Bringing Delaney Home (Cates Brothers #1) (3 page)

“After putting in a piss-poor workout. Delaney Lynn Lyons, you know the agreement we have with your doctor.” Greer stared at her sister and raised an eyebrow. “That’s right, you don’t. Because you dropped off the face of the earth for a few weeks. He almost didn’t release you on convalescent leave.”

“I’m out of bed. That’s more than I managed the last three weeks in D.C. See, you’re helping me already.” Delaney picked up the newspaper sitting in front of her. “Oh, damn, haven’t the Panthers gotten any better since I’ve been gone? They lost by twenty-one.”

“This isn’t about me. It’s about getting you whole again.”

Delaney dragged her eyes up from the paper, gazing at Greer with a cocked eyebrow.

“Sorry. That was a poor choice of words.” Greer sighed. “You know what I mean. Healthy again. I can’t stand how much weight you’ve lost. You need to eat more.”

“What do you want from me?” Delaney snapped, tossing the newspaper on the table.

“I want you to fight harder,” Greer said. “Like you did when we were growing up.”

Delaney took a slow, deep breath. “Well, I’m not sure I have it in me anymore.”

“I can’t accept that.” Greer’s voice ground out harsh and tense. “You just need to stop trying to do it alone.”

Delaney dropped her head onto the kitchen table and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to block out her sister’s voice. Greer needed to stop expecting miracles. She didn’t want to tell Greer this might be as good as she gets. She was too afraid to admit that to herself. It was easier to quit than to follow a road paved on false hopes and impossible dreams.

“You’re my hero, Del.”

“Don’t say that.” She looked sharply up at Greer. “I don’t want the pressure anymore. I just want to be left alone.”

“I can’t do that,” Greer whispered. “I love you and I’m so scared for you.”

“Join the club. Nine months ago I knew who I was. I was a nurse and I was a runner. I had a purpose. My life had a path.” Delaney rubbed her fingers in a circle on her throbbing forehead. “I feel like Alice.”

“You mean Wonderland Alice?”

“Um-hmm. Like I fell down a rabbit hole and I’m still falling.” She pressed her fingertip on a crystal of sugar that must have escaped her coffee cup. “I’m lost and I’m so tired. I’m tired of working hard and waking up in the same place.”

Greer pulled out the chair next to Delaney and sat down, moving the chair close.

Delaney sat back, pulling away from her sister. “Mostly I just want to close my eyes and not—”

“Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.” Greer jumped up so abruptly her chair almost fell over. She started pacing back and forth along the well-worn oak floor. “Don’t you think I know how you’ve been feeling? Why do you think I sent Quinn up to D.C. to bring you home? I was afraid I’d get a phone call . . . and I’d never see you again.”

“Hey, now. I’m not—” Delaney’s face paled as she heard the pain and fear she’d brought to Greer. God, she’d spent most of her life keeping Greer safe; how could she be the one hurting her now? Delaney clasped her hands together to stop their shaking. She looked at the raw fear on Greer’s face and realized guilt cut just as deep as the sheer physical pain she’d been living with.

“You might be. We both know it.” Greer cut her off midsentence. “So, here’s the deal . . . we are turning this around right now. You will start eating again.” Greer looked fiercely at Delaney.

“Hooyah,” Delaney responded blandly. After seeing the fear in Greer’s face, she realized she didn’t have a choice.

“Don’t get cute, because I could still call your doctor,” Greer threatened.

Delaney would swear her blood pressure spiked. “You would call Dr. Evil?”

Greer ignored her and continued with her list. “Two. You will begin showering regularly again.”

“Fine. That part I’ve hated.”

“Okay, since I’m two for two.” Greer looked up toward the ceiling. “How about talking with a counselor?”

Delaney rubbed her fingers against her temples while she considered. “I won’t rule it out. You know I had psychotherapy for seven months, and it did help—in the beginning. But after a while, butting my head against my blocked memories got too stressful.”

“You’re still missing the weeks around the explosion? Nothing has come back?”

“Not missing.” Delaney shook her head. “With dissociative amnesia, the memories are there. I just can’t access them.”

The doctors had said her memories would probably return, but a part of her was afraid to find out what was so bad that her brain shut it out. She definitely wasn’t going to tell Greer about the nightmares that had started a few months ago. The nightmares were why she’d stopped her pain medications.

As a nurse, she knew all about the side effects and she’d wanted them out of her system to try to stop the nightmares. But the nightmares hadn’t stopped. They were getting worse. “So, when I get my memory back, I’ll go back to counseling. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“I’ve got a rule of my own. Number four . . . no telling anyone about losing my foot or Afghanistan. I don’t need the pity and I don’t need the gossip. I had enough of that growing up in this town.”

“It’s Climax, Delaney.”

Delaney raised her eyebrows. “If you don’t say anything and I don’t say anything . . .”

“Fine. Against my better judgment, I won’t say anything. Number five.” Greer looked down at Delaney, daring her to complain. “You will be nice to people.”

Delaney snorted. “You know, if you’re going to ask for miracles, why not just ask for my foot to grow back?”

“Six. Physical therapy. Two times a week at my off ice.”

She nodded her head, her body starting to tense up.

Greer kept going. “Seven. Gym. Two times a week to begin with.”

Delaney groaned. “Please tell me there is another gym in town. I can’t keep running into Barbie and her posse
and
keep your rule about being nice too.”

“No, it’s the only gym, but I can get you a buddy whenever Barbie or her posse is there. Quinn would’ve been there to run interference this morning, but he had to work an accident out on Highway 62.”

“A buddy?” She looked up at Greer with narrowed eyes. “You mean a babysitter, don’t you?”

“Mentor, parole officer—whatever it takes to keep you honest.”

“Honest I got in spades. It’s nice that’s in short supply,” Delaney grumbled.

“I’ve noticed. I heard the Simon sisters were ready to stab you with their knitting needles at the library this morning.”

“I would like to remind a particular buttinski that it was not my brilliant idea to unleash me on an unsuspecting public,” Delaney said. “It is also not my fault the Simon sisters asked me what I thought about their hats.”

“Did you have to tell them they looked like nipples?” Greer couldn’t help the laughter in her voice. “That when they stood next to each other they look like a pair of—”

“Okay!” Delaney interrupted her. She knew what she’d said. “I’ll try nice. I used to be nice. How hard can it be?”

Chapter Three

T
he next day, Delaney sat outside the only gym in town trying to psych herself into going inside. She did not want to be here, but she’d promised Greer. She had never broken a promise to Greer yet, and that brat knew it. That’s why Greer had made her promise. Greer was no dummy.

“I’m the dummy,” she mumbled. “No more promises. Greer’s a big girl now. Damn, why did I agree to this?”

Delaney climbed down from her Jeep and tightened the drawstring on her baggy grey sweats. She leaned down to readjust the sweats, which hung loosely over her ankles and pooled on top of her shoes. Straightening back up, she pulled her even baggier sweatshirt down. It easily covered her backside. She reached behind her seat, grabbed her gym bag, and slammed the door closed with a growl. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail. She couldn’t remember if she’d used a brush recently or not. She didn’t care. After six months of physical therapy, she still had a limp to her walk. Lately, she didn’t care about that either.

“ ‘Work out,’ she says. ‘Show up for PT.’ ‘Be nice,’ ” Delaney complained as she pushed open the glass door with 24/7 across it.

“Hey, good morning!” some muscle-bound guy at the front desk called to her.

“Bite me,” Delaney said, not even turning her head. “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

“Delaney?” Some other big bruiser of a guy started toward her.

“Yeah, what?” Delaney stopped impatiently. She was there to work out, not join some workout friend’s network.

“Greer said to look for you,” Large Guy Number Two said.

“Why?” She looked up past a well-muscled chest and shoulders. “Quinlan Cates. You keep showing up like a rash, just like you did in high school.”

“So I can show you around the gym.”

“Think I’ll pass.”

“Hey, I’m trying to be friendly here. That’s no way to treat someone who put you up for a night.”

“Yeah, yeah. So I slept in your house. Like you gave me a choice?” She switched her gym bag to her other shoulder.

“I thought you wouldn’t remember.” He quirked an eyebrow at her.

Delaney’s eyes narrowed on him. “Not much, but I remember the no-choice part clearly.”

“Did you want Greer to see you like that?”

“Oh, stop.” So, he was right. She didn’t have to admit it. “That was your guest room I slept in?”

“Yep.”

“Your kitchen needs repainting, your coffee sucks, and you snore.”

“What? No ‘hey, thanks for a place to stay’?” Quinn looked down into Delaney’s face. “Fine, but I do not snore.”

“Excuse me. You were snoring so loud it was like you were in the room with me.”

“That was Snot.”

“Oh, was that your problem?” Delaney nodded her head in understanding.

“My dog, Snot. I found him outside your room when I left for work.”

“Riiiiight. I’ll bet that’s what it was.”

“I didn’t expect you to make it to the gym after the shape you were in, but I heard you were here. We’ve got the tape to prove it.” Quinn grinned, flashing a dimple in one cheek.

Distracted by the dimple, she took a second to process what he’d said. “Hey, I did not start that. And I made it here because someone forced me to drink four glasses of water and a handful of aspirin.”

“You’re welcome. I can see aspirin isn’t the miracle pill doctors claim it is.”

“Bite me.” Delaney started walking past him. “Got any treadmills?”

“Yeah, back corner of—”

“Great. Thanks for the tour.” Delaney limped off to the back corner of the gym. “If you’re reporting back to Greer, make sure you tell her how nice and cooperative I was.”

Quinn shook his head at her retreating back. Huh. He had to admit, he was relieved to see Angry Delaney since Hopeless and Lost Delaney from D.C. had scared the hell out of him.

“Who’s that?” Gage Tierney joined him from his post at the front desk.

“Delaney Lyons,” Quinn said, still watching her get settled on a treadmill.

“
The
Delaney Lyons?” Gage swiveled his head, trying to get a good look. “Man, she’s changed.”

“Why do you say that?” Not that he hadn’t been thinking the same thing.

“She growled at me when I said hello.” Gage tried to look over casually without staring. “I remember her being a lot nicer in high school.”

Angry Delaney
. Yeah, he’d met her too. “I think she’s just going through a bad time.”

“Who are we talking about?” Hawk Savage, a fellow cop and co-owner of the gym, walked over from the locker bay.

When the only large chain gym had closed its doors two years ago, Quinn, Gage, and Hawk had decided to turn the old long-boarded-up Woolworths into a gym. The twenty-four-hour schedule accommodated both police and fire and rescue. With the high school and college kids they hired, it wasn’t a big time commitment for any of them.

“We’re not. We’re not standing around talking about our clients,” Quinn said. “Because that would be unprofessional.”

“Delaney Lyons.” Gage tipped his head, directing Hawk’s attention toward the back of the gym.

Hawk’s gaze zeroed in on the back corner with the treadmills and rowers. “
The
Delaney Lyons?”

“Yeah. Remember how crazy Quinn was over her in high school?” Gage asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Hawk gave Quinn a light punch in the arm. “He couldn’t even talk if she was sharing the same airspace.”

“She’s changed a lot, wouldn’t you say?” Gage asked.

“How can you tell? Those sweats she has on would probably fit me.” Hawk was six-foot-four and looked like he ate cars for breakfast. He’d first gotten the nickname Hawk in high school because of his ability to spot the good-looking girls from a distance. But he’d more than earned the name with his sniper skills in Iraq. “And it seems to me we looked at her legs and her ass as much as we looked at her face and her—ow!” Hawk rubbed his arm where Quinn had jabbed him.

“Delaney is a client. She’s trying to recover from an accident,” Quinn explained. “Our job is to help her with her workouts.”

“You’re saying she’ll be in here a lot,” Gage said.

“Not if we stand around here staring at her. We treat our clientele with respect. We do not ogle the clients.” Quinn gave Delaney one last long look before turning back to his friends.

“Yeah, good luck with that.” Hawk aimed a pointed glance at him.

“This could be your chance to make your move.” Gage looked from Quinn to Delaney and back again.

Quinn shook his head. “Nope. Not going there. Besides, I moved on years ago.”

“Moved on, my ass. I saw that look.” Hawk pulled out his wallet. “I’ll bet money you break in less than two weeks.”

“I can be a damn Buddhist monk around Delaney, so bet away. Put it on the books in Vegas if you want.” Quinn decided the bet would give him incentive to keep his hormones in lockdown. Not that he needed it. He remembered too clearly carrying a torch for Delaney. You stood there holding it long enough, it frickin’ burned. “Put me down for twenty. I could use a few bucks in my beer fund.”

“Well, look at y’all,” the sugar-sweet drawl of Barbara Jewel ended the betting. “Conveniently rounded up like you knew I was hunting you down.”