyone who’s working with or for me,” Alex admitted, his tone grim. “Maverick’s got an arsenal, hired hands, and a bigger spread. You’ll be just as safe there until this blows over.”

  “And my wife’s a dead-eye. Montego’s about to meet her match if she sets foot on the Wild Wolf East. China’d as soon send her to Hell as let her get near Kyrie or the horses.”

  Weary to the dirt floor of his wicked, dismal soul, Beau dropped his gaze again and shook that idiotic notion off. “I don’t need anyone keeping me safe. I’ll just leave. Then you guys won’t have to—”

  “No, but McKenna does,” Maverick snapped.

  That brought Beau’s head back up. “She’s coming with me, I mean, us?”

  Something glowered behind Maverick’s stern USMC stare. Once a Marine, always a Marine, they never lost that ‘I can rip your fuckin’ heart out, feed it to you, and you will enjoy it’, toughest-dog-on-the-heap stare. “This is about keeping both of you alive and out of harm’s way. Libby thinks it’s best to move McKenna while she’s medicated. Get your boots on. Alex and I’ll wrap her in a blanket, and in the meantime—”

  “No! I’ll do it. I’ll wrap her,” Beau declared, on his feet now and ready to go. Who needed boots when there was a lady to protect?

  That got both men’s attention. Maverick cocked his head like he was seeing something for the first time. Alex blinked. Just once. Then ordered, “Then do it. We leave in five. Through the garage. Kelsey and Libby will help.”