Nyght's Eve (24 page)

Evie held up her hand to signal Dare as
Gawain gave an alert. The dog took off to the left, and they followed him until
they came to a path of crushed branches and drag marks in the dirt. Dare knelt
down to study the terrain. “We’ve got blood.”

Dare gave the dog a quick rub on his head as
Gawain leaned against him. The dog’s body vibrated with barely restrained
energy. He was on the scent now and wanted to go. “Find Shane, Winnie. Go find
Shane!” Dare commanded.

The dog gave a happy bark, then took off
following the scent trail. Dare looked around, slightly confused as Gawain came
to a stop, then his breath caught in his throat as he saw they were standing on
the edge of a small ledge that dropped down a few feet below. At the bottom lay
Shane, still as death. “He’s here!”

While Evie got busy relaying the information
over the radio to the rest of the teams, Dare carefully made his way down to
Shane, using an area few feet away where the drop off was more gradual. He felt
the bite of rough bark on his hands as he climbed down to the boy, then fell to
his knees when he got to Shane.

The boy was a mess. Covered in dirt and blood,
his body showed evidence of the car accident and signs of being dragged through
the forest. Shane must have lost his footing on the ledge and gone over. He was
lucky though, as it seemed his fall had been cushioned by a pile of dead
leaves. Still, Shane’s arm had suffered in the fall. The bone had broken,
probably when the boy had tried to brace himself in the fall. Checking for a
pulse, Dare felt his body go slack with relief as he felt Shane’s slow and
steady heart beat.

“Shane! Shane, can you hear me?”

Blood covered the thin arm, seeping out from
where the bone had perforated the skin, but that didn’t bother Dare. For the
first time in longer than he could remember, the sight of blood didn’t make him
sick. Instead, his only focus was doing what needed to be done to make sure
Shane was okay. He pulled out the medical supplies from his backpack and got to
work on Shane’s arm.

When Evie fell to her knees beside them, Dare
snapped out, “Don’t move him!”

“I won’t. Tell me how to help,” she said
softly.
 

Dare knew that Evie was well versed in first
aid, but he was too busy to think clearly at the moment. He grabbed her hand
and put it over the large gauze pad he had been holding over the wound to
staunch the bleeding. “Hold this. We need to stop the bleeding, but don’t put
too much pressure on the bone. Good. We don’t know if he has any other injuries
to his back or neck so I don’t want him moved until the medivac gets here. Did
you call it in?”

“Yes, they’re on their way.”

“We have an open fracture of the radius. I
need to wrap this and keep it stabilized until we can clean the wound and get
him into surgery. Can you...yeah, that’s good.”

Dare began to wrap a large sterile bandage
around the piece of padding Evie held in place against Shane’s arm. The boy
stirred, and dark-brown eyes filled with pain opened to stare up at them. “Dare...?”

Dare barely heard the boy’s whisper, but the
sound of the weak voice still managed to put a relieved smile on his face. He’d
never heard Shane speak before, but he was damn glad to hear it now. “Yeah,
kid. I’m here. Now, hold still while I fix you up.”

“My mom...”

Dare’s mouth tightened into a scowl. “You
don’t have to worry about her anymore. She can’t hurt you, ever again.”

The boy nodded slightly. “You...you came for
me.”

“Of course I did,” Dare said gruffly as he
brushed a comforting hand over Shane’s head. “Now, don’t move. I don’t want you
screwing up my bandages before we get you to the hospital.”

Despite the pain he was feeling, a small
smile tilted Shane’s lips up as he closed his eyes again. Dare could feel Evie
there with him, and her presence comforted him in a way he never thought
possible. She reached out and placed her hand over Dare’s where it rested on
Shane’s head, and he looked at her. A thousand messages were exchanged silently
as blue eyes met dark-gray. His hand turned over, linking his fingers with hers
as they waited for help to arrive. They glanced up at the sound of a helicopter
flying overhead, and both of them breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Hold on kid, help is on its way.”

****

Dare glowered down at the glass of beer he
was holding in his hand.

He was sitting at a table in The Fox Hole surrounded
by his friends, but in his mind, he was drifting. No wonder, since he had a lot
on his mind. Dare jerked as Dante knocked his elbow off the table, and cursed
as his beer sloshed over the side of the glass.

“Hey, enough brooding. The kid is doing well.
You said so yourself.”

“I know. It’s just...fuck.”

Hammer, Dante, Malcolm, Tony, Hunter and
Beckett silently nodded in agreement at Dare’s statement. Or rather his implied
statement. Dare thought back to that nerve-wracking flight to the Breakers’
hospital after the helicopter had picked them up. Evie had insisted Dare go
with Shane, and he was glad he had. Shane’s blood pleasure had dropped while
they were in flight, and no matter how skilled the medics were, Dare’s training
as a trauma surgeon had come in handy. He had Shane stabilized by the time they
reached the hospital, and then the doctors had taken over. Dare had wanted to
scrub in, but he knew he didn’t have privileges at the hospital.

So, he’d had to wait, like everyone else.

Anna had cried all over him in thanks, and
Dare was extremely glad when Evie showed up in the waiting room with the others
since the search was done and took the crying woman off his hands. He was
extremely uncomfortable by all the attention he had gotten from Tim, then from
Nate when he arrived with Hammer and Kali. Evie had changed her clothes when
she had returned home with her dog, and Dare was grateful for the change of
clothes she had brought him since he had still been covered with Shane’s blood.

The surgery had gone well, and everyone in
the waiting room had breathed a sigh of relief when they were told that Shane
would be fine. Nate went into the recovery room with Anna and Tim to see Shane
first, but Anna came back out to say that Shane had asked for Dare. Holding
tight to Evie’s hand, they went into Shane’s room. Anna had begun weeping all
over again as Shane had spoken to Dare, asking when he could come back to the
rescue center to be with him.

“Get better first,” Dare had told him. “Then
you and I can get back to work.”

Shane had been released from the hospital two
days ago, and he was home resting with his aunt and uncle. His brother Nate
hadn’t left his side since he had gotten out of surgery, and Kali, Becca and
Madeline had been taking turns bringing them food so they wouldn’t have to
worry about anything but Shane.

Dare had realized a few things while he had
been waiting in that room to hear if Shane would be okay. He had been caught
off guard by the overwhelming desire to be inside that operating room,
utilizing his skills to make sure that the boy would be okay. The sight of
Shane’s blood hadn’t bothered him. He had been too damn worried to feel
nauseous or panicked, and instinct and experience had taken over. Dare thought
he’d never get that feeling back again after his time in Spain, but knowing that
his issue had worked itself out had been...liberating.

Still, he had been broody and irritable since
Shane’s kidnapping. The only time he wasn’t was when he was around Evie. He
couldn’t count the times he had dragged her away from whatever she was doing
and made mad, desperate love to her. He wasn’t sure why he was so determined to
fuck her into a coma, but she had finally had enough and had sent him to town
to hang with Hammer and his other buddies while she had a girl’s night with her
friends.

 
The only
reason Dare could come up with was he needed Evie to want him as much as he did
her. He wanted to claim her in a way that made it impossible for her to even
think about any other man. It was a primitive desire, driven by the knowledge
that things would be changing soon. He was no longer the broken man he had been
when he arrived in Breakers, but what did that mean for them?

 
Dare
could no longer justify hiding out at the rescue center. He needed to figure
out what he was going to do with the rest of his life, and how that would
affect what he had with Evie. When he had been waiting for Shane to come out of
the surgery, one of the administrators of the hospital had stopped by to
introduce herself. Alda Hertz was a friend of Malcolm Fox’s, and Dare had absently
remembered the older man had encouraged him to go speak with her. Alda had made
it clear they would like to speak with him about taking a position at the
hospital, and Dare had to admit he was interested.

There were a lot of details Dare had to work out
in order to have a life with Evie in Breakers. There was no question he was
willing to do whatever he had to in order to be with her, but the more he
thought about it, the more he realized that he actually liked the damn town.
There was a sense of community that he had never been a part of. Even in the
Army, Dare had a specific place within the structure and confines of the
hierarchy. When he had started working for the taskforce, Dare had found a team
he could count on without fail, but the work itself had left him drained.

Breakers was a town that seemed like it was
its own little world. The people took care of one another, but they also
protected the town itself. Dare liked the idea of living in a place where he
didn’t constantly have to have his guard up. Naturally, he would always have an
edge to him, but knowing that his six was covered by friends made it the ideal
place for Dare to settle down.
 

 
“He’s
brooding again,” Beckett observed as he sipped from his own beer. “Or maybe he
is just sulking because Evie kicked him out for the night.”

“I don’t blame the girl,” Hunter said, his
eyes narrowing on Dare. “Considering you’ve been nailing my cousin against every
flat surface you can find for days now.”

“Hey!” Tony snapped. “I don’t want to hear
this shit. I like to tell myself my girls are virgins, and will remain so until
they get married.”

Hunter snorted. “Ha! You can say that with
what Frannie writes?”

“I don’t want to think about that either,”
Tony growled.

“You think I do?” Beckett asked darkly. He
was more civilized than the other men at the table, but when he was riled he
could be just as dangerous. “And you weren’t the one who walked in on Dare and
Evie in one of my exam rooms!”

“You were supposed to be gone for the day,”
Dare shot back, but even he had to admit that excuse sounded weak.

Dante laughed evilly. “I have to say I have a
new respect for you. Eight times in one day? Even I’m impressed.” Both Malcolm
and Tony reached out and slapped Dante on the back of his head. “Damn it. What?
At least he’s getting some.”

“That’s our cousin you’re talking about!”
Hunter groused.

“Son, you need to handle this shit with Zoe.
She’s making you lose your mind.”

“Don’t I know it,” Dante muttered.

“How the hell did you hear about that?” Dare
said, hoping like hell he wasn’t blushing. He really had been out of control
lately.

“The people at the center talk. Did you know
they have a daily bet going about how many times you drag Evie off to your
cave?”

“You and your goddamn bets,” Dare snarled
under his breath so only Dante could hear.

Dante’s face darkened. “Don’t fucking remind
me.”

They looked up as Sheriff Storm Wyatt came
over to join them. Malcolm leaned back and signaled to the waitress to bring
them another round of drinks, and Dare was pleased with the distraction. Just
thinking about sex with Evie had made his cock throb, and the last thing he
needed was a hard-on while he was sitting at a table with the men of her
family.

“I just stopped by to visit Shane and Nate.”
Storm sighed as he sat down. “Poor kids. They’re really nervous about the
upcoming trial. I’m not sure Shane is going to be able to handle being up on
the stand so soon after this last clusterfuck.”

“About that,” Dare said slowly. “I had an
idea...hell, actually it was Tony and Malcolm that gave me the idea, so—”

“Really?” Malcolm and Tony exchanged a look.
They might be older, but the wicked gleam in their eyes gave a hint to the hell
raisers they still were. “Then it must be good.”

Dare glared at both men. “As I was saying...I
think I have an idea that might help Shane and Nate get through their
testimony.”

“Does it involve just taking that son of a
bitch Hollis out? Because I could get behind that,” Dante said. Hammer raised
his fist and tapped it against Dante’s.

“No, but it will require your help. All of
you.”

The men sobered as Tony nodded and said,
“Tell us what you need, son.”

“We only have a week, but I think we can pull
it off, if everyone helps.” Dare blew out a breath, then began to explain. “I
think it’s time we put the name
Breakers’
Bad Boys
to good use...”