Because I’m an idiot.
An idiot who messed with the doc—the only person he’d found to help him—and then took off. Not, of course, because he didn’t want her, but because he had shit for brains.
Because she scares you.
“Yeah. Let’s do this, Sheriff,” he said, pushing memories from the past few nights before from his mind. He’d figure it out later.
“Steve,” said the sheriff.
“Steve. Okay. I’m…Andrew.”
Today, the gym was nearly empty, which was a relief, since he hadn’t really loved having an audience.
“All right, Andrew. Ready for another challenge from the man who claims he doesn’t know how to fight. You say you’re not military…” He squinted at Clay, who felt suddenly naked. “That’s okay. I still got some moves. Little guy like me can still kick your monster ass, don’t worry.”
“Oh, great,” Clay said, faking annoyance but actually pretty revved.
On the mat, he let Steve get a couple of hits in: nothing big, but enough to rattle his brain in his skull and wake him up. It felt great to let loose, despite his aching leg and stiff back. He ignored those and just let his body go.
After a few rounds, though, he forgot to hold back, allowing his instincts to kick in and letting them lead, twisting into the counters rather than fighting against them. He had too much on his mind. That woman who’d torn him up and turned him inside out. The shit back in Baltimore, the goddamned bikes he heard revving outside every single night. The bikes weren’t real. They were in his head. When he lived in his body like this, just moved and let go and went with the flow, he could pretend none of it was real.
At one point, Steve came at him with an uncharacteristically blunt attack, open-handed, almost too obvious, and Clay went for it. Quick slide to the side, hand over his opponent’s wrist, into his body, forward propulsion, roll, then Steve’s head between his thighs. All fast, lightning fast, and oh shit… Steve slapped out.
“No, sir. No way,” the man said between tight lips before stepping out of the ring. “In the back, Blane, now.”
Clay hesitated. What the hell?
“In my office,” Steve ordered. He might be little, but he was bossy as shit, and Clay followed wordlessly.
By the time the door closed behind him, he knew he’d been wrong to follow the sheriff back here.
“Who the hell are you?” Steve asked, voice quiet and hard, eyes slitted on Clay’s face.
“Andrew Blane.”
“The hell you are, son. Ain’t no goddamned bricklayer or whatever the hell Andrew Blane does for a livin’.” Steve was breathing hard now, his nostrils wide. “I’m asking one more time. Where the hell’d you learn to fight like that?”
“Here and there,” Clay said, forcing nonchalance as the noose tightened around his neck.
“Yeah? You show up in my peaceful town, claim you ain’t never done a real fight, and then pull out that Krav fuckin’ Maga shit?” All five foot ten of the guy stood up to Clay, in his face, finger poking his chest, and ire focused fully at him. “Who. The fuck. Are you?”
Was it so wrong, in that moment, that Clay wanted to tell him everything? Wrong, maybe, but definitely not surprising.
“I can’t say. Sir.”
“Why Blackwood? There somethin’ goin’ down here that I should know about?”
Clay shook his head, swiped a hand across his face, sighed. “Got nothing to do with Blackwood.”
“Anybody here I need to take a look at?”
“Me?” Clay said with a halfhearted chuckle.
“Right you are, son. If you aren’t military, then you’re a cop, and I want to know what you’re doing in my town.” The air whooshed out of Clay, leaving him stretched out and empty. “Try to fool me? I know law enforcement when I see it, even with that crap tattooed on your skin. You are no civilian, innocent or otherwise. Spotted you a goddamned mile and a half away.”
“Yeah?” Clay asked with a tight smirk. “Never happened to me before.”
“What, that you got made?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Look. I’m just here to hole up till trial. I don’t want any trouble.”
“That makes two of us.”
“You want me to leave?”
“What, Blackwood or the gym?”
“Either. Both?”
Steve stepped away from Clay, shook himself like a dog, and looked him hard in the eye.
“You swear you’re on the right side of whatever it is you’re running from?”
Clay stiffened and nodded, hard. “Yes, sir. I swear.”
Finally, the older man sighed, running one knobby hand over his cropped, salt-and-pepper hair.
“You… This town… It’s real quiet, you understand? We do accidents on the highway, break up some tussles. Nothing big if we can help it. I’m short a couple of deputies right now. I don’t have the manpower to handle whatever trouble you’re dragging behind you. Please tell me I’m not about to face Armageddon in my backyard. Because it’s too close to my goddamned retirement to have you mess this up now, you got it?”
“Yessir.”
“I don’t care who you are, where you come from. This is a quiet town. Hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Good. Now get your ass back out there and walk me through those moves.”
* * *
When the knocking started that evening, George knew it was him. Tamping down the swell of excitement that tried to sneak up her throat, she didn’t straighten her clothing or shake out her hair as she walked to the waiting room, slow, calm, and collected, then to the clinic door.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he stepped in. “Again. I’m sorry again.”
“It’s fine.”
“I want…” She watched, fascinated, as his Adam’s apple bobbed, covered in an extra day of growth. He hadn’t shaved in a while. “I haven’t been in this position before.”
“What position?”
“Where I…where I need someone’s help.”
She raised her brows and waited, the hurt she’d felt the night before raising its ugly head and wanting him to suffer just a little.
“Will you be my doctor again?”
“Of course,” she responded, although she’d pictured this. For two days, she’d imagined him coming in and begging. She’d wanted that, wanted the begging and pleading, and in that silly, little-girl fantasy, she’d pictured herself turning away with a tight, little smile to jot down a referral. “Let’s go.”
He hesitated, but rather than wait, George led him into the back, ignoring how bad his limp sounded today, set him up in a different room from last time, and avoided letting herself be too aware of his eyes on her. “What are we doing tonight?” she asked.
“Try the back again?”
“Fine.”
“We’ll, uh…we’ll forego the numbing cream, if you—”
“Right.” She nodded. “No cream.”
He slid onto his front, and George ignored her body’s reactions to the sight of him—the muscles: bigger, stronger, more sensual-looking than anything she’d seen on another human being. The tightening of skin over bones, the oh-so-human prickle of goose bumps in the cool office air.
George switched the machine on and watched his body tense, waiting for his reaction. She approached, non-laser-wielding hand held safely behind her back. No chance for an intimacy that hurt way too much.
“Ready?”
He nodded. “Go ahead.”
George leaned in to guide the laser over his neck, and when his body jolted, she forced her sympathetic reaction down. It hurt. It burned. He’d get over it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his arm tense; his hand, clasped into a fist, shook—all that strength serving nothing but panic, anxiety. Fist squee
zed behind her back, she paused.
“Should I stop?”
“No. Got to get it done.”
She leaned in, watching him tighten up again, and before she’d actually made up her mind to touch him, before she’d allowed herself to consider the ramifications, her free hand landed on his shoulder, his head, then back to his shoulder in a soothing caress, the shock of their chemistry buzzing harder than the laser in her hand. Stupid. Stupid.
This time, as she worked, she felt the stress in his body through his skin, and she tried, hard as she could, to soak it up, pull it in, take it from him. Even though he’d hurt her, she wanted him to hurt less. Yep, stupid.
“Okay. Neck’s done. For now, of course.” She stepped away. “Think you can handle the back?”
He nodded, and she focused on a shoulder blade.
“George…could you…could you put your hand on me again?” he asked, his effort audible in the gravelly strain of his voice. “Please?”
At those words, she lost every last ounce of resentment. Every stored up grain of hurt at him leaving the other night poured out of her, and with a big expulsion of breath, she put her palm on his arm, squeezed, leaned in, and finished the job.
They were done in less than half an hour, and after spreading a thick layer of petroleum jelly over his back in a sad, quick parody of the last time, George left the room to let him pull on his shirt and get himself together again.
Get herself together again.
When, a few minutes later, she emerged from her office, purse in hand, he stood waiting in the hall, big and beautiful and wounded. How strange, after all of it—the back thing, the dinner, the leaving, his pleading—to see him as this intimidating monster again, ugly lines and scars marring what would have been quite the canvas. This man…he was a tragedy of a human being, whose bark was so much worse than his bite, and loathe though she was to admit it, his bite was something she wouldn’t have minded feeling right then.
Crap, how had this happened? How could she let herself feel so much for this person? And not with her usual clinical empathy, but…
“Walk you to your car.”
“You don’t need to.”
Ignoring her, Andrew followed her as she turned off lights.
He opened the door, letting them out onto the sidewalk. George locked up, then turned and stopped.
It was a taut moment, that second when her eyes landed on his and she saw desire there, raw and painful.
He wants me, she thought with a sad sort of elation.
Overhead, the light buzzed with insects, their drone a comfort to her, their tap-tap-tapping on the glass globe a welcome sound. Somewhere, a car drove by, a shout sailed down from the direction of the Nook, a train whistle blew, and beyond all of that, the usual nighttime hum of life had expanded, bigger than usual, with the overwhelming and beautiful swell of the cicadas’ song.
They moved along the sidewalk, into the street to her car. His was nowhere to be seen. “Need a ride?” she asked, ignoring his sigh at her unlocked car.
“I’m good,” he said, but something didn’t ring true. He didn’t seem good at all. His limp, for one thing, looked like it hurt.
“You sure?”
“Guess I won’t need to come in to see you for a while.”
“Right,” she said, saddened at the thought and relieved too. “Give me a call in a few weeks, and we’ll set you up to come back in.”
He nodded. “Night, George. And…thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Andrew,” she said, letting him close the car door. She hesitated before rolling down the window and saying the thing she’d been thinking all night. “If you need anything…help or—”
“I’m fine, Doc. Thanks.”
She cleared her throat again and went on, watching his face, girding herself for his response. “Your back. The uh…the tattoo. I looked it up, and the Sultans are no—”
Her car door swung back open. He ducked down, in her face, looming over her body faster than she’d imagined possible. “How do you know about that?” he demanded.
“Online,” she stammered, her breath coming fast, too fast, and her throat tight with anxiety. “I looked up the image on your back.”
“Don’t. Ever. Say that word again. Ever. To anybody.” His grip on her shoulder was tight, the urgency in his voice frightening. “You understand?”
George nodded and whispered, “Yes,” before he let her go. “I’m sorry.”
“That part of your job? To look me up?”
“N-no. Of course not.”
“Well, don’t do it again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not safe, George. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
A firm nod, and still he didn’t quite release her arm, not before giving her an odd stroke, as if to smooth away the pain of his hold.
“Six weeks?”
“Maybe sooner.”
“A month,” he said with finality before stepping away and breaking her heart just a little.
She felt him watching as she started the car and drove off at her usual sedate twenty-five miles an hour toward home, wanting so badly to go faster. Or, no, not faster. Not fast at all. She wanted to throw the car into reverse and back all the way up to where he still stood in the dark street and make him get in. Make him stay with her—although she wasn’t sure if it was for his protection or hers.
* * *
She knows about the Sultans.
Of course she did. The doc was a smart woman, and he was a fool for thinking she wouldn’t take an interest.
He should go. He should leave this place, hole up somewhere else.
Tomorrow. Right now, he needed to think. And when thinking didn’t work, he opted for the woods across the street from the doctor’s place, vodka bottle in hand.
Just enough to smooth the edges and dull the regret as he sat down, back to a tree, and watched her do her regular things. Her beautiful, healthy, perfect-life things.
Slugging back the vodka, he could watch, through narrowed eyes, and almost picture himself in there. Picture ending the other night on a different note—one where he’d stayed instead of taking off like an asshole. His belly hurt, empty of food, full of booze, and lined with acid. Up for a piss, not too far from the seat of his vigil, then back to stand guard. Empty bottle. Fuck.
He threw it against a tree, wanting a loud smash, hoping it would wake her up, and she’d come out to find him and take him in. But the stupid bottle thumped almost silently to the ground, and Clay slumped against the cool bark and let his eyes close.
His head was filled with popping, bright and real, followed by screams, the screams of friends, brothers, men he’d sworn to die with—and for.
Burning flesh and hair, sweet and sickly, acrid. Adrenaline hitting him like a dose of methamphetamines, hot in his blood, a rush like nothing else—and then instinct kicked in. Only, this time it wasn’t a lawman’s instinct to protect the innocent. It was a Sultan’s instinct to fight off the attacker—to avenge and carry out atrocities of his own. Bloodlust. Fucking overwhelming, murderous need had him picking up a beer bottle and smashing it, over and over on some fucker’s head, watching the blood coating him and wanting more, more, more.
Later, on Ape’s table, the buzz of the man’s tattoo machine, putting letters into his side. Sultans for Life, those letters had said, and with that tattoo, Clay had sworn to kill for his club. And that night, he’d meant it.
On a cry that was bone-deep remorse and shame and a vestigial curl of allegiance to a cause he was supposed to abhor, Clay woke up on the forest floor, steeped in the stench of booze and blood and stinking sweat, with something tickling his back and a crick in his neck.
He didn’t want to think of it. He didn’t want to relive the day he’d lost his shit, his mind, and any sense of right and wrong, bu
t in his sleep, he was powerless to stop the memory.
It was a couple of months after the lie detector test and being patched in that the Sultans were attacked by a rival club—the Raising Canes. Just a regular night at the Hangover: a bunch of guys playing pool, a crew out back kicking the shit out of each other for the fun of it, grunts from the bathroom, and Ape in back wreaking havoc with his needle on some poor fucker’s skin.
Outside, there’d been a scream like something out of a horror movie, and the front door had blown in on a hazy gust of smoke and flames, surprising the fuck out of the Sultans and dragging them into a firefight of epic proportions.
The worst part had been Clay’s reaction—his visceral desire to kill. The instinct to protect his brothers. It had been so strong, he’d finished off the night getting that Sultans tat inked into his side. Meaning it, deep to his core.
Months later, long after the smoke had cleared and the big players had been indicted, Clay had taken an iron to that piece of skin. And only then had he felt even the slightest bit of absolution.
But not really, he knew, staring at the doctor’s quiet house in the middle of the night. Not really.
* * *
“Virginia?” Ape said into the phone.
After a pause, the voice answered, “Yeah. I think so.”
“If you’re pullin’ my chain, I swear to God, I’ll kill ’em all. Every last one of your—”
“No, no, I promise. I swear on the life of…” Ape could hear the heavy breathing, could smell the nerves through the phone line. “On my life, I swear that’s where he is.”
Hanging up, Ape shoved the phone into his pocket and looked at the stars above his head. Virginia wasn’t so far away that they couldn’t get there tomorrow. They’d find the asshole eventually.
Ape smiled. With those fucking tats, Ape had turned Indian into a fucking bull’s-eye, hadn’t he? It sure did make him happy.
Goddamn, I’m smart.
12
Sore and painfully sober now, Clay spent the early morning hours scouring the town of Blackwood for Sultans and finding nothing. Nothing still.
He remembered the shrink had listed hypervigilance as one of the many possible symptoms of PTSD.
By Her Touch Page 18
