by Holley Trent
“Good.” He trailed his fingertips over her parched lips, light as feathers. “I didn’t say it before because I was stupid. Wasn’t thinking. I’m not so good with words sometimes.”
She held a breath, and regretted it because doing so pulled at the edges of her wound. She cringed. “Say it.”
“Sarah, I…I love you. That doesn’t make all this better, but—”
She stilled his lips by pressing a kiss onto them.
He deepened it, twining his fingers through her matted hair and leaning his torso onto the bed until she croaked.
“Easy now,” Doc said.
He gave her a bit of space. Not much, but enough to get the pressure off her abdomen.
“I hate the thought of leaving you again.” He patted down the hair he’d molested. “Even for a day, but I have so many cold trails to pick up to find Fabian and…my father.”
“She’s the best at picking up cold trails,” Dana said matter-of-factly. “Even better than me, and I was a cop. If something is traceable, she’ll find it. She found you, right?”
“Yes, she did.” He smiled down at her like all of a sudden he’d become a very wealthy man—as if she were some sort of treasure.
She knew better. Treasure, she was not, but she liked being treated as one all the same.
Her cheeks burned with his scrutiny, and she felt like a teenaged fool for it. This man—this was her man, and here she was being bashful? Who the hell was the woman in the hospital bed, if not Sarah? Bashful had never been one of her temperatures.
“I’ll help you.” She tried to smirk, but the best she could manage was a twitching of her lips. “Even if it means I have to detach myself from the action for a while.”
“Might as well be a marriage proposal, coming from her,” Doc murmured.
“You go where I go,” he said. It came out sounding more like a question than a statement.
“Where you go.” She pressed her hands onto the backsides of his for a moment before letting her palms slip up to his wrists. She cinched them and drew his hands onto her lap, clearing her throat. “The other doctor said—”
She couldn’t get the words out, because Dana, who’d stepped out momentarily, returned with a duffel bag Sarah recognized as one of the Shrew emergency kits.
They’d been Sarah’s idea. Each Shrew kept one at each place they regularly frequented—the office, Patrick’s cabin, the Shrew vehicles, and so on. They usually contained some paper currency, a few changes of clothes, some toiletries, and a few other items a private detective would need if she were going to be away from home for an undetermined period of time.
Sarah let go of Felipe’s wrists and pushed herself more upright. “What’s that for?”
Dana unzipped the bag and held it up so Sarah could see her holster and primary weapons on top. Dana re-zipped it, then tossed the bag toward the lounger in the corner.
“You’re not going to be able to fly commercially with those weapons, so I arranged for you to take a seven a.m. chartered flight to Madrid out of Hartford. Going to be flying with a bunch of stuffy businessmen. Be nice. They’re clients. Are you feeling well enough to take your plane up there?”
Sarah’s jaw fell.
Felipe nudged it shut.
“Tonight? The doctor said they wanted to keep me for forty-eight hours.”
Doc scoffed. “Doctors don’t know what you are. I want to get you out of here before they draw any substantial amount of blood and order any tests beyond the usual. That IV isn’t doing you a damned bit of good, anyway. You’re metabolizing the painkillers too quickly, and they’re pretty weak ones to start with. Wonder why they gave you those.”
Sarah didn’t.
“I’ll give you something stronger that’ll take the edge off until your cell regeneration amps up.” She held out her hand and Sarah placed hers into it, backside up.
Doc slid the IV catheter out.
“Let me check that wound. If it’s clean, you’ll be okay, but a bit sore.”
Sarah pushed the top of the sheets down and shimmied up the bottom of her hospital gown. Anyone else probably would have felt embarrassed with all the sets of eyes on her, but Felipe had already seen everything she had. Doc was immune to it. Dana didn’t swing that way, and Patrick had turned his back.
Doc palpated the edges of her wound, making Sarah’s toes curl and her teeth grind.
“Did you perhaps forget your do no harm vow, Doc?”
Done, Doc let down Sarah’s hem. She walked briskly to the sink, scrubbed her hands, then set about opening cabinets and drawers, plucking out this and that.
Dana obviously understood the agenda, as she began stuffing Doc’s pilfered items into the duffel. Gauze, bandages, antibacterial spray.
“Get dressed,” Dana said, reaching for the covers.
Sarah held them tight, not wanting to let go. She wasn’t sure she wanted to leave the hospital, no matter what Doc said or what Dana ordered.
“Why? I thought you wanted me to get rest. This is as good a place as any. What’s the hurry?”
Felipe piped in. “Yes, what is the rush? Two days won’t make a difference chasing Fabian. Trail’s cold, and Mr. Tolvaj is in no condition to assist us.”
Doc walked over with some bandages and set them on the bedside. She put her hands on her hips, scowled at Felipe, and narrowed her eyes. “Lift your shirt. Let me see your wound.”
He blew out a breath and turned, lifting his shirt back. “It’s fine. It’ll heal just like my jaw. Not as fast as Sarah, probably, but fast.”
“That’s disgusting. What’d you do, roll around in the dirt?” Doc said, picking up a gauze pad and wiping some of the blood off the skin around the exit wound. Exit would. No entry wound.
By the time he’d rematerialized in front of Sarah, the bullet was already too close to her. He caught it in his side muscle near his back, not nearly enough of a barrier to slow the projectile’s passage.
“Would you have had me ask the people here to look at it? How would I explain having an exit wound, but no entry wound?” he asked Doc.
“Yeah, it was difficult enough to explain all the blood on the ground from the Visas who took off,” Dana said.
“You girls sure keep me on my toes,” Doc said, shaking her head so her red hair fell into her eyes. “Fair enough. Felipe, lie down next to Sarah and I’ll patch you up.”
“Someone’s coming,” Patrick announced. “I think it’s the nurse. I hear a cart rolling down the hall.”
As Sarah scooted over on the bed to make room for Felipe, Dana said, “I’ll divert whoever it is. Y’all hurry.”
Felipe sank onto the bed next to Sarah, and breathed out a shuddering exhale. He looked pale from blood loss, and probably other things.
Sarah rested a hand on his right shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
When the door clicked closed and Dana was out in the hallway, Sarah leaned over Felipe and whispered into Doc’s ear, “I’m worried.”
Doc stopped swabbing Felipe’s back and returned, “Why?”
“I found out earlier I was pregnant. Or…am. I don’t know. I guess my hormone levels are still high enough that the medical staff here seems to think so.”
Felipe tried to sit up.
Doc pushed him back down. “Saw that in the file and didn’t want to scare you. Thought it was a blood test flub because of your Shrew-ness.”
“Not scared.”
Doc beamed. “Well, congrats, honey.”
Sarah twisted the hem of her hospital gown between her hands and pointedly avoided Felipe’s stare. “Thanks. I just worry with where I was shot—”
“¿Por qué no me lo dijiste?” He mumbled into her side as Doc patted his wound.
Sarah ignored his question.
“It was pretty far from your center, but are you spotting?” Doc asked.
“No.”
“Cramping?”
“Can’t tell with the throbbing from the gunshot wound.”
“
Sarah, querida—”
“Shut it,” Doc told Felipe. She held a gauze pad against his back and poised sterile tape over it. “I can only manage one of you at once, and honestly, I’m overwhelmed.”
“You and me both,” Sarah mumbled. “Do you think it’s all right?”
“I’m a doctor. I don’t make hypotheses. I make diagnoses. All I can advise right now is to wait and see, and as soon as you get stable, have an ultrasound. You’re the first Shrew to get knocked up, so I don’t know how your body is going to treat it. Hopefully it won’t behave as if it’s a foreign object that needs expelling like it did with that bullet. Chart said they barely had to press it and it came out. They were probably gonna scan you later, but the truth is, all they could have done for you is take a wait-and-see approach, anyhow.”
Felipe pushed up to his elbows and gave Sarah a serious glower. “You would really keep that from me?”
“Felipe, I barely knew myself, and didn’t suspect anything until very recently. I don’t really have normal cycles anymore. This isn’t how I would have told you. I would have waited until I knew things were okay.”
Doc sighed and peeled off the gloves she’d been wearing. “I wish I could get you a bag of blood. Not a good time for you to be a couple of pints short.”
“What’s your blood type?” Felipe asked, and Sarah chuckled. He probably would give up some blood for Sarah…for his child.
“O-positive, but because of my mutations, I can’t take donations unless they’re my own, or Maria’s in a pinch. Learned that lesson the hard way.”
“When you get back, I’ll make sure to have a few bags of synthetic on hand just in case…not that Dana’s going to let you go back to work.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Dana asked, reentering the hospital room. She furrowed her forehead.
Patrick closed the door. “Not that I was eavesdropping at all, but being a Cat I can’t help but to hear things. I think you’re going to be a god-Shrew in seven, eight months.” He gave her a shit-eating grin.
Dana’s eyes went wide and her expression—usually schooled to unreadable blankness—went soft as she walked over to the bedside. She gripped Sarah’s right hand and said in a voice just above a whisper, “It’s possible? We can be mothers?”
Doc helped Felipe off the bed and tossed her gloves into a biohazard bin. “At least for Sarah, it’s possible.”
The glow of Dana’s face dimmed a bit, but Doc added, “I would advise caution, but I think it bodes well for all of you. If it’s possible for Sarah, it’s possible for you. It’s a learning experience for all of us, and I don’t know how invisible daddy’s DNA is gonna affect things.”
“Shouldn’t. Fabian and I couldn’t phase until we were around five. We were growing too much before then.” Felipe tossed his bloody shirt into the bin and accepted the plaid over-shirt Patrick took off his own back. As he buttoned it from the bottom up, he said, “We’ll do what it takes to make it work…even if it means I have to keep her on her back.”
Sarah sucked her teeth.
She expected Dana to jump in to her defense and even looked to her boss for reassurance, but Dana was giving Patrick that same anticipatory grin he’d been giving her before. No support there. She hadn’t known they’d been thinking about kids.
“I agree that you should take some time off, Sarah,” Doc advised.
Sarah pushed down the sheets and started to swing her legs over the bed’s edge. “I’m fine. I just need to keep moving. Activity will be good for me.”
Felipe stilled her by putting his palms atop her thighs and leaning in to press his face into the crook of her neck. “Careful, Shrew.”
“I agree with Doc,” Dana piped in. “I wanted you to take the time before, but I’m going to force you to do it now. You need the rest.”
Traitor.
Even thinking it, Felipe’s masculine scent and the warmth of his face against her skin calmed her.
She slumped a bit, wincing at the pull of her wound.
“You were exhausted before this bullshit with the circus went down, and we just piled even more onto you. I know you’re the kind of woman who doesn’t feel worth anything if she’s not busy—and I know how that feels, honey—but you’ve got to rest. Especially now. Take a couple of months paid leave and come back ready for light duty. Go fix up your house in the meantime.”
The rational part of Sarah’s brain knew it was what she needed. The irrational, hormone-driven part said she was being left out of the action.
She’d go soft. Be rendered obsolete.
But she had just said she’d go where Felipe went, hadn’t she? She’d meant it when she said it. It was just a hard thing for her to put into practice.
Dana squeezed her hand. “Honey, there are lots of things you can do for us that don’t involve you brandishing a gun or swinging a knife. I hate laying you low because I depend on you the most, but this is important. This means a lot to all of us.”
She was right, of course.
“Hey, go to Spain with Felipe and let him handle his business. See if he can find out what happened with his father. Take your time. Do some sightseeing.”
“Check in with me every day,” Doc interjected.
Dana continued, “I’ll put Astrid and Maria on Fabian’s trail in the meanwhile. I promise you we won’t let him slip through the cracks. When you’re back stateside, we’ll clear out the pub one night and have a big greasy meal, the whole lot of us.”
“Okay,” Sarah said, but knew her tone was unenthusiastic.
“And Felipe, when you’re back, I’d be honored to have you on my payroll. Any man who’d throw himself in front of a bullet for one of my girls is someone I want on my team. Patrick and I will figure out how to get you a legitimate visa.” She cringed. “A work visa. Not a shapeshifting Visa.”
Felipe nodded, and Sarah’s blood pressure cranked down a few ticks. At least with Felipe at the office, she’d know what the Shrews were up to.
“You two should get out of here before the press learns one of the people of interest from tonight’s drama is here,” Patrick said.
Sarah got the hint, and slipped off the bed’s edge. Dana handed her the sweat clothes she’d brought in with the duffel and followed Patrick and Doc out of the room while she dressed.
Felipe leaned his rear against the bed’s edge, watching her slip out of the hospital gown, eying her curves with that same lascivious expression that had gotten them into trouble in the first place.
“What?” she asked, stepping into the soft black pants.
“Is there a protocol for this?”
“For what?”
“Should I propose now or would it be more proper for me to ask your father’s permission first?”
She scoffed as she stuffed her feet into tennis shoes. “The only advice I’ve ever taken from my father was to prime my front door before painting it.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
She smiled and shrugged. “Maybe a little. But the truth is, we don’t have to get married.”
His face colored, a spectacular feat given his blood loss. “You don’t love me now?”
“Felipe, love’s got nothing to do with it. I never imagined myself married.”
“I love you.”
She stilled, rubbing her hand over the edge of the bed and studying the weave of the fabric for a moment. She knew that. Felt it. Witnessed it back at the RV park. He’d thrown himself in front of her even before he knew what was at stake. He hadn’t hesitated. He’d just acted as if there were no question in his mind that was his role to play. “I know.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and set his chin atop her shoulder.
She put her arms around him, too. “I can love you without marrying you. I don’t need one to have the other.”
He chuckled, the reverberation of his chest vibrating against her back. “I don’t want our dog to have a hyphenated last name…or our baby. I want you to be Señora Castillo. Official p
aperwork may not mean much to you, but it means everything to me.”
And it would. This was a man whose family had been destroyed. He wanted to cling tight to what he had. Maybe he was right. It was just a piece of paper to her, so why not let him have it?
“Señora Castillo, huh? Sounds aristocratic.”
He leaned back from her and winked. “Suits you, then. My mother had noble lineage. My father was just a tightrope walker she fell in love with. She married way down.” He chuckled.
“I sort of understand how that could happen.” Especially if he looked like Felipe and Fabian.
“Are you sure you’re not merely afraid for me to meet your family? Am I too low for you?”
“Not even a little bit.” She turned in his embrace so the fronts of their bodies pressed. She grazed her lips along the edge of his jaw and kissed it once before saying, “They’ll be pleased someone’s managed to stake me down. They might even give you a medal.”
They rocked, foot-to-foot, side-to-side for a moment. “Sounds good. Maybe it’d be a San Felipe medal. I want to replace that thing.”
“We’ll find it, I bet. Maybe one of the old Roma ladies picked it up.”
“Maybe. Are you ready to go? I hear you fly like you drive. Wild and reckless.”
“Just on takeoff, baby.”
“How are your landings?”
She winked and ducked from his embrace to grab her bag. “I always land exactly how I should.”
Whether or not he caught the metaphor, he laced his fingers through hers and pulled her to the door. Felipe held her hand as if he’d never let go…and Sarah hoped he wouldn’t.
The End
BRYAN’S BETRAYAL
If it weren’t for the plea of Bryan Ridge’s sister, the ladies of Shrew & Company would have happily left the missing Bear lieutenant on the run. They’re trying to extricate themselves from the Bear-Catamount conflict—not escalate it further. But when their investigator Tamara finds Bryan, he lays out a convincing case for them to partner up…and he wants her stay quiet about it.
Bryan intends to oust his Alpha and take the job for himself. Bryan wants to return the Bears back to their peacekeeper origins, and much to his chagrin, he can’t do it alone. Although Tamara and Bryan get on like fire and ice, she actually thinks his idea is a good one, but to complicate matters, proximity to Bryan negatively impacts Tamara’s health. The bear part of him wants to take her for a mate, and he has little choice but to call in the Shrews for assistance.
