Dragon Warrior (Midnight Bay) (33 page)

“W-where exactly are you from?”

“Not Narnia, that’s for hell sure.” He leaned closer, bringing his mouth within inches of hers. “You’re not really all that enamored with Killkenny, are you?” he asked softly. “Because I happen to know he’ll never be able to give you what you need. Come with me, Madeline. Walk away with me right now, and I will give you the world.”

Maddy wasn’t sure where she got the nerve, but she smiled ever so sweetly. “Thank you, but I believe I’ll stick with a man who has the balls to go fight a pack of demon wolves instead of hide in a nursing home with a bunch of old people.”

He straightened away, his scowl fierce enough to turn her to toast.

Maddy kicked her smile up another notch. “William Killkenny has already given me more than I even realized I wanted. And I’d run off with . . . oh, let’s say a
dragon
before I would with someone lower than pond scum who tries to poach another man’s girlfriend the moment his back is turned.” She stepped out from between him and the wall in the direction of the kitchen, but turned back. “I’m going to put a candle in a loaf of bread, and if you’re still here when I get back, I do believe I
will
shoot you.”

Apparently Maddy had been standing in front of the open cooler so long that Maureen had decided she’d better come save her from Dr. Lewis again. But as soon as the woman turned to look in the cooler herself, she gasped.

“Where did that come from?” she whispered, reaching out and touching the cake. She blinked at Maddy. “I . . . it . . . I swear that wasn’t there two hours ago,” she said, waving at the cooler. “It’s so big it takes up an entire shelf!”

There was even one big fat candle shaped like a pine tree sitting smack in the middle of the damn thing. Maddy decided she really was going to have to write all this down the moment she woke up, because it was simply fantastical. Only she probably wouldn’t include Pond Scum’s lecherous proposition, since this was going to be a children’s book.

Maureen plopped down on the stool beside the center island and dropped her head in her hands with a tired sigh. “I’m getting too old to be working the night shift,” she muttered. “I swear I’m losing my mind.”

Maddy wrapped her arm around her, also giving a deep sigh, only hers was more resigned than tired. “One of Hiram’s invisible visitors must have put it in the cooler.”

Maureen looked up between her fingers. “That is not funny.” She suddenly dropped her hands and grinned drunkenly. “Because it’s probably true.”

“Maddy! Maureen! Come quick!” Elvira shouted, running into the kitchen. “William’s here, and he’s hurt.”

“William!” Maddy cried, chasing after Elvira, who was already running back down the hall. “Where is he?” she asked, catching up with her, Maureen also following at a run. “How badly is he hurt?”

“They laid him on the bed in Hiram’s room. He’s covered in blood!”

Maddy used the door casing to pivot around and came to a sliding stop. “Let me through,” she said, carefully pushing past the sea of people crowded around the bed. “Oh, William!” she cried, reaching out for him.

Kenzie caught her hand. “It’s not all his blood,” he said quietly enough that only she could hear as he turned her to face him. He gave her a shake to make her look at him. “But Trace thinks he might have a cracked collarbone, and there’s a deep slash on his arm that needs to be sewn shut. They said there’s a doctor here.”

“He’s not a real doctor, and I’m not letting him anywhere near William,” she hissed, pulling away. Then she had to shove Trace out of her way. She gently brushed her fingers through William’s wet hair as she studied his pupils, and she smiled when she caught him studying her back. “Don’t look so worried, big guy,” she whispered. “I’m a much better nurse than I am a driver.”

“It looks like the ligaments haven’t been damaged,” Maureen said, having unwrapped the bloody rag covering the lower half of William’s right arm. “But it’s going to need several layers of stitching.” She looked at Maddy. “We have to get an ambulance here; we’re not set up for the kind of care he needs.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Trace said. “None of the roads are passable, and the storm isn’t showing any signs of letting up.”

“Maureen, you worked as a trauma nurse for several years,” Maddy said.

“Fifteen years ago.” Maureen straightened and threw back her shoulders. “But I guess it should be like riding a bicycle. I’ll go see what I can scare up out of the supply cabinet. Come on, people,” she said, looking around. “We all need to pitch in and get organized. You two men,” she said, looking at Kenzie and Trace. “I need you to wheel Mem back to her room—no, take her to the sitting room. Janice and Elvira, you go with them and take Samuel with you. Elbridge, you find a cart and put several pans of hot water on it and wheel it back in here; then you can sit with Hiram. Charlotte, get us more sheets and lots of towels. Lois, you come with me.” She looked at Maddy. “You get him undressed, and I’ll send Lois back with supplies to clean him up.” She looked around as if checking to see if she had everyone. “Have you seen Dr. Lewis?”

Maddy shook her head. “I found out he’s not really a doctor.”

Maureen looked at Trace and Kenzie. “There’s been a man here since around three this morning, but he seems to have suddenly vanished. Could you two search the building for him after you drop off Mem?”

“We will,” Kenzie said, taking hold of the back of Mem’s recliner.

“I’m going to stay and help Maddy,” Trace said. He grinned at Maureen. “With your permission, ma’am.”

“You can help her undress him, but then clean yourself up,” she said, glancing at his wet and muddy clothes. “How much of that blood is yours?” she asked, touching the gash on his arm.

He shrugged. “Not enough of it to worry about right now.”

“Mr. Gregor?” Maureen asked.

He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. “I’ll survive until after you tend to William,” he said before wheeling Mem out into the hallway.

Everyone else had already headed off on their assignments, and Maddy turned her attention back to William when she felt him pat her bottom.

“I seem to remember telling ye to stay in the truck until I got back.”

She started unbuckling his belt. “I left you a note.”

“Ye also left the door open. The whole interior was soaked, and your note is probably halfway to Ireland by now.”

“Trace, get his boots off,” she said, unbuttoning William’s shirt, only to suck in her breath when she saw the ugly bruise just above his left pectoral muscle.

“William,” Hiram hollered. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yes, Hiram, I am. I have a good nurse.”

“Ain’t she, though?” Hiram said. “She came all the way here through this storm when Maureen called and told her I had started in dying.”

“You’re dying?” William said, trying to lift his head to look over at the other bed.

Maddy held him down. “He can wait a bit longer.”

“My whole family’s here, William,” Hiram continued. “Just like you said they’d be. Only I think they’re getting impatient.”

“You tell them they’ve waited all these years,” Maddy said, working William’s wet pants down with Trace’s help. “They can wait another day or two. And if you want a piece of your beautiful cake, you’re going to have to wait until William is all patched up, so he can have a piece with you.”

When Maddy saw the knife Trace had taken from William’s boot and set on the nightstand, she scoffed it up and stuck the blade in William’s shirtsleeve, stopping to smile at him. “Let’s see how you like having
your
clothes cut off.”

He actually smiled and relaxed back into the pillow. “Have at it, lass.”

Trace covered him with a blanket, and Maddy grabbed her cousin’s sleeve just as he turned to leave, pulling him to lean over the bed. “That guy Maureen mentioned,” she whispered so Hiram wouldn’t hear. “I think he’s the . . . tiger William left me with,” she said, glancing at William and then nodding at his frown.

She took a deep breath. “Maureen called my cell phone when I was in the truck, and told me Hiram was dying. And the tiger heard our conversation, and he somehow opened the door and started walking to the nursing home . . . taking his bubble of light with him.” She glanced at Trace to see his reaction, only to find his expression unreadable. “I came inside and the tiger sat down by the front door, but while I was changing into my scrubs, this guy suddenly showed up at the nurses’ station, claiming he was Dr. Lewis and that his car was stuck in a ditch down the road. Only he wasn’t wet from the storm, and when I went to look, the tiger was gone.”

“Did he say anything in particular,” William asked, “that would make ye think Dr. Lewis was really the tiger?”

Maddy felt her cheeks grow hot. “I-I just have a feeling. He mentioned something I’d said to the tiger on our walk here.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Madeline?” William asked. “What did he do?”

She went back to cutting off his shirt.

Trace stopped her. “Okay, I need to know why you aren’t totally freaked out by what’s going on here.”

She gave a humorless laugh and went back to cutting off William’s shirt. “I’m saving up for a total mental breakdown later.” But then she grabbed Trace’s sleeve when he started to leave. “Um . . . just don’t shoot the tiger, okay?” She smiled tightly. “He might be a jerk, but I do believe he’s on our side.”

“
Our
side?” Trace softly repeated, his storm-gray eyes searching hers.

She took another deep breath. “I became a member of your exclusive little club by default last night, don’t you think?” she said, glancing down to find William staring at her just as intensely.

He nodded ever so slightly.

Trace pulled her across the bed to kiss her on the forehead. “Welcome to the magic, Peeps,” he whispered, straightening away and walking out the door.

Maddy set down William’s knife and gently pulled his shirt out from under him.

“When are ye going to tell me what the tiger did to you?”

She straightened with a laugh and threw his shirt on the floor. “When you’re too old to even
lift
your sword.” She suddenly sobered, staring directly into his eyes. “You are going to grow old, aren’t you?” she whispered.

He shot her a wincing smile as he reached out and patted her backside again, and then cupped it with his large hand. “Aye, Madeline, we will grow old together.”

“And you’ll show me what’s in the box you gave me last night when you picked me up, that you had me run up and slide under my bed?”

He arched a brow. “Is your box under there with it?”

Her throat closing with emotion, she merely nodded.

“And are ye ready to show me what’s inside yours?”

His hand on her backside rubbed her soothingly when she started to tremble, and Maddy slowly nodded again.

“Then we will open them together.” He scowled. “And then you will tell me
everything
that happened after I left the truck.”

Elbridge walked in rolling a cart loaded with tubs of steaming water sloshing over the sides, followed almost immediately by Charlotte, her arms stacked so full of towels and sheets it was a wonder she could see where she was going.

Maureen came in looking ready to do battle, shooed everyone but Elbridge and Maddy out, and then went to work on William. It took them an hour and more than sixty stitches to close no fewer than five wounds on his body—most of the stitches in William’s handsome, muscular right forearm.

All the time she worked, Maureen kept trying to decide what had caused the gashes, unable to believe William’s explanation that it was merely flying debris from where he’d been caught in the storm. Personally, Maddy thought some of them were claw marks, and she’d swear the deep gash on his arm was from a sword.

She was a little disconcerted that William remained so calm through the entire procedure, considering they didn’t have anything stronger than a topical anesthesia to take the sting out of the needle being pushed through his flesh, and only a couple of pain pills that didn’t seem to make him even a little bit drowsy. But more often than not, it was William patting her bottom to reassure
her
that he wasn’t in any pain—although he did give her a good squeeze every now and then while Maureen was working deep in his arm.

A half hour after they tied off the last stitch, they had him bandaged and lying on clean bed linens, and Maureen was off with her supplies to tend to Kenzie and Trace.

“How are you doing over there, William?” Hiram asked, having just woken up from another nap.

“I’m right as rain, Hiram,” William said. “And you? How are you doing?”

“I’d be doing better if I could have a piece of my cake.” He looked at Maddy expectantly. “Can we get back to the party now that William’s all patched up? I feel myself fading, but I don’t want to go before I get my cake.”

She looked down to find William smiling at her. “Every man deserves to die with his belly full of sugar,” he said. “And come to think of it, I’m having a hankering for something sweet myself.” He arched his eyebrows. “So unless you’re willing to crawl in this bed with me, I suppose I’ll have to settle for some of Hiram’s cake.”

Hiram chortled like a teenager. “You be careful about flirting with our Maddy girl, William. When Doc Lewis stopped in to say good-bye, he told me to make sure I stay on Maddy’s good side, or she just might help me along before I’m ready.” He laughed again. “The Doc said she’s got a tongue sharp enough to cut a man clean in half, and I reckon you don’t need any more stitches right now.”

William snapped his gaze to Maddy.

But it was Elbridge who spoke first, as he stood up from his chair beside Hiram’s bed. “Did Dr. Lewis bother you, Maddy?” he asked. “You should have come and gotten me, and I would have escorted him out, storm or no storm.” He suddenly frowned and looked at Hiram. “When did he come say good-bye to you? Almost everyone’s been in here with you all morning.”

Maddy saw Hiram frown in confusion. “I don’t remember,” he said, glancing from Elbridge to Maddy. He gave a confounded snort. “Maybe I just dreamt he came in.”