Bad for Her

by Christi Barth

  His hands fisted on the exam table, making the paper crinkle. “You’re smarter than me, Doc. By a whole hell of a lot. I hoped that you’d be the smart one in this. That you’d keep us from getting too involved. Because . . . I can’t. I can’t resist you.”

  “Did you try?” Mollie sure had. She’d tried over and over again to talk herself out of it since they first started texting. To remind herself that no good could come of getting in deep, not just with this man but with any man. Even the red flags that bloomed last night while baking the cookies didn’t stop her heart from its unswerving tumble right into his hands.

  “Hell, yes. As soon as you told me that you wouldn’t have sex with me unless we could be friends, too. I saw it as a challenge. I don’t back down from a challenge. I’d make the friend thing and the sex happen. Then, despite my best intentions to protect you, things changed between us.”

  “Does that mean . . .”

  “Yeah.” His head came up. His eyes were practically black, they burned so deeply. “I’m fucking crazy about you.”

  It might be stupid, it might be reckless, it was definitely dangerous. That was the word. Falling for Rafe was dangerous in the extreme. But it was done. A fait accompli.

  Bunching her scrub top in his hand, Rafe pulled her down to meet his mouth. This kiss was as tender as the one he’d placed in her palm. The soft exploration of her lips felt like a sharing of his heart. Like he was trying to kiss these new feelings into her, rather than stumbling through any more words.

  Mollie didn’t need the words. She’d heard enough. And right now, she was feeling everything. The uncertainty rolling off of them about how to handle this mixed with the utter certainty that this was oh-so-right. Behind it all, the heat that seared down to her core every time they touched.

  She grabbed his biceps to steady herself . . . which was a smack to the medical part of her brain. Rafe was still her patient. Before things went any further, she needed to finish the procedure.

  Mollie pulled back. “Let me do one more very necessary and doctorly thing. Then you go home and we’ll pick this up tomorrow. Kellan stayed, right? He can take you?”

  “He should be out in the waiting room. If he knows what’s good for him.”

  “I’ll send a nurse for him when we’re done. He can walk you out, in case you get a little woozy when you stand up.”

  Rafe glowered at her. Dark and broody and dangerous. God, it was hot. “I don’t get woozy, Doc. I can handle anything you throw at me.”

  “Yes, you’re big and brave and strong. But you left a trail of blood two miles long between the garage and here. So humor me and let your almost as big and strong brother stick close to you.” She shoved up his sleeve and prepped his arm for the tetanus shot with another antiseptic wipe. And then her hand stilled.

  Rafe had a scar. A scar she hadn’t noticed the other night. They’d turned off the lights after the first time, to cut down on the chance of detection.

  This was a very big discovery. Because that scar was unmistakably from a gunshot wound.

  “What’s this?”

  “Hmm?” Rafe cranked his neck around to look. “Just an old scar.”

  “I can see that. I don’t need a specialty in plastic surgery to recognize a scar. What’s it from?” Because she needed to know. She needed to hear the truth.

  The truth about why and how her mechanic boyfriend whom she knew very little about got a GSW. Only four explanations came to mind. Three of which Mollie assumed he would’ve told her about right from the start. Either he’d been a police officer, a soldier, or a spy.

  Or, option number four and the one that explained his secretiveness?

  A criminal.

  “I got it from a nail gun.” Rafe reached over. Brushed his thumb back and forth as if to rub it away. “Flynn’s great with his hands. He built an addition to our old house. I surprised him one day, and pop! Hole in the arm.”

  She re-swabbed the scar. The unmistakable scar. “That’s not from a nail gun.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “That’s from a gunshot.” Mollie picked up the preloaded hypodermic from the tray. Despite her growing anger at his obfuscation, she still slid the needle into his skin as gently as possible. Pushing in the vaccine, she asked, “How’d you get shot?”

  “Don’t you think I’d know if I got shot?”

  Smart-ass. That was pretty much her point. She let the syringe clatter back to the tray. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Doc.” Rafe spoke much more slowly than usual. As if trying to add extra weight to each word. “It’s in the past.”

  “A past where people shot at you.” She slapped on the bandage. Ripped off her gloves and tossed them into the biohazard can. Mollie wished she could rip an answer out of him just as easily.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Tough.” He didn’t get a choice. Not anymore. Not after admitting that he cared. People who cared? Shared. Period. “I’m tired of you not telling me anything about yourself. I’m not asking for your computer password. Or your college transcripts. If you have any. Which I don’t know because you don’t talk about yourself.” Mollie took a deep breath. “Where exactly did this happen?”

  He pulled the denim shirt back onto his shoulder. Each motion was slow. Strained. Fighting for time, or fighting himself? Finally, he muttered, “Pittsburgh.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Rafe. Don’t disrespect all my years of medical training and think I don’t know exactly what I’m looking at. This is a gunshot wound, isn’t it?”

  Eyes scrunched shut, he nodded. “Yes.”

  “Were you in jail?”

  “No.”

  “Ever?” Because that brought up a whole host of medical complications, things that she deserved to know as his sexual partner.

  His eyelids popped back open. “No. Never. I swear.”

  “Tell me what happened. Tell me how you got this,” she demanded.

  The expression on his face wasn’t argumentative. No, the grooves around his eyes and mouth looked . . . sad? With a slow shake of his head, Rafe said, “I can’t.”

  Well, if he couldn’t, Mollie sure could. She could go digging. If she had to. But she’d far prefer the man who professed to care deeply about her to come clean on his own.

  “Everything’s electronic now. I can do a search of every hospital in Pittsburgh until I find your admittance record with a couple of clicks of the mouse. GSWs have their own protocol. Police have to be notified. Is that how low you want me to stoop to find out what the heck happened to you? Something that you should be willing to tell me of your own accord? Because you know I care and want to know all about you?”

  Rafe pushed up to his feet. He fastened one button on his shirt, right in the middle. Then he stood in silence for a minute. Looking at her, no, staring at her with an intensity that was tangible.

  Finally, he said, “Look all you want. You won’t find anything about me.”

  He walked out of the exam room without another word. Let alone any hint of an explanation.

  This was why Mollie had been worried about having a real relationship.

  Had he really just walked out on her?

  Chapter 18

  Maguire living room, 7:00 p.m.

  Mood in the room—too fucking jittery. Everyone.

  Rafe did go home and take a nap. He was stubborn, but not dumb. He’d seen how much blood he left on his shirt, three towels, and a ton of gauze. So he drank two bottles of water first, hit the sheets for an hour to let the pain meds do their thing, and figured that was enough treatment for his injury.

  Except that the moment he came out of the bedroom, Flynn started taunting him. Bobbing and weaving around him like they were in the ring. Rafe had to employ some serious Matrix moves to avoid Flynn’s air jabs.

  “I can’t believe you got stabbed by a kid.”

  “I didn’t.” Another fast lean to the left to avoid an uppercut that Flynn pulled at the las
t second. His brother had incredible control. That’s what led him to win so many MMA fights. But being on the receiving end of a fist that looked like it was coming at him at Mach 4? Yeah, Rafe flinched. Every time. Because, again, not stupid.

  “Oh, that’s right.” Fancy footwork had him circling Rafe, the scarred wooden coffee table, and side-stepping a pile of shoes and earbuds. “You stabbed yourself. Thanks to a kid. Not with a knife, not even on purpose. You’ve lost your edge, Rafe.”

  “Shut the fuck up with that.”

  After a feint to his face, Flynn did land a soft thump on Rafe’s belly. “Remember that fight with Sean Sullivan’s crew? When they tried to horn in on McGinty territory three years ago? Sean had two knives and brass knuckles, and you walked away without a scrape.”

  Not his proudest fighting moment, though. And about as difficult as a cooldown stretch after a run. “Sean Sullivan fights like a baby. He wouldn’t know an offensive move if it came up and gave him a hand job.”

  From the kitchen, Kellan laughed. He was in there on attempt number toodamnmanytocount of making the food they missed most from Chicago. All these months, and his deep-dish pizza was still either a slime pit of grease or a concrete block. Maybe Rafe’s injury was a good enough excuse to beg off eating whatever it turned out to be.

  Flynn got his arm around Rafe’s neck long enough to grind his knuckles into the top of his head. “Jesse got you to stab yourself with . . . what the hell was that thing?”

  “You use a hook and pick to disconnect electrical connectors in cars.” And you use your own center of gravity to bend at the waist, flip your idiot brother over your head, and slam him into the floor. Good thing his numbing medicine hadn’t worn off yet. “Enough.”

  Flynn heaved for a minute. Rafe must’ve knocked the wind out of him but he felt zero guilt. It served him right. Finally, he said, “Hey, it’s my job to make fun of you, bring you down a peg. Especially when you make it so easy.”

  “Fun’s over.” Yeah, it was nice to act like normal brothers again. But tonight was not the night to be normal. Was their good mood relief? Since the last time they saw Rafe he’d been spurting blood? “Christ, it’s hotter in here than the salsa at Los Camales. Flynn, open all the windows.”

  “Sorry. That’s my fault.” Kellan opened the back door while Flynn popped the front one and all the windows in the living room. “I’ve got the oven on, and, well, the sun finally came out. Who knew this state even had a real summer?”

  “Who knew this house wouldn’t have an air conditioner?” Flynn grumbled.

  “The house is free. No bitching. If you want some A/C, earn bigger tips and buy one.” Then Rafe remembered it was still Saturday night. “Shouldn’t you be at the Gorse?”

  “I told them I had to take care of my dumb brother who got taken to the ER.”

  Rafe hunched over, clapping a hand to his thick padding of gauze. “This is how you take care of me?”

  “You’re fine.” Flynn made a big show of ushering Rafe back to the plaid recliner. Then he took extra care to gently push it back so the footrest was up. “I really took the night off so we could have a war council.”

  “Don’t call it that.” The words snapped out of Rafe like a whip.

  “Why not? We always used to.”

  Rafe—and the marshal, for that matter—must’ve gone over this problem dozens of times with Flynn and Kellan. Yet for some reason, it still wasn’t sinking in with them. Not all the way, which was dangerous as hell.

  But between stabbing himself and the fight with Mollie, Rafe knew he was on the edge. Ready to go ballistic over something as small as a half-twisted-around sock. So he made an effort not to yell. Or swear. Or at least not both at the same time.

  “That’s exactly why not. We always used to. That organization, that way of life? They’re gone. Over. Nothing from our old lives can cross over and taint our new ones. Especially nothing to do with the mob.”

  Kellan banged a spoon against the counter. “Except for my perfect replication of the Lou Malnati’s Chicago Classic pie with extra cheese.”

  If only. “News flash. You don’t need mob ties to get good pizza. If you end up making a good one—someday—we’ll call it the Maguire Classic.”

  “Sorry.” Flynn brought over an uncapped bottle of beer that was guaranteed to be from an Oregon microbrewery. He’d taken Rafe’s order to heart to keep drinking their way through local brews until they found something they liked. And if he treasured his life, it’d be an IPA and not any of that fruit-flavored crap. “That was a slipup. Habit. Not on purpose. I stayed home so we could talk about the blackmail letter that came in the mail today.”

  “Oh, that’s much better. Blackmail doesn’t make me immediately think of the mob at all.” Kellan’s sarcasm was thicker than the neck of a Bears linebacker.

  “Ordinary people do it every day.” Rafe waved his beer toward the big-ass plasma screen TV in the corner. They may be on the run, but they were still men and they had standards. Needs. “David Letterman was blackmailed. By a guy who was sleeping with one of his mistresses. No mob ties at all.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He admitted it on his show. A long time ago. When you weren’t allowed to stay up late enough to watch it.” Rafe loved rubbing it in that Kellan was the youngest. For some reason, it set him off like nothing else. Even though there was jack shit he could do about it.

  “Hard to have a conversation about the mob threatening us without mentioning, you know, ‘the mob.’” Kellan made air quotes with his fingers.

  Damn it. He had a point. “Fine. For tonight, and only tonight, we’ll ignore the rule. We’ll name names, come up with theories, and make an action plan.” Rafe pointed at Flynn. “Start your damned war council.”

  Flynn jabbed his fingers through hair that looked like he’d been doing that all night. He paced along the braided rag rug behind the sofa. “Theory number one. McGinty wants us dead. This is a way to draw us out. Make us go someplace private to drop off the blackmail money. Next thing you know, we’re six feet under or in the trunk of a car on our way to being six feet under.”

  Yeah. That’d been Rafe’s first theory, too. “They know we’d put up a hell of a fight. But with a silencer, and more than one person, they could do us right here in the house. Or get us out of the house at gunpoint and into a trunk. No need for a blackmail scheme.”

  “I’m going to remind you again that we’re not necessarily talking about the sharpest tools in the shed,” Kellan said.

  “Is that a dig at Rafe impaling himself on a sharp tool? Nice.” Flynn expanded his pacing to high-five his little brother across the counter.

  “It wasn’t intended to be. But it can pull double duty.”

  His brothers were a laugh riot. Rafe was so glad he’d turned his life inside out to keep them safe. “I don’t think this theory works. It’s more complicated than it needs to be.”

  The pause followed by a sharp nod showed that Flynn agreed. “Okay—on to theory number two. Someone on McGinty’s crew knows we stole the money. Correction. All of McGinty’s crew knows we stole the money.”

  Kellan dropped something into the sink with a clatter. He was in the living room in a handful of long strides. “Stole what money?”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. Rafe leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his head fall into his hands. The leg rest snapped back under with a bang. “That was a secret,” he ground out between gritted teeth.

  Or it was supposed to be, anyway. That was something he and Flynn had agreed on before they let the marshals pick up Kellan.

  Here he’d thought his fight with Mollie would be the worst part of the day. And it still was—by a slim margin. Because there was no way his nine-tenths-of-the-way-to-a-lawyer brother would let that sentence slide by without one hell of a fight.

  A hot flush spread up Flynn’s neck. The kind he got when he was good and mad. Instead of apologizing, he crossed his arms. “It was a secr
et. Doesn’t mean it still should be.”

  Rafe shoved up to his feet. And was rewarded with the zing of pain that Mollie had promised would kick in by now. Everything about this night was in the shitter. “You swore to me, on Mom’s grave, that it’d stay between just the two of us.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re all in this together, aren’t we? The three of us against the world? Kellan deserves to know. What if something happens to you and me? He needs to know he’s got a backup plan.”

  “What. Did. You. Steal?”

  Shit. The cat was definitely out of the bag. Kellan would keep pestering them for details until his dying day. He had a way of picking and arguing a thing to death. It would’ve made him a magnificent lawyer. It sure made him a royal pain in the ass of a brother, though.

  Rafe met that glacial blue stare head-on. “We—me and Flynn—took some of McGinty’s money. Right before we all went into protective custody.”

  “How much?”

  A lot. “Enough. Enough to make that lying cocksucker who planned to throw Flynn in a cell to cover up his own fuck-ups squirm and hurt.”

  Strangely, Kellan looked pleased. “Doesn’t that mean we could pay off the blackmailer? You have the hundred grand he’s asking for?”

  Rafe almost laughed. A hundred grand was nothing. They’d grabbed close to two million, but that was a conversation for another day. Since the amount was sure to send Kellan into a raging fit about right and wrong and ethics and a hundred things that just didn’t fucking apply to the hand they’d been dealt.

  Flynn finally found the balls to put in his two cents. “We don’t have any of it, K. It’s hidden. Back in Chicago.”

  “Don’t you think that explains why we’re being blackmailed? And by whom?”

  “No.” When Rafe walked out of the hospital, he couldn’t suck in a full breath. It hurt too much to think about what had gone down with Mollie to even breathe. To think about the disappointment on her face, the shock. The pain he’d put there. So Rafe had shoved thoughts of her down and basically spent his whole time in bed going over the possibilities. And he’d come up with the answer. “I don’t think this was sent by anyone to do with McGinty.”