“Let’s get him to the hospital,” Kaid said.
“No! He was insistent that he can’t go to the hospital!” Brandi exclaimed.
“Why not?” Daniel asked.
“He just… he can’t. He said a record of him being shot and the bullet they’d take out of him could tie him to other things,” she explained shadily.
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “Where is your husband?”
Brandi narrowed her own eyes and looked directly at Daniel. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen him since I left him,” she lied, trying to tell them without admitting anything that he was no longer a problem.
Delilah’s lips quirked. “You are not a very good liar,” she said as she walked out of the bedroom. Moments later she was back with her cell phone in hand. She dialed a number and waited until the person on the other end of the line picked up.
“I am Delilah Sanders,” she said. There was a pause before she spoke again. “Yes. He is here. But he needs you. He has been injured, and we cannot take him to a hospital. Can you come?” Again she paused. “Yes. Come through town until you get to the junction with Hwy 10. Turn north there and follow it for about eight miles. Keep an eye to your left. Someone will be at the end of the drive to flag you down.” There was another pause before she answered. “Yes, please do. He’s been shot. He will not die, but he is in a very weakened condition.” There was the faint sound of a woman’s high-pitched voice on the other end of the line, then Delilah spoke again. “You are trained for this. Get yourself under control and drive safely. We will be waiting.” She ended the call and looked up at everyone in the room staring at her.
“What?” Delilah asked.
“Who’d you call?” Kaid asked.
“His Mate! She’s a trauma nurse. Why would I not call her?” Delilah snapped.
“No. You’re right. She needed to be called. She’ll be able to help more than any of us could, except for maybe Bam.”
“And his Lion is only allowing me to help so much. Stubborn, prideful male!” Bam mumbled.
Jobe leaned over near Ms. Sadie and whispered to her. “He’s a Lion?” he said incredulously.
Goldy chuckled. “Yep. And so am I, though I can’t shift into one. My mom was human. We got a Wolf shifter, too. But he’s not here at the moment.”
Jobe was blown away. He was excited and a bit fearful all at the same time. He thought about what a Wolf shifter would look like. Then he smiled. He knew who it was. “Maia’s daddy, right? The one with the mohawk — that’s the Wolf shifter.”
“Exactly,” Goldy answered, patting him on the back.
Delilah walked over to Jobe and took Barron from him. “Thank you,” she said quietly, taking her son back into her own arms and cuddling him to her. “I am going to speak to Valerie. She should know.”
Kaid kissed his Mate on the cheek as she passed him on her way out of the bedroom. “You okay there, Jobe?” Kaid asked.
Jobe looked up at Kaid. “Yes, sir. I think so, sir. It’s just a little unreal.”
“Lot’s more unusual than us in this life, son. Not all of it good,” Kaid said.
Jobe thought about that. He was right. These people had been kinder to him than any he’d known since his parents passed away. There was nowhere he’d feel any safer, and no one he felt more loyal to. “Yes, sir. And I’m happy to be right where I am.”
“Glad to hear that,” Kaid answered, watching Bam as he shooed Brandi away and took a seat on the bed beside Vince. He pressed his hand to Vince’s throat and closed his eyes again, trying to see inside to his Lion.
After a few moments of Bam not saying anything, Kaid lost patience. “Well?” he demanded.
“He’s okay, he’s weak, but steady. Just resting for now,” Bam answered. “If I can make his damn Lion back off, I can force a bit more energy into him,” Bam said frustratedly.
The back door to the kitchen opened, and they heard footsteps headed their way. A few minutes later Valerie was standing in the doorway, her face a mask of worry. “What the hell happened?” she snapped, taking in everyone around the room and her brother lying in the bed. She moved past everyone and knelt on the floor beside the head of the bed, laying her hand on Vince’s forehead. Kaid did not miss that she’d held her pregnant belly in both hands and blew out her breath - wincing, while she’d knelt to the floor.
“He saved me. And this happened,” Brandi said softly.
Valerie lifted his shirt and peeked at his wound. “He’s been shot?!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah, and we’re trying to stabilize him, but his Lion won’t accept Bam’s help,” Kaid said.
Valerie struggled to her feet, with Bam reaching over to help her stand. She stood over Vince, and shouted his name. “Vince! Vincent Nobles! Open your damn eyes! Right now!” she screamed at him. He mumbled, but didn’t open his eyes. She reached out and tapped her hand against his face, not hard enough to really hurt him, but definitely hard enough to leave a hand print. “I said to open your eyes!” she shouted.
A rumble left his chest, and gradually his eyes struggled to open and focus on her. He lifted his lip and snarled softly at her.
“Do not even snarl at me! My Lioness will whip your ass!”
Vince lay there, glaring at her as best he could, but he stopped snarling.
“Bam is trying to help you! Tell Lion to back off!”
“Huh?” he grumbled, his eyes searching for Bam.
Bam leaned into his field of vision, so Vince could see him.
“Bam is trying to help you! Tell Lion to let him help,” Valerie instructed.
Vince looked from Bam to his sister and nodded weakly. He closed his eyes and let his head fall gently to the side again.
“Vince! Wake up! Tell me what to do,” Valerie pleaded, her voice starting to crack.
“I’m okay,” he said quietly. Every shifter in the room sensed the lie.
“You are not okay,” Valerie pointed out.
“Will be,” he insisted. “Bam can fix it,” he said, closing his eyes again.
“Just make Lion stand down,” Valerie insisted.
“I want Natalie,” he said softly.
“She’s coming, Lion. I have spoken with her. She is coming,” Delilah promised.
Chapter 23
Natalie had just stepped from a patient’s room when her phone began to vibrate in her pocket. She looked around, knowing she wasn’t supposed to have her phone while on the floor, but reached for it anyway. It could be Vince. She saw the name on the screen and accepted the call immediately.
“Hello?”
“I am Delilah Sanders.”
Natalie couldn’t help but smile, she loved the way Delilah spoke. “Hello, Delilah. Have you heard from Vince?”
“Yes. He is here. But he needs you. He has been injured, and we cannot take him to a hospital. Can you come?”
Natalie’s heart thudded in her chest. “Injured? Is he okay? Of course I’m coming, where are you?”
“Yes, but he is very weak. Come through town, until you get to the junction with Hwy 10. Turn north there and follow it for about eight miles. Keep an eye to your left. Someone will be at the end of the drive to flag you down.”
“Okay, I’m coming. Should I bring first aid supplies? What happened to him?” Natalie said, her voice betraying her near panic now.
“Yes, please do. He’s been shot. He will not die, but he is in a very weakened condition.”
“Shot?!” Natalie shouted. “How did he get shot?”
“You are trained for this. Get yourself under control and drive safely. We will be waiting.”
“You’re right. You’re right. I’m coming. I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”
Natalie ended the call and rushed down the hall toward the elevators. She had to get her purse and overnight bag, get in her car and get to the North Shore as quickly as she could. But, first, she thought, detouring on her way to the elevators, she needed some supplies to treat Vince with.
Natali
e hurried past every door she passed on her way to the supply room. She didn’t even notice if they were opened or closed — except for one. The doctors’ lounge. The door was wide open, which was unusual in itself, but the giggling and murmuring coming out of it was even more unusual than that. She rolled her eyes in disgust when she heard a very familiar voice. “Get on your knees,” it ordered seductively.
Natalie approached the door and peeked through. The bathroom door was mostly closed, just a small crack allowing all the murmurs and noises out into the lounge and the hallway. But, sure enough, it was Dr. Fuches and whatever nurse he’d chosen for his latest conquest.
Natalie looked at his white coat left lying draped over the leather couch, his ID clipped on the chest pocket. If she used her ID to enter the supply room, they’d know she was the one to take all the supplies she’d need. If she used his, they’d never suspect her. Her concern for Vince far outweighed her sense of right and wrong. Besides, this particular doctor was a piece of crap — he deserved a little payback. Acting on instinct, she darted into the lounge, snatched up his white coat, rolled it into a ball and tucked it under her arm. Less than a minute later she was two floors up, using his ID to scan the lock on the supply room door. She was careful to use his coat to hold the ID with, so her fingerprints wouldn’t be on it. Other than that, the door itself, the supplies inside, she handled regularly — they’d never know it was her.
She gathered antibiotics, IV lines, syringes, two bags of fluids, and pain killers. She simply slipped what she could into her own pockets, and in the case of the IV lines, rolled them up and tucked them between her breasts. She wrapped the two bags of fluids inside Dr. Fuches’ white coat so they wouldn’t be seen. She didn’t bother with dressings; she’d stop at a drug store and buy those. She’d almost left the room when she decided to grab a pair of forceps and a scalpel set, along with several kits for stitches.
Natalie left the supply room, pretty sure she had all she’d need. Whatever she was missing, she’d beg from her friends at the hospital back home. She doubted she’d ever come back to this one. She would give her proper notice, but didn’t expect them to take it, especially once she gave her reason as harassment from Dr. Fuches as a result of her relationship with her boyfriend. Natalie went to the nurses’ locker room and took her overnight bag and purse from her locker. She placed both bags of fluids and most of the supplies in the bottom of her overnight bag and covered them with her clothing. Then she took most of the contents of her purse out, laid the remaining items she’d just pilfered from the supply room in the bottom of her purse and placed her other things back on top. She checked carefully to be sure that none of the medicines or equipment could be seen. Then she slipped on her coat, took the rest of her belongings out of her locker, removed her lock from it and dropped it, too, into her overnight bag and left. She tossed Dr. Fuches’ white coat and I.D. in a community break room just down the hall from the nurses’ locker room.
Natalie took deep a breath as she rode the elevator down to the first floor, her heart pounding as she thought of Vince and the fact that it would be at least an hour and a half before she could get to him. She exited the elevator, and walked past the nurses’ station on the first floor, intending to just leave. But she couldn’t do it. She stopped and spoke to the women there. “I can’t take it. The attitude is much more than I am willing to take. I’m going to phone the hospital in a few days and give my notice. I wish I could stay today and finish out my week here, but I'm just too shaken up to trust myself. My patients depend on me, and he’s just been unbelievably unprofessional.”
The older woman got up from her seat and came around to the front of the station. “I’m so sorry, Natalie. I’d hoped he wouldn’t make you have to choose between your job and his advances.”
“It’s okay. I stood by my principles. I can live with that. I hope I’m not putting too much of a burden on you by leaving early.”
“Not at all. We can handle it. You take care of you. And kudos to you for not falling for his manipulation.”
“Thank you. I’m going to miss you.”
“You be sure you call Human Resources before he gets wind of this and makes the call first. I’m just going to tell him you left sick.”
“Thank you!”
The elderly nurse watched her as she walked out of the door to the employees’ entrance. “That girl is the third good nurse we’ve lost because of Dr. Fuches’ behavior. I do believe it’s time someone filed an official complaint against him.” She went back to the computer, got on the hospital’s intranet and downloaded the form for official complaints against fellow staff. She smiled as she hit print and sat back with her pen in hand, ready to complete the form.
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
Natalie jumped back in her car at the neighborhood drug store, tossing the bags full of wound dressings, bandages and surgical tape into the passenger seat. She wasted no time getting back on the road and getting in the far right lane, so she could get on the Causeway — the bridge that would take her to the North Shore and to Vince. She drove like a bat out of hell for more than an hour until just after she turned onto Hwy 10. After a few minutes, she slowed to about sixty miles an hour and started looking to her left for someone to flag her down. Finally, she saw a male standing just outside the trees on what at first glance looked like a dirt path into the woods. She slowed her car and realized this was the man that had tried to give her money to help pay for the pizzas in Delilah’s hospital room. She pulled her car onto the dirt path and slowed.
“Hey! Glad you’re finally here.”
“Me, too. Is he okay? I came as fast as I could,” she said while her eyes filled with tears.
Bane reached into her car and patted her hand where it gripped her steering wheel. “He’s going to be okay. But he’s really weak, and we think the bullet is still in there. He’s lost a lot of blood, but he’s not going to die. Bam is watching over him and boosting his energy as often as he can.”
Natalie sniffled and looked away up the path, that once you were on it, looked like a road.
“Go ahead, I know you’re anxious to see him,” Bane said, stepping back from the car.
“Get in, and ride up with me. Unless you need to stay here…” Natalie offered.
“Thanks,” Bane answered. “I know you don’t know us very well yet, I didn’t want to seem pushy.” He got in the passenger side, and Natalie started up the road.
“Just follow the road?” she asked.
“Yes, it’ll lead you to a group of houses, and a small fork in the road that goes to your left. Vince is in the first house to your right. The fork will lead you to Bam’s and to my family’s homes.”
Natalie nodded. Not much of what he said sinking in, she was about ready to crawl out of her skin she was so worried.
Bane could sense her anxiety and her emotions. She was ready to lose it. “It’s going to be okay, Natalie. Take a deep breath.”
“I’m trying,” she said, just as she started to be able to glimpse a large white house through the trees.
“He’s been asking for you. Each time he wakes up, he says, ‘I want Natalie.’”
“Really?” she asked, seeming very relieved to hear it.
“Really. You’re it for him. If you’ve ever doubted it, don’t anymore. You’re it,” Bane assured her. He pointed to a spot beside Vince’s truck. “Just park right there beside Vince’s truck. If you can, be sure to leave enough room between your car and the porch for somebody to walk through.”
“Okay.” Natalie parked where Bane directed her and turned off the engine. She grabbed her purse. Bane handed her the bags he’d gathered to be able to sit in the passenger seat. “Thank you,” she said, taking them from him and climbing out of the car.
“Come on, I’ll show you where he is,” Bane said, placing his hand at the small of her back to lead her into the main house.
When they entered the house, it was eerily quiet. Then they heard a woman’s voice shout loudly.
“I’m going to let my Lioness out! You have got to stop fighting Bam! What is your problem?!”
“I see you’re wearing Vince’s mark. You know about us, right?” Bane asked.
“Yes. I do.”
“Bam’s beast is a Bear, a healer Bear. And for some reason Vince’s Lion is resisting allowing Bam to heal him.”
“Who’s yelling at him?” Natalie asked, following the soft voices she could hear toward the back of the house.
“That’d be his sister, Valerie,” Bane said, his hand still at the small of her back, guiding her toward the voices they could both hear. Moments later they entered a kitchen. There was a very, very large table in the center of it, and around it sat almost everyone she’d met in Delilah’s hospital room.
“Natalie!” Delilah said, jumping up to hug her. “Come, allow me to take you to your Mate.” Delilah turned to Bane. “Thank you, Bane. I am most appreciative of your assistance.”
“You’re welcome, Delilah,” Bane answered. “Natalie, if you need anything, just let me know.”
“I will, thank you.”
“Come, Natalie,” Delilah encouraged. She followed Delilah down a hallway that was parallel to the one she’d just come up with Bane. Delilah paused outside a door and turned smiling at her. “He has been asking for you. Do not worry. Bam assured us that he will recover.”
Natalie nodded and swallowed past the lump in her throat.
Delilah opened the door and stood aside for Natalie to enter. Natalie stepped into the room and took a deep breath. Valerie was sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand gripping her stomach, the other on Vince’s face, and she’d tap his cheek and yell at him each time Bam would sit back from his position at the head of the bed and shake his head at Valerie.
Seated at the foot of the bed was Brandi. The reason Vince had left her all alone in the hotel room, Brandi. She was teary-eyed and had her hand on his foot.
Natalie looked over her shoulder at Delilah, who encouraged her to go into the room. “Go on. He is your Mate. He’s been asking for you. YOU belong here.”
Vince's Place Page 22
