by Wild, Cassie
I already knew far too much about Cormac, and I wasn’t happy with the knowledge. I hadn’t asked who’d started the fight, and I’d already decided it didn’t matter.
Cormac had used a knife—that could count as assault, probably even attempted murder. Was that the kind of guy I was involved with? Was that the kind of guy I wanted to be involved with?
And now that I knew, I couldn’t even try to avoid thinking about it. That would just be too…cowardly. I knew it too.
I cringed in shame, because I too often took the cowardly route, avoiding thoughts about my family and things they might be involved in, simply so I wouldn’t have to face the cold, ugly truths of their lives.
I’d justified it to myself by not accepting Dad’s money when I went to school. I’d won scholarships, had been awarded STEM grants, and once I was old enough, I even got a job to help pay for costs associated with school. I knew there were times when my father went in and paid for things. We’d had fights over it, and eventually, he’d come to realize I was serious.
Money had been left in an account for me after Mom died—a life insurance policy that had been split between the four children, and I’d used that money as the down payment on my house.
As much as possible, I didn’t take money from my father. It had been hard, too, back during my residency. Medical residents only earned a pittance, and I’d ended up sharing an apartment with a couple of friends before I decided to look for a place, using the money from Mom.
Dad still tried to interfere financially, and sometimes, I just got tired of fighting with him. I always regretted giving in, and sometimes, I took whatever it was he gave me, be it money or gifts, and donated it.
But not always. Like my car. I hated myself for it, but I adored that car.
Dad had gotten around my attempts at independence when he gave me the Ferrari by informing me he’d bought it with profits he’d made after selling off several lucrative stocks. I still could have refused, but I’d caved, and I still struggled with that choice.
I’d come to realize over the past year, though, that I wouldn’t be able to avoid reality forever. That fact had grown glaringly clear after Daria and Brooks had nearly been hurt in the days before their rather rushed wedding. I’d inadvertently discovered some things about the Castellanos family—the family Sean had married into the day he put that ring on Isabel’s finger.
Accusations of sex-trafficking had been at the top of the lists for crimes they were believed to be involved in. More and more, I had to fight the urge to look into my family’s past and discover all the things I didn’t want to know. I knew I was reaching a point where I’d no longer be able to turn a blind eye to what they did. My love for them would never change, but that tipping point was drifting ever closer.
With that knowledge in mind, I knew I couldn’t get involved with somebody who’d so blatantly and willfully harm another human being. Jerrel had required numerous stitches and would need at least one surgery to repair the damage done to his hand. They were still waiting for the maxillofacial specialist to evaluate the damage to his face, so there could well be a second surgery if his nose warranted it.
With a groan, I shoved off the bench and moved toward my locker. I was so distracted by my own thoughts that it wasn’t until that very moment that I saw the note, folded into quarters, taped to the front of the metal unit. My name was written across it in a familiar script.
Frowning, I tugged it down and opened it.
Raisa’s bold, sweeping scrawl filled the page.
I leaned back against the nearest locker as I began to read.
I wanted to run something by you, but you were too busy when I came into the ED right before I left. If you’ve got time, come in a few minutes early tomorrow and swing by my office. I’ll be here until a little after five, so if I don’t see you, I will HUNT YOU DOWN…
I grinned at the last few words and shoved the note into my bag before grabbing my change of clothes. I had no idea what Raisa might want, but at least I had something else to think about instead of spending the next few hours brooding about Cormac.
* * *
My mind chased itself in circles the entire drive home.
I had a quick meal of soup and a sandwich and did a quick yoga workout before starting a load of laundry. I’d just as soon ignore it, but if I didn’t wash some clothes soon, I’d be going bareback under my scrubs and…gross.
It was just after midnight by the time I finished, and I was already dragging, but part of me wasn’t all that excited about the idea of going to bed. If I laid down and didn’t sleep, I’d start thinking about Cormac, and I didn’t want to do that.
But I had to get up early to go in and talk to Raisa, so I couldn’t avoid the bed forever. To my surprise, the exhaustion took over, and no sooner did my eyes close than I was gone, all but dead to the world.
I slept through the soft music my alarm played and didn’t wake until a horn blared outside my window. A quick look at the clock told me that if I didn’t haul ass, I’d be late, not just for work, but for that meeting with Raisa.
I proceeded to haul ass, rushing through my shower. The hot water served to clear the clouds from my head and the aches from my tired muscles.
After dressing, I dashed into the kitchen to grab a canned coffee drink and one of those protein breakfast bars. Bar between my teeth, I all but ran out the door, my hair still damp.
It was mostly dry by the time I got to the hospital, and I took a few seconds to finger comb the waves into some semblance of order before climbing out of the car.
I made it to Raisa’s office exactly seven minutes before I was due in the ED.
“Hey.” Slightly breathless, I tapped my fingers on the open door of Raisa’s office.
She looked up at me, an unfocused look in her eyes. She tugged off her glasses and her gaze sharpened. “Come in, come in.” She rubbed her hands together, then waved me into a seat. “This just might be your lucky day.”
I blinked at her. “Oh, yeah?” I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted her. I liked her a great deal, but Raisa and I didn’t always have the same viewpoints on things like luck and good and bad.
“Yes!” She leaned forward and smiled at me, looking decidedly pleased. “One of the trauma surgeons on the permanent day schedule is looking to switch to nights. Long story, complicated…but his wife wants to go back to school, and if he sleeps during the day while the kids are in class, then he can be there in the evenings, and they won’t have to make too big of an adjustment.”
“Okay…”
“I’ve talked to the other, more senior surgeons on staff and bizarrely enough, none of them want the daytime shift. Jeung is a diagnosed night owl, and May’s husband is a criminal defense attorney. He works long hours, and they like the schedule that allows her to be home with the kids in the afternoon and evenings.”
I grinned. “You don’t believe in offering short, concise explanations, do you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Long story short? If you want the day shift, it’s yours. Actually, even if you don’t want it, it’s yours. You’re the newest doctor and with a family matter being behind Dr. Craig’s request, and taking his seniority into account…” She flashed me an engaging grin. “Come on. You aren’t going to say no to a day shift this early in your career, are you?”
I blinked. “Hell, no. Do I look stupid?” A thought occurred to me. “Does this mean I’m done with swing shifts?”
“Yes. It does. And…excellent. I love it when everything works out.” She passed a piece of paper to me. “Your new schedule, effective Wednesday. You’ll be off Thursday and Friday to allow time to adjust to the new schedule. Then you’ll be working this weekend. You’ll work two weekends in a row, then have two off. Your routine off days will be Thursdays and Fridays—”
I held up a hand. “Does that mean I actually get Thanksgiving off?”
She smiled at me over the tops of her glasses. “Yes. But you’ll be working Christmas.”
“That’s fair.” I hadn’t expected to get any holidays off the first year.
I went back to studying the schedule, grimacing at the hours as I thought about the time adjustment I’d have to make. That was going to suck.
Raisa must have read my mind because she grinned at me. “You’ll make do. Give it a few weeks, and you’ll be fine. You might want a coffee drip, especially the first few days while you adjust.”
Five
Cormac
I was starting to feel like a stalker.
I couldn’t even tell myself that my fourth drive-by of Briar’s house was because of the job.
It would be a flat-out lie. The job was quickly falling by the wayside, coming to mind only when faced with Jerrel, or my ever-increasing thoughts on how in the hell to get out of it.
No, the reason I was swinging a left onto the quiet, tree-lined street just a little past eleven-thirty was because I wanted to know if she was home yet. Her car had been missing from its spot in the driveway when I first came by around two, and it wasn’t there at five or at ten.
This wasn’t the easiest neighborhood to sit around and go unnoticed, especially late at night, so I figured if I didn’t see her car this time, I’d have to wait until tomorrow to see her.
I’d penned a couple of texts, but each one of them came out so awkwardly worded, I never sent a single one.
When I saw her car in the drive, my heart did a crazy little lurch in my chest. I might have been embarrassed by it if I hadn’t been too busy feeling excited about the thought of finally seeing her. Sure, it hadn’t been that long since I’d seen her, but it felt like an eternity already.
I pulled into the driveway slowly, eying the lights on in the front window. My anticipation grew as I saw her shadow pass back and forth, backlit by the lamp in the living room.
I left my car parked next to hers and strode for the front door, already anticipating the feel of her mouth under mine, the softness of her skin as I stroked my fingers down her spine.
I knocked and saw the light shift in the peephole as she leaned forward to look through.
The door opened abruptly, and Briar stood there, framed by golden light. She wore a nightshirt that came down to mid-thigh, and my mind started to run away with fantasies about what she might, or might not, be wearing underneath.
Ready to find out the answers, I opened the screen door as Briar stepped aside. She said nothing as I came in, but when I reached for her, she sidestepped nimbly. I frowned but didn’t think much of it.
She closed the door behind me, then turned to face me. The look on her face was one of icy anger, underscored with distrust.
“What?” I asked warily. All sorts of scenarios danced through my mind. Had she somehow found out my connection to Marcos Castellanos? Did she know I had been hired to come up here and watch her? I racked my brain, trying to come up with a rational explanation.
“Want to tell me about the fight you were in the other day?”
The sharp demand seemed to come at me from out of nowhere, throwing me even further off-track. “Fight?”
“Yeah.” She gave me a saccharine smile as she moved closer, reaching up to touch my side. I half-expected her to jab at the injured area, but all she did was stroke along the edges of the bandage, as if to remind me she knew about it. “You were in a fight. You and somebody else got into it. Want to tell me about it?”
I ran my tongue across my teeth. Treading carefully would be optimal here. “This guy I know was running his mouth. He got in my face. I got pissed, and we got into it,” I said, keeping my voice level, even as my mind raced, struggling to figure out just where she was going with this.
“He was running his mouth,” she echoed. “He got in your face.” She narrowed her eyes. “Just what does that mean?”
There was a faint hint of accusation in her voice. I didn’t know if it was that or the guilt I’d been struggling with, but something set me off, and temper edged my voice as I responded, “He fucking got in my face, and he fucking ran his mouth, Briar. It pissed me off, and when he made a go at me, I showed him what a stupid-ass move that was.”
“By using a knife on him?” she half-shouted.
“For the record, he…” I trailed off, staring at her. I backed away a few steps and moved to the entrance of the living room, staring at the far wall without really seeing anything. “How do you know I used a knife on him?”
She muttered under her breath.
I didn’t catch a word of it, and when she remained silent, I turned to glare at her. “Well?”
She lifted her head and returned my dark look with one of her own. “I can’t tell you. It could cost me my job, Cormac. I shouldn’t have even said what I did. But why don’t you use your brain and think?”
Dread clenched my gut, and I averted my gaze once more. “Jerrel showed up at the hospital, didn’t he?” Before she could respond, I held up a hand. “You don’t have to answer that. I already know.”
I didn’t know shit about being a doctor, but I’d signed enough of those stupid medical forms to know that medical professionals were supposed to take a patient’s privacy seriously.
Torn between anger at Jerrel and myself, along with a good amount of general frustration, I moved into the living room and sat down on a big, overstuffed armchair.
The floorboard squeaked, and I looked up, watching as Briar moved a few steps closer. She stopped just shy of entering, bracing her shoulder against the doorway as she studied me.
It was clear she expected me to say something. I knew that. I just didn’t know what I could say, what I should say. If I didn’t think of something, I might as well just walk out of there.
If I was smart, maybe I should just do it.
But I couldn’t make myself get up and leave.
There were any number of reasons for it.
At the top of the list was the tangle of emotions twisting through me.
But I also worried about what would happen if I didn’t finish the job—not worry for me, but for her. Marcos wouldn’t just let this drop because I decided I didn’t want to finish. He’d come up with another option, and I couldn’t stand the idea of letting Briar get used like that.
I had worries about Jerrel’s game plan. He had to have something in mind, going to see Briar like that.
But if I didn’t say something…
The half-lie/half-truth came to me without any conscious thought of my own. One second, I was staring into her pale blue eyes, and the next I was talking, hearing the words coming out of my mouth with no real understanding of what I was saying—it was like some stranger was narrating things using my voice.
“We work together,” I said. “Well, sorta. I don’t even know what he does there, but he’s around sometimes. I don’t know where, but he saw the two of us together, and he ran his mouth about you. I didn’t like it and told him to shut up.” I shrugged and looked away. “He’s gotten in my face before. The night I got into town, the two of us got into it. But the other night…when he started talking about you…he just doesn’t know when to shut up.”
She lifted her chin. “So, you hit him.”
“Yeah. I hit him. He went down, hard. I thought maybe he’d just stay down, but he didn’t. He got up and pulled out a knife. I told him he didn’t want to do that, but he came at me with it. He didn’t get me bad, and I was able to disarm him. Probably broke a couple of his fingers while I was at it. He got cut somewhere in the mess of it. I told him again he needed to back off, but he rushed me again. So, I let him have it. I busted his nose, knocked him around a bit more. Finally, the hurt started getting to him, and he backed off.”
Briar didn’t speak for the longest time.
Finally, she did, but it wasn’t anything directed at me.
She heaved out a heavy sigh and turned so that her back was to the narrow area of the doorway. As she closed her eyes, she muttered, “Shit.”
“That about sums up my thoughts on this whole mess.”
She laughed, but it was a sound without any real humor.
As she pushed off the wall and turned toward me, I watched her with trepidation. She came into the living room and sat on the ottoman in front of me, and I half-expected her to tell me to just get out.
Her gaze was solemn as she studied me.
“I’m a fighter, Briar,” I said, my tone challenging. “Fuck it all, not long after we first met, I ended up in your hospital because I’d been in a fight. And you knew I’d been in a fight the other day. Hell, I was in the emergency room looking for you just a few hours after it happened.”
“You used a knife on him, Cormac.”
“He pulled it on me first,” I snapped.
She rubbed her temples. “Do you have any idea how hard this is for me? I’m a doctor. I’m supposed to help people. You got pissed because some guy made a rude comment about me and you ended up breaking several ribs, his nose, a couple of fingers, and you cut him up. Any deeper and it would have done damage to his ureter or a kidney, and that would have been another surgery. And damn it.” She groaned and dropped her face into her hands. “I shouldn’t have said any of that. You totally interfere with my common sense. I can’t even seem to remember the rules of basic patient confidentiality with you around!”
She started to get up.
I caught her hips.
She gave me an annoyed look and tried to twist away.
I pulled her forward, and she tumbled into my lap. Pushing a hand into her hair, I fisted my fingers in the soft waves and tugged her head back. Her blue eyes flashed at me, but she didn’t try to pull away as I pressed a quick kiss to her mouth. “I can’t even think around you, much less remember rules of any kind. So I think we’re even.”
She turned her head aside. I didn’t let it bother me, directing my attention to the soft curve of her ear, catching the lobe between my teeth and tugging.
After a few seconds, she groaned and angled her head, giving me better access. I slid a hand up her thigh and was delighted to find the answer to an earlier question—she was completely bare under the nightshirt. My own t-shirt had ridden up, and at the touch of my hand on her bare skin, she arched forward, the warmth of her inner thighs brushing against the sides of my abdomen. She tried to pull back. “Your side…”
