The big man knelt down next to Spencer, shielding him from the other occupants in the room. Spencer didn’t bother moving. He had no wants, fears, or expectations. He didn’t care what was happening around him. When he’d fallen, something had burst inside. Finally, he was getting his dearest wish since Heartland’s attack. Spencer was going to die.
“Oh fuck no. I didn’t just find you for you to check out on me.”
Hard, muscled arms gently lifted Spencer up and held him close. Musky man mixed with Old Spice filled the air around Spencer. It was too bad the man was too late.
Chapter Four
If Ruger lived to be a hundred years old, he would never forget Spencer’s hoarse, weak screams coming from inside of the huge house as the team surrounded it.
Ruger figured the house had been built around the turn of the century, with its huge wraparound porches on the first and second floors and the thin wood siding.
The thick wooden back door had caved and splintered under his anger and urgency to get to Spencer. The anger coursing through his veins became deadly when the balding, fat man dropped Spencer to the floor before stepping over and standing in front of the helpless man. Spencer’s body had started twitching. Ruger saw damp tendrils of hair clinging to his sweaty face. A black patch covered one eye. The other eye was rolled up, showing only white.
Intent on getting to Spencer, Ruger didn’t bother snapping the man’s neck and just threw him to the side before picking Spencer up. Spencer’s body went limp in Ruger’s arms.
“Oh fuck no. I didn’t just find you for you to check out on me,” Ruger said.
Rage and frustration always turned his demeanor icy. Many people lost their lives when Ruger’s persona became as cold as the metal of one of his weapons.
A hand rested on Ruger’s shoulder, and if he hadn’t been holding Spencer in his arms the person attached to that hand would be laid out on the floor.
“An ambulance is on its way,” Tony said. “We’ll all stay at the hospital while Shane deals with the local police.”
Ruger looked down at Spencer enveloped against his chest. He was out cold, and his face was gray with a yellow tinge. That told Ruger that something was going on with Spencer’s liver. A shiny sheen of sweat coated the poor man’s skin, and tremors started racking his body. Relief swept through Ruger as the sound of sirens came closer. He knew Spencer needed emergency medical attention.
Gabriel burst through the front door and hurried to Ruger. “Oh shit, I don’t suppose you’d consider laying him on the floor so I can try and do something to help him?”
“What can you do?” Ruger asked.
Gabriel put laid two fingers against the side of Spencer’s neck. He lifted Spencer’s eyelid for a moment before letting in slide shut. “I don’t see any blood, and he’s breathing well. At this point trying to keep him warm so he doesn’t shock out is the most important thing we can do for him,” Gabriel answered.
“Find a blanket. Otherwise, he’s getting heat from my body,” Ruger stated. That was about as cooperative as he was going to be. He didn’t plan on letting go of Spencer until he had too.
Blaring sirens and squealing tires accompanied the police vehicles and ambulance sliding to a stop in front of the house.
Ruger tried not to jar Spencer as he carried him outside to the ambulance. “Open the back up and I’ll lift him in there for you,” he said.1
The EMS tech frowned but opened the double doors. Once Ruger had Spencer on the gurney, he settled back out of the way on the hard metal side bench.
“Sir, you need to leave and let us work on him,” the tech said while pulling a blood pressure cuff out of a drawer.
“I’m not stopping you, and I’m not leaving,” Ruger stated. He knew he was a dangerous looking man, and at the moment, he wasn’t above using that to his advantage. Not saying anything, Ruger stared hard at the man until he turned away and began putting the cuff on Spencer’s arm.
“Are you set back there?” the ambulance driver called out.
“You better use lights and sirens, Matt,” the man working on Spencer said.
“Got it,” the driver said.
Ruger kept his composure, even if the underlying conversation between the two men told him Spencer was in bad shape. As long as they used all of their skills to help Spencer, Ruger wouldn’t interfere. Heaven help them if they didn’t.
As the ambulance pulled away from the curb and started down the street, Ruger held on tight to the metal seat while he braced his legs against the rough ride. The heavy vehicle road like an army tank, which, he knew from experience, had no shock absorbers. He endured the screaming sirens and the urgency in the tech’s voice as he discussed Spencer’s condition with a doctor through a radio. By the time the bumpy ride ended, and they rolled up to the hospital, Spencer had an IV in each arm, and Ruger’s frustration at being helpless was mounting.
Ruger shadowed the gurney holding his precious cargo down a short hall and through a set of doors marked Hospital Personnel Only. He never hesitated and followed.
“I’m sorry, sir. You can’t be here.” A blond lady put her hand on Ruger’s arm. He looked down at the tag attached to her ample bosom that read, Amy Fielding, RN.
“I’m not leaving,” he stated. With the lady still hanging on his arm, Ruger stepped into a room filled with shouting doctors and nurses scurrying around Spencer.
“Sir, you need to go out and wait in the family room,” the persistent woman said, taking Ruger’s attention momentarily away from Spencer.
“I’m his bodyguard,” Ruger said, and he walked over to a chair in the corner and sat down. The nurse was still attached to his arm, and he was starting to get irritated. “Look, lady, someone drugged this man out of his mind and kidnaped him from this hospital. That won’t happen again.” Ruger looked straight into the woman’s eyes. “Now back off.”
Nurse Amy snatched her hands away. “Well, um, I’ll have to check with the doctor in charge. This is highly unusual.”
Ruger watched the woman leave the room as fast as her little legs could carry her. Turning back to the drama across the room, he forgot her existence and watched the frantic battle to save Spencer’s life.
* * * *
Spencer opened his eye and looked over to the corner of the room. Yep, he was still there. It had become a ritual. No matter how many drugs were thrumming through his system, when he became halfway aware of his surroundings, he looked for the dark, deadly man in the corner with a toothpick in his mouth.
Today things were the clearest they’d ever been, and Spencer wondered what his true memories were and what were crazy dreams.
“How long?” Spencer asked. He thought he’d asked that question more than a few times since he’d been here, but he couldn’t be sure.
“That cup on the table next to you has water in it. Take a drink,” the man ordered.
The dry, scratchy soreness in Spencer’s throat eased as the water slid down. Using his free hand, he touched the edge of the table before setting the plastic cup onto it. He was getting used to always gently touching the tip of his finger to whatever he wanted before trying to pick it up. Knocking things over sucked.
Spencer looked back at the man and waited for his answer.
“This time you’ve been here about two weeks.”
Spencer rolled that around his foggy brain while he watched the man watch him. The first time he’d noticed someone sitting in the corner Spencer thought he was hallucinating. Then he decided he was seeing a ghost.
One time Spencer awoke to Shane Miller in the room talking to the man. That ended his theory of ghosts of times past. Now Spencer had the scary job of finding out who this guy was. He looked like an older, harder version of the only man who’d ever had a place in Spencer’s heart. Would it crush Spencer if he weren’t the same man? What did it mean if he was? As usual he didn’t have any answers.
“Was Terry real?” he asked.
Dark, slashing eyebrows lowered int
o a frown over hard black eyes. One of the eyebrows was bisected at an angle by a white scar, making the man look sinister. The short black beard didn’t hide how the man’s lips pressed together into a thin line of irritation after he took the toothpick out of his mouth. Spencer waited to feel a shiver of fear at being the recipient of such a deadly man’s displeasure but didn’t. For some reason, this man represented safety to Spencer.
The man’s black eyes never wavered in their frigid stare. “Yes.”
Okay, Mr. Deadly didn’t like him mentioning Terry. Well, too bad. For the first time in a long time, Spencer cared enough to want answers. And he decided he would revisit the whys of his sudden caring later, much later.
“Why am I here?” Spencer knew he was jumping around, but he couldn’t keep his mind settled on one subject.
The man’s eyes widened a hair, and one nostril flared just a bit. Others might not have caught it, but those subtle changes of expression told Spencer that the man was furious.
“You developed an infection from your prior injuries. It spread to your internal organs. Your liver and kidneys couldn’t combat it and started shutting down. When that bastard dumped you onto the floor, the tissues tore, releasing even more infection and putting you into shock.”
“How bad am I messed up?” Spencer asked.
“You’ll heal in time,” the guy answered.
A small smile graced those thin lips, and Spencer felt warm inside. That dark gaze lowered, and Spencer glanced down and saw he was pinching the soft blanket covering him.
Releasing the now puckered material, Spencer figured he had nothing to lose and asked, “Why are you here?”
“I assisted Rescue for Hire in finding you,” the man said.
Spencer wasn’t sure he’d needed rescuing. Maybe he had and hadn’t realized it. His fingers bit into the blanket again.
“But why are you here in my room?” he persisted.
“I’ve decided your days of getting kidnaped are over, and I’m making sure you stay where you’re supposed to be.”
Spencer felt his eye widen. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Spencer didn’t even know him. Did he?
“What’s your name?” Thick anticipation and fear rose into his throat, cutting off his breathing.
“Ruger Black.”
Spencer’s heart stuttered, and a sudden pressure exploded behind his eyes. Lights started flashing, and a buzzer pierced the air from the machine next to the bed.
The door flung open, and a nurse rushed into the room.
Chapter Five
Ruger leaned against the wall of the hallway outside of Spencer’s door. It hit home how fragile the man sleeping in the room behind him was when Ruger told him his name and Spencer’s vital signs almost reached stroke stage.
Throughout everything the doctors and nurses did to lower the numbers, Spencer’s gaze never left Ruger’s face.
The last two weeks had been a bumpy roller coaster of highs and lows. At one point, the infection had bloated Spencer’s poor body until he was unrecognizable. The doctors had to insert a breathing tube to keep Spencer alive and leave it in for four days. Through it all Ruger never left the chair in the corner until one of the men from Rescue for Hire forced him to take a break.
Gabriel’s body thumped against the wall next to Ruger before he asked, “What happened in there?”
“I told him my name,” Ruger answered.
“Why would telling Spencer your name cause him to freak out?” Gabriel asked.
Ruger looked over at the other man, who was slightly shorter than his own six-three. “Maybe because the last time I saw him I rejected his kiss and walked away.”
“Holy cow, so you knew Spencer before you came to Granite City? Does the boss know?”
“I told Cade I knew Spencer a long time ago,” Ruger admitted.
“How long ago did this almost-kiss happen?”
“Ten years.”
Gabriel turned and faced Ruger. “Wait a minute. Ten years ago Spencer had to be about thirteen, maybe fourteen at the most.”
Ruger let the back of his head fall back until it bumped against the wall. “Spencer was fourteen, and I was eighteen.”
“My man, you did the right thing. You don’t mess with jailbait.”
Ruger turned his head and looked straight into Gabriel’s eyes. “Spencer didn’t think I did the right thing, and neither did my heart.”
Gabriel collapsed back against the wall, and both men stared off into the distance. Finally, Gabriel asked the ten-million-dollar question. “Now that you’ve found him again, what are you going to do?”
Ruger reached into his pocket and pulled out a toothpick. Long ago, they had replaced his need for cigarettes. The familiar taste of wood eased the tensions of the last half-hour.
“I’m going to make sure nobody ever kidnaps him again,” Ruger stated.
“How are you going to do that?” Gabriel asked.
Ruger heard a funny note in Gabriel’s tone. Looking over at the man, Ruger saw mischief dancing in his eyes. That made him pause. What did Gabriel think he knew about the situation? A stupendous player at any kind of game, Ruger decided to answer the question in a different way than he suspected Gabriel expected him to.
“If I dress in black, I blend right into the shadows. I make a great stalker,” he answered. He wouldn’t tell Gabriel that Mr. Shadow, from his former unit, was the master of disappearing in plain sight and had taught him a thing or two.
Gabriel chuckled and leaned back against the wall again. “The guys are all talking about how well you handled rescuing Spencer. The boss explained you’re still dealing with shit from the hells of serving our country and aren’t ready to join the team.” Gabriel turned his head and looked at Ruger. “We already consider you a member and will wait for you.”
“I long for the sweet smell of wood and the quiet of the forest,” Ruger admitted.
“That’s fine. But I’m thinking that you’ll eventually be willing to leave the trees for a little while to join us in helping people in need,” Gabriel said.
“I don’t know. I’ll guess we’ll have to see how it goes,” Ruger said.
“You already have the classic Rescue for Hire mindset concerning our one and only.” Gabriel chuckled again.
Ruger frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Face it. Just like the rest of us, you’ve shown nothing will stop you from possessing the one who owns your heart. Now that you both are old enough to handle being with each other, you’ll be keeping Spencer up close and personal for the rest of your life. That’s what we do. Heck, sometimes it’s a hell of a lot of fun persuading the love of our lives to come around to our way of thinking.” This time Gabriel’s chuckle held a blatantly evil quality.
Ruger didn’t have a response to that. Spencer’s stay at the hospital would last at least another couple of days. Longer if more complications set in. That gave Ruger time to kid himself into thinking he was going to see if they were compatible and if there was something between them to pursue. Yep, that was his plan, and he was sticking to it.
A faint sound came from Spencer’s room. In a flash, he was standing next to Spencer’s bed, looking down at the agitated man. A shaky hand reached out to Ruger, and he took it. Leaning over Spencer, Ruger put his head down until their cheeks touched.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
Spencer was breathing hard, and the numbers on the machine were close to setting the alarms off.
“You weren’t here when I woke up. You’re always here,” Spencer said.
Ruger leaned back and looked into a hostile green eye. He couldn’t believe it. The smaller man was pissed at him for not being there when he awoke.
“I’ll see what I can do about that next time,” Ruger said, trying to sound solemn, even if he wanted to jump for joy that the little guy wanted him near.
Spencer sniffed. “I feel like shit, and you weren’t in the chair.”
Panic fil
led Ruger. If Spencer started to cry, he wouldn’t know what to do. This whole situation was starting to make him feel as though he was sinking into the sea without a life preserver.
“Now you listen here,” he ordered in a gruff tone. “I’m not leaving you. I was just talking to Gabriel outside the door. You need to get some sleep and get well so I can take you home. Do you hear me?”
Spencer’s face flushed, and his lips trembled, but he nodded. That was good enough for Ruger. He figured he’d dodged the tears bullet with that one. After setting Spencer’s hand down on the bed, Ruger retreated to the chair in the corner.
A soft sigh came from Spencer’s bed. Spencer shifted and winced in pain. Another sigh broke the silence. Spencer opened his eye and looked at the wall in front of him. Ruger watched his thin chest rise and fall with another sigh.
“What’s the matter?” Ruger asked.
“Nothing,” Spencer answered.
Standing, Ruger went and slid into the bed next to the man who was tying his insides in knots. The men in Ruger’s past would be laughing their asses off if they knew how many emotions were flowing through the man they called the Iceman.
Ruger slid his arm around Spencer’s shoulders. As sore as Spencer was, Ruger wasn’t surprised when he winced as he wiggled around until he was lying against Ruger’s chest.
“Are you in pain?” Ruger asked.
“My stomach hasn’t stopped hurting since the day a bullet ripped through it,” Spencer said.
“Tell me what happened,” Ruger said.
“Did you know I was a deputy for the Granite County Sheriff’s Department?” Spencer’s lips trembled.
Ruger brushed a thumb over Spencer’s soft mouth before dropping a kiss next to the corner. “Technically you still are. The sheriff and Craig Collins are on their way. They want to be here when the local authorities ask you a few questions tomorrow. Now tell me what happened with the bullet.”
Spencer's Reluctant Rescuer [Rescue for Hire 9] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) Page 4
