Patrick winced as he hugged her back. Since his luggage was in his left hand, he was forced to hug her back with his bad arm. He was praying that she didn’t notice the wince. “It’s good to see you too, Roz. You look amazing. Have you lost weight?”
“Don’t make me hurt you for being a smart-ass.” Roz reached around him and grabbed one of the bags. The humor in her voice and eyes faded as she leveled a stare at Patrick’s arm. “Why are you trying to carry all of your bags with one hand?”
“For fun.”
“Don’t lie to me; I saw you flinch.”
“My shoulder hurts. I must have twisted it a bit while I was on the plane.”
“Uh-huh.” Roz shot him an annoyed look and walked off with one of his bags in her hand.
Sighing, Patrick followed her. He wasn’t sure how much Roz knew about his situation. Hell, he didn’t know how much Cam had told Julian, and he was the one that Patrick was going to be staying with. Patrick winced as he stepped out of the dim interior of the airport and into the bright sunlight. He lifted his right hand and pulled his glasses out of his hair and slipped them over his eyes. Sunlight always hurt his eyes. He didn’t like the sun.
Following Roz out to her truck, Patrick tossed his bags into the back. He had to bite his lip to keep from screaming at the pain that the motion caused. Holding his right arm against his chest, he opened the vehicle door with his left and climbed in awkwardly. He pulled the door closed with his left hand as well, refusing to move his right arm. Patrick was done experiencing pain for the day.
“So, are you going to tell me what’s wrong with your arm?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“What did Julian tell you?”
“That you needed to be picked up. Why? Is there more?” Roz pulled out of the airport parking lot and merged into traffic. “We have a long drive ahead of us.”
“How far in the middle of nowhere do you live?” Patrick watched as the scenery passed by the windows.
“You’ve been here before.”
“Yes, but I was making out with Julian in the backseat. I have no idea how long it took us to get there.”
“You are shameless.” There was a laugh in Roz’s voice. She tossed him a smile as she continued to drive.
“It’s a gift.” Patrick settled himself more comfortably against the side of the car. He managed to find a position that didn’t hurt his arm too much. He was tired. The pain in his shoulder had been keeping him from sleeping for the past few days. The exhaustion was getting so bad, he was actually considering taking the sleeping pills the doctor had given him. Patrick hated drugs. He didn’t like the way that they made him feel.
“So, are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Patrick. I can tell that you’re in pain. I’m not an idiot.”
“It’s nothing. My shoulder just hurts a bit.”
“You were wincing in the airport. When that kid banged into you, I thought you were going to kill him. That’s a lot more pain than ‘a bit’.”
“Fine!” Patrick snapped. Due to his refusal to take any type of painkiller, the pain had him so on edge that his control over his temper was nonexistent. “It fucking hurts a lot! That’s what happens when some asshole shoots you.”
“Do you want me to take a look at it when we get to Julian’s?”
Roz’s calm voice made him feel like an idiot. That, or a spoiled child. Patrick wasn’t sure what was worse. He was starting to see why his captain and Cam had conspired together to get him out of town. He was turning into an ass. “I’m sorry, Barracuda. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“That’s okay, Peacock. You didn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, I would like you to look at my shoulder. The damn thing is hurting so much that I can’t sleep.”
“Didn’t the doctor give you something for the pain?”
“I hate taking drugs.”
Roz laughed softly. “That is just like you. You would rather be in pain than take a tiny pill that will help you feel better.”
“I don’t like what they do to my head.” Patrick pouted and crossed his arms. At least he tried to. The pain from his shoulder stopped him from completing the motion. “They make my head all fuzzy. I hate that feeling.”
Roz just continued to laugh. Patrick tried to glare at her, but he could feel his eyes drifting shut. The movement of the car was soothing. Leaning his head against the window, Patrick closed his eyes. He would just rest his eyes for a moment. When Patrick heard Roz start to hum along to the radio, he smiled. This was nice. Maybe he would be able to relax and take the time everyone seemed to think he needed. With that thought in mind, Patrick fell asleep.
“Hey.” Patrick awoke when someone nudged his uninjured arm gently. He opened his eyes and winced as the pain that had dulled with sleep returned—with a vengeance. Roz was leaning across the center console, looking annoyingly concerned. “We’re here.”
Patrick unclasped his seat belt and reached for the door handle with his left hand. “This doesn’t look very familiar.”
“That’s because Julian moved in with Jack six months ago. You’ve never actually been here.” Roz slammed the truck door behind her and then tossed him her keys. He managed to catch them awkwardly. “They’re both working, or they’d have been there to pick you up. You want the one with the yellow tag. Oh, and watch out for the dog—she’s friendly, but she’ll probably slobber all over you.”
Patrick opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing, but stopped when he realized that she was unloading his luggage. “I can do that, you know.”
“Yeah, I know, but from the way you were favoring your arm earlier, I bet it’s not a good idea.” She set the first bag easily on the ground and reached for the second. “Besides, I’m professionally in shape. I can handle it.”
He had to admit that she had a point there. Roz had always been athletic, but apparently running the local recreation center really agreed with her. “All right, I guess I’ll get the door.”
It felt strange to be letting himself into his old friend’s new house like this when he wasn’t home; in fact, it bothered him. He wouldn’t have had the slightest compunction with Cam or Justine, but he hadn’t seen Julian in ages, and the idea of staying for a month with his ex-lover and his ex-lover’s new flame was pretty daunting. Oh, well. At least there was Roz, and the mysterious dog, to keep him company.
As soon as he had the door open, he heard barking coming from the back room, coming closer. The second Patrick laid eyes on the dog, he fell in love. She was a beautiful Siberian Husky, well-built and with bright blue eyes. She stopped warily in the kitchen when she saw him, and he thought for a second she might growl, but evidently Roz’s presence put her at ease, because as soon as Roz followed him in the door, she surged forward again, greeting Roz first and then devoting her nose to sniffing out Patrick. He held out his hand to be inspected, all the while admiring the dog.
“Hi, Robot,” Roz said cheerfully. She patted the dog’s rump as—Robot? Okay, that probably was going to require an explanation—soaked in the attention Patrick was offering, one-handed. “I think she likes you, but don’t let it get to your head. She likes everybody. Here, I’ll show you the guest room.”
“Thanks.” Even though he was sure he’d slept for at least an hour in the car, Patrick was exhausted. “I appreciate you coming to get me.”
“Please.” Roz waved him off. “It was a good excuse to take the morning off and go shopping. But even if it hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have minded. I missed you.” She led him past a linen closet, a cluttered office with some sophisticated-looking hardware and a lot of textbooks with names like Geology for Dummies and Fundamentals of Thermodynamics, and a bathroom. The guest bedroom was at the end of the hallway. Roz set his bags down in the empty closet—Patrick thought that was kind of odd; who had completely empty closets?—and
pointed to the bed. “Take off your shirt.”
Patrick blinked at her. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that from a woman before.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” she said optimistically, rolling her eyes. “Now, off. Or do you need help?”
Making a face, Patrick sat down and tugged off the sling. He didn’t need help, thank God. He wasn’t sure he could cope with losing his independence like he had the last time he’d been shot, but dressing and undressing with a shoulder wound wasn’t exactly easy, either. “I can do it.” Wincing, he managed to get the buttons undone and shrug his shirt off his left shoulder. Then, carefully, he pulled it off of his right arm.
Roz hissed when she saw the wound. Patrick figured that was a bad sign, since it was still wrapped up. Carefully, he peeled away the edges of the bandage.
“Oh, right. Because you couldn’t wait until you’d recovered to get the tattoo,” Roz sighed. She knelt beside him on the bed, bracing her right hand on his left shoulder, and leaned in for a closer look. “God, that must’ve hurt.”
“Is that your professional medical opinion?”
“I’m withholding that until I’ve done a little more research.” Roz ran her fingers lightly down his right side from his neck to the top of his shoulder, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Scapula, clavicle, supraspinatus, bursa, CL.” She whistled under her breath and touched the skin just to the side of the wound gently.
Patrick winced, but tried to hold still. “Could you not… do that?” She might as well have taken a sledgehammer to it, after as much as he’d been jostled around today.
“Patrick, this was a serious injury. It’s still a serious injury. Why haven’t you been seeing your doctor on a regular basis? Or at least a physiotherapist?”
Crap. Patrick didn’t want to tell her about the reason behind his aversion to doctors—after all, Roz was a medical professional herself now. “I don’t like going to the doctor. All he does is tell me to take drugs that either make me cranky or make me sleepy. I just need to man up and get over it.”
“You need to man up and listen to your doctor. You have an infection because you haven’t been taking your antibiotics, you’re in pain because you won’t take your drugs, and you’re actually hindering your recovery because you haven’t seen a physiotherapist so your sling is at completely the wrong height for someone your size! And you haven’t slept properly in a month, so you’re cranky anyway!”
Patrick groaned and eased himself backward on the bed. “You’re going to make me go to the doctor, aren’t you?”
“I think in your case, the doctor might make a house call. Special consideration.” Roz smiled a little, picked up his sling, and adjusted the length. Taking a black marker from her back pocket, she drew a line on the strap. “Now you’ll know for next time. I’ve got to get back to the complex—checks to sign, schedules to draw up, you know the drill. I’ll see you later, okay? Try not to strain yourself while you’re unsupervised.”
“Yes, Mom,” he said dryly. Roz had done a lot of growing up since he’d seen her last, that was for sure.
He might have imagined it, but he thought Roz froze for a second. Then her smile slid back into place. “Good boy. Don’t get too nosy!”
Patrick waited until he heard the door close behind her and then picked himself up off the bed. There were a couple of towels sitting on the chair by the closet, he noted thankfully. Air travel always made him feel filthy. He wasn’t ready to hop in the shower just yet, though. Not bothering to re-bandage his shoulder, he put his arm back in the sling—which did feel remarkably better now that Roz had adjusted it—and wandered into the kitchen.
A quick snoop through the kitchen drawers proved that either Julian wasn’t as fond of kitchen sex as Cam and Jeremy seemed to be, or he was a lot sneakier about it. The fridge was stocked with two different kinds of beer, the dishwasher looked like it was newly installed, and there was what looked like some dried macaroni and cheese sauce on the stove. Patrick knew that Julian was a good cook and rather anal about kitchen cleanliness, so it must have been Jack who left the mess.
Robot followed him on the rest of his tour. The laundry room, with its interesting dog food smell, seemed to be directly beneath the master bedroom; there was a hole in the ceiling under which a basket caught discarded clothing. The living room seemed almost too clean to sit in, though he quickly discovered the reason: A room on the other side of the laundry, connected to the hallway in which his bedroom was located, with low, used, comfortable furniture, a big screen TV, and a couch with a blanket thrown haphazardly across the back.
Finally, Patrick found himself at the base of the stairs near the kitchen. The house wasn’t that big; there could only be one room at the top. Shrugging, he ascended the steep steps, eventually entering a large, airy room with a south-facing balcony overlooking the rear yard, a huge picture window complete with window seat, and a four-poster king-sized bed. Well, Patrick thought, a spike of amusement tugging at his lips. No wonder they don’t have much sex in the kitchen. Even the two wardrobes, standing on opposite sides of the room, were oversized; it felt as if the room were inhabited by giants. An attached second bathroom at the far end of the room had a rack with two towels and a cup for his-and-his toothbrushes.
Everywhere he went in the house, there were photos: Julian and Roz at the beach in Florida, visiting their parents; a few posed shots of older people Patrick didn’t recognize; and snapshot after snapshot of Julian in the arms of the man Patrick naturally assumed had to be Jack. They were grinning ear-to-ear in all of them—except one. In the last photo, the one framed on the bedside table, they were seated around a campfire. Jack was playing a guitar, obviously in the middle of a rousing rendition of something, from the slightly manic expression on his face. Beside him, though, Julian’s smile was gentle, his eyes soft, posture relaxed.
Patrick wondered for a sharp second if Julian had ever looked at him that way. Then his shoulder twinged unpleasantly, and he decided that maybe it was time he tried to sleep again. He didn’t want to be grumpy when Julian got home, though once the other man started prodding at his shoulder, grumpiness was probably inevitable. With a yawn, he descended the stairs back down to the kitchen, careful to close the door to the master bedroom behind him, and made his way back to his room.
Patrick tugged back the covers one-handed, switching off the bedside lamp. There was a whoomph as a hundred pounds of friendly dog hit the bed beside him. Thankfully, Robot seemed to sense that he was injured and kept her distance. Closing his eyes, Patrick prayed for the oblivion of sleep.
Chapter 3
When Jack entered the house, the first thing he noticed was the music. It was loud enough to be noticeable but not so loud that whoever was listening wouldn’t be able to hear what was going on. It was also not the type of music that he or Julian usually listened to. From the sounds of it, it was some type of rock band. A loud rock band. Jack wasn’t sure if he liked this new development. Then he noticed the smell.
“What is that smell?” Jack asked. It wasn’t a bad smell. In fact, it was such a good smell that his mouth was starting to water.
“It’s barbecue sauce,” Julian replied. He had hung up his coat and was in the middle of removing his shoes.
“Our barbecue sauce doesn’t smell like that.”
“Patrick made barbecue sauce.” With that said, Julian dashed into the kitchen. Jack sighed and finished taking off his shoes and putting his jacket away. When he reached the kitchen, he almost ran into Julian, who had stopped dead in the doorway. Looking over his lover’s shoulder, he could see why the other man had stopped.
The man he assumed was Patrick was standing at the stove with his back to them. The strap of a sling cut across the smooth line of his bare back. The jeans he was wearing were hung so low, Jack was surprised they were staying on. There was a series of numbers tattooed just below his neck. Jack had to admit that the man had a very nice ass.
None of
these things were what had stopped Julian, though. Jack was pretty sure the angry, red scar on the back of Patrick’s right shoulder had done that.
It looked awful. Not only was the actual wound a fairly vivid shade of red, so was the area around it. The joint looked swollen. The color actually reminded Jack of the one time he had let a wound get infected. This was not going to go over well with Julian. Jack could also see what appeared to be writing underneath the bullet wound.
Oh, boy. Brace for impact.
“What the fuck!”
Yep, time to make a strategic retreat. “Um, if anybody needs me, I’m going to be over here—”
“Sit down!” Julian thundered.
Jack’s legs folded him neatly into a chair at the kitchen table. He would have been embarrassed about it except for the fact that the look on his guest’s face was definitely uneasy rather than smug, not to mention that he’d seen the way the other man’s knees had bent at the command.
“Good, I’m going to need a witness,” Patrick said dryly. “Nice to see you, too, Ace.”
“Next time, come see me before you get shot! In fact, next time, you can leave that part out altogether.” Julian stalked over to the stove—Jack took the opportunity to appreciate his lover’s phenomenal rear end—and took the spoon from Patrick’s hand. “I won’t yell at you if you give me the recipe.”
“I’m a man, I can take it,” Patrick groaned.
Jack leaned back in the chair, put his arms behind his head and prepared to enjoy the fireworks.
“That tattoo is fresh,” Julian started. Then he continued, “Excuse me, those tattoos. And so is that gunshot wound. What a coincidence!”
Patrick put his hands up and started backing away, and Jack noted the top of what was probably another tattoo peeking over his jeans. “So much for being a man,” Jack smirked.
“Oh, shut up; you take orders better than your dog.”
Jack shrugged. When you were right, you were right. “I’m Jack, by the way.”
Wild Angels Page 2
