Put Out (Kilgore Fire Book 5)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Then I turned him so he faced the opposite side. “This is the guest bedroom, and where I’ll be stashing you for the foreseeable future.”

  He tossed me a grin.

  “The doctor made it sound like it’s only going to be for a few days,” he replied helpfully. “Though living in such opulence will make it hard to leave.”

  I pinched his arm and returned to the living room.

  After checking to make sure Elise was still lying happily amongst her toys, I took hold of his hand and led him to the kitchen.

  “And this is my kitchen, where none of the magic happens,” I grinned at him.

  His brows rose.

  “I, unfortunately, suck at cooking. Everything I try to make turns out bland and tasteless. Although that seems to be enough for Elise, so there’s that,” I teased.

  His eyes took in the kitchen.

  “It’s beautiful,” he replied.

  And state of the art.

  Though he likely could see that.

  It was such a waste to have this much put into a kitchen and my skills not be up to par.

  “This is an office, I guess. I use it as storage.” I flipped on the light of the room that was directly off the kitchen. “I’d intended to make it into a craft room, but I suck at making things, and it needs shelves or something. I don’t know. Regardless, it’s something.”

  He snorted.

  Taking his hand once again, I led him through the circle that the house inevitably ended up making.

  “Laundry room, mudroom, my bathroom, my bedroom. Kitchen, living room, your room. Your bathroom. And this,” I paused in the hallway that would lead to the media room. “This is the media room. It has one chair and one TV.”

  I flipped on the light, and he immediately burst out laughing.

  “Don’t laugh,” I scolded him.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an awesome bean bag before in my life,” he informed me.

  I winked and led him back out to the living room.

  “Your child pulled up to the coffee table,” Bowe said.

  I gasped and turned.

  “I missed it!” I cried, hurrying over to Elise. “You naughty girl!” I cooed. “Show me again.”

  I placed her gently back onto the floor, and she glared at me with those beautiful honey eyes of hers.

  Then she crawled past me—army crawling because it was the only way she felt like crawling even though I knew she could crawl normally—and then pulled up on Bowe’s pant leg.

  He looked down at her with a small smile on his face.

  “I feel like she’s familiar.”

  I grinned.

  “Might just be because she’s my mini-me,” I told him. “I’ve never introduced you to her before.”

  He looked thoughtful for a long moment, and then nodded his head.

  Carefully disentangling Elise’s fingers from his pants, he sat down carefully onto the couch and pulled Elise into his lap.

  “She’s spoiled. If she knows you’ll hold her, you’ll never be able to put her down,” I snickered.

  I should know, she’d gotten me much the same way.

  I couldn’t tell the girl no for anything.

  The moment I could peel my eyes away from how hot Bowe looked holding a baby, I let my eyes really take in the lines of his face. The exhaustion and pain in his eyes.

  “You’re hurting,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  Rolling my eyes at his non-answer, I got up and went to the bag he’d left in the hallway.

  It was a large black bag that was on wheels, sort of like luggage but more like a canvas bag.

  Once I reached it, I unzipped it and grabbed the bag on top, then started fishing through it for his prescriptions.

  The hospital had been nice enough to fill them, which was rare because it wasn’t often that they gave out full prescriptions.

  I had a feeling it had more to do with his parents rather than the hospital being nice, but since they’d left with not very happy looks on their faces as they watched me drive away, I wasn’t going to question it.

  “Here,” I said, handing him the pill over the back of the couch. “I’ll go grab you some water and show you to your room.”

  “You already showed me to my room,” he said as he tossed the pill into his mouth. Then swallowed it without water.

  I grimaced and fetched him water anyway.

  “Well then, I’m going to force you into your room and we’ll all take a nap.”

  The silence that followed was deafening, and I wondered if the thoughts on my mind were the same that were on his.

  Then I had to chastise myself because the man had just had brain surgery for God’s sake.

  And I needed that man like I needed a shot to the head.

  But that didn’t stop me from thinking about him. About thinking of the possibilities.

  And, oh boy, were there possibilities. I could do so many things with that man’s body, and I was pretty sure he’d let me. Memory or not.

  Chapter 9

  If you eat well, sleep a full eight hours, and genuinely take care of yourself, you’ll die anyway. You’re welcome.

  -Angie to Bowe

  Bowe

  “Take care of him, Bro,” Angie pointed at her brother, narrowing her eyes comically.

  I was, apparently, in need of a babysitter, and Angie wouldn’t allow me to be by myself yet due to her concerns. Hence the reason I was now at Angie’s brother’s shop, being watched like I was a five-year-old instead of an adult.

  Alec grinned.

  “Will do, Sis.” He gave her a half-assed salute and turned back to the car he was working on one handed.

  “This is a nice car,” I looked under the hood, my heart starting to accelerate at seeing what was inside the chassis.

  If I ever had to make up my dream car, this one would be it.

  This would be everything that I ever wanted in a car.

  “Funny you should say that,” Alec grunted. “’Cause it’s yours.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “You’re shitting me.”

  He shook his head and grunted again, his arm muscles straining before the bolt he was trying to loosen finally gave way.

  “No,” he promised, leaning down to undo the bolt the rest of the way with his fingers. “I’m putting in a new carburetor. That still okay?”

  I nodded mutely.

  “The question is if you said something different, should I listen to the old you, or the new you?” he tilted his head.

  I opened my mouth to reply, but snapped it back closed again.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  He laughed abruptly, then stood up fully.

  “You had lunch yet?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “No,” I shrugged. “Angie was late for work so she dropped me here.”

  My mouth tightened as I realized what she was doing.

  She didn’t want me to be left alone while I was healing, and she was so damned worried that I’d blow up at someone or something that she didn’t trust me to stay by myself yet.

  Though I couldn’t say that I blamed her for her concern.

  Her worries were my worries, yet neither one of us had voiced them aloud.

  “So … why am I babysitting you today?” Alec asked, not sounding like he cared, only that he was curious.

  “I had an incident,” I admitted. “And she’s worried.”

  “What kind of incident?” Alec asked, looking over at me curiously.

  I pursed my lips.

  “Well, okay,” I held up my hand. “I had more than one incident. In the week that I’ve been out of the hospital, I’ve found that my temper is getting the better of me.”

  “How is it getting the better of you?” Alec asked, suddenly worried now and extremely alert.

  I had been staying with his sister, after all. Any good brother would be worried at this point.

  I held up my hand to sooth
e the fears I could see running through his thoughts.

  “Not anything to do with your sister,” I told him quickly, clearing my throat. “But it’s stupid shit. Like someone cutting us off in traffic, or when an old girlfriend called me and told me she heard I was hurt and that she’d like to see me again. To make sure I was all right.”

  His mouth kicked up at the corner.

  “It’s good that you remembered your shit, otherwise that chick could’ve told you that you were together when you really weren’t,” Alec surmised.

  I nodded my head.

  Over the last week, things had started coming back to me.

  Slowly at first, until I had all of my memories.

  Well…most of them.

  I still had a few memories I couldn’t quite latch onto, obviously having a fucking wet dream of a car being one of them.

  Then again, I hadn’t realized that I didn’t remember everything until it was blatantly thrown into my face.

  Kind of like the ex-girlfriend, Sierra.

  I hadn’t remembered her. Not until I’d answered the call and wished I hadn’t.

  “And that’s not even beginning to take into account what happened when I went to my house yesterday,” I confessed.

  “And what happened?” Alec persisted.

  I sighed.

  “I had a minor melt down,” I replied. “I was going to go ahead and stay at my own place, but when I got there…I don’t know. My head started to pound, and I got so dizzy that I couldn’t freakin’ breathe.”

  “So Nurse Angie asked you to stay with her another night,” Alec guessed.

  I nodded my head.

  “Yes,” I hesitated, wondering if I should say what I said next. “Angie and I have done a lot of talking over this last week.”

  “Yeah?” Alec asked, his eyes turning back to the carburetor in front of him.

  “I think she’s scared.”

  He froze.

  “Scared of what?” He put all his tools down and gave me his full attention.

  Studying him as he leaned back against the car, his hands wrapped across his chest intimidatingly, I knew he was a good brother.

  And I also knew, though Angie might be upset that I brought him into this, it was the right thing to do.

  “Her ex…” I picked up the same pry bar that Angie had been holding that day. The same one—although likely not this particular one since it was in police evidence for smashing into my skull—and studied it.

  “She’s scared of Troy,” I told him.

  He nodded. “We know that.”

  “He’s out of jail, as of last night,” I said. “Right around the time I tried to go into my house and leave her.”

  “So, you bullshitted an excuse and now you’re going to stay with her.”

  I nodded my head.

  I was going to hell.

  Seriously, if I didn’t ruin everything with this stupid lie, then I’d have some serious groveling to do to win her over in the end.

  “My dad…he’s the ADA. He tried to get him as much time as he possibly could, but something kept him from making those charges stick. Before he could question why, his boss pulled him off the case due to some crap excuse about a conflict of interest, and then gave the mother fucker bail.”

  “That’s how it always is with Troy. He knows the right people,” Alec told me. “It’s been like that since the beginning. Why do you think he was able to get away with shooting my sister with a fucking nail gun eight times?”

  My belly tightened at the thought.

  I’d seen those scars.

  At the time, seeing those, I hadn’t realized what those scars were from.

  Then she’d screamed at Troy during their altercation, and I’d finally realized where scars like the ones she had came from.

  Scars that she told me about just two days before, making me want to kill the man she called her ex.

  “She told me that Troy doesn’t like taking no for an answer,” I said. “That when he came over that day, he caught her unaware. Was drunk off his ass.”

  Alec nodded.

  “I’d just left.” Alec looked down at his feet. “I was building shelves in Elise’s room for her books. Left the nail gun out. Hooked up. Ready to go because I was only running to the store for paint. Came back and found her in a pool of her own blood.”

  “He shot her with the nail gun because she supposedly had some other man in the house with his kid.”

  “It was me that he saw.” Alec replied roughly. “One of the worst fucking days of my life, walking in on that.” He licked his lips and looked up at me. “That man is so fucked up in the head. He’s fucking normal as hell—then he just snaps. Literally, it takes like an instant and he’s not the same man. He’s got multiple personalities. Fuck, but if I had to guess, he’s probably schizophrenic.”

  “Why isn’t he in jail for doing that to her?” I asked.

  I’d wanted to ask Angie that last night, but the way she started shivering the more she had to talk about it made me realize that whatever was going on in her head wasn’t a place I wanted her to be.

  If I could get the information elsewhere, then I wouldn’t have to see that look in her eyes anymore as she explained.

  “He’s got the connections. Father is a lawyer. Mother a doctor at the hospital. Fuck, but he was a freakin’ coach for the football team. The man comes off as a squeaky-clean fairy if he wants to,” Alec grumbled.

  “Don’t I know it,” I murmured. “He got screwed pulling the stunt he did last week, though. By assaulting me he assaulted a public servant.”

  “Yeah,” Alec agreed. “But didn’t you just say that he was let out on bail? If that were true, wouldn’t you think that he would still be in jail?”

  I nodded reluctantly.

  “Fucker’s got millions of dollars burning a hole in his pocket,” Alec pushed off the car and lifted his arm up high over his head, massaging it as he did. “He practically stabbed me with a goddamn screwdriver when I refused to let him see Angie. But likely it’ll be ‘just an accident.’ He was never charged for shooting Angie. There wasn’t enough evidence, and it was her word against his. And he had an alibi.”

  “Who was his alibi?” I asked, knowing I wasn’t going to like the answer.

  “His wife.”

  ***

  “You got a call today,” I held up the pad of paper where I’d written the note. “The woman asked that you call her back immediately. Something important about you having a spot if you wanted it.”

  Her eyes went wide.

  “Thanks,” she took the piece of paper gingerly, staring at the writing with longing.

  “Here’s the deal,” I held my hand up to stop Angie’s objection. “I need a place to stay. I can’t stay at my place anymore until these headaches go the fuck away. Not to mention that I sleep about a million times better here. I don’t know what the deal is. Whatever. Just…I can’t stay there. Something’s telling me not to…my brain. I don’t know. But…I need a place to stay. You need the money. I get you an extra five hundred a month, drop my lease and save myself an extra grand, take over half of your utilities, and you can quit one of your jobs. That frees you up so you can take classes. Finish nursing school.”

  She blinked.

  “You’re…what?” she asked. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

  She placed her hand on her hip, which would’ve worked better had Elise not been on the other hip.

  “Your brother and I had a lot of time to talk today,” I explained. “And he said the only reason you’re working at the hospital right now, is because you want a leg up when you graduate,” I paused. “That’s all fine and dandy…if you actually graduate.”

  “My brother and you, huh?” she muttered. “Did you meet with your friends?”

  I nodded my head. “I did. They came and got me for lunch.”

  A smile drifted over her face.

  “How’d that go?” she asked curiously.
r />   “The chief asked me to take over his classes while he takes over my shift. When I finally get cleared, we’ll switch back,” I explained, trying hard not to contain the excitement of actually being worth something other than a paperweight.

  “And what about your doctor’s appointment that you didn’t want me to know about?” she raised her brows at me.

  I laughed, then winced as nausea rolled over me.

  My head still hurt.

  Badly.

  “It was nothing,” I said. “They were confirming what we already know. Testing my brain, running a scan. I won’t know the results of those tests for a week or so.”

  She sighed and dropped down into the chair right across from me, turning slightly sideways to place Elise into the high chair.

  “I’ll do it under two conditions,” she turned so she could look at me fully.

  “Okay,” I waited.

  She grinned.

  “One, we don’t take this any further than friendly. I can’t deal with anything past friendship right now. I have too much on my plate to have to worry about what your intentions are.”

  I inwardly cursed.

  That had been my intention, although only a small part of the entire picture.

  “Two,” she licked her lips. “If I tell you to leave, you have to leave. No complaining. No buying time. I tell you and you go.”

  I thought about everything, and could only come up with one logical answer.

  “Deal.”

  Chapter 10

  If you’re allowing it, then don’t complain about it.

  -Angie’s secret thoughts

  Angie

  “I haven’t met you before,” the girl at my side held out her hand. “My name is Henrietta. You can call me Etta, since Henrietta is such a mouthful.”

  I took her hand and shook it.

  “I was supposed to graduate two semesters ago, but I had my daughter and life got in the way,” I explained, knowing what she wanted to know without her having to ask.

  Etta grinned.

  “That’s cool,” she looked at the clock at her back. “It took me ten years to get here, but now that I am, I’m finishing.”