Rival Forces (19 page)

David looked back and forth between the pair. “You sound like an old married couple.”

“Do not,” they replied in unison.

Kye scowled at his patient. “If you can't take the pain, let me know.”

He levered the doctor's arm high to check the back of his biceps. Then he pulled out a penlight and bent close for a better look at the injury.

By the time the examination was done, Gunnar was sweating, and it wasn't from the temperature. But his voice was steady and his gaze direct. “How bad is it?”

“You know more than I do, of course. But I'd say it's an ice-pick injury.”

“Ice pick?” Yardley looked confused. “I thought he'd been shot.”

“It means the bullet passed through my arm.” David reached out his good hand to her. “I agree. I did a preliminary examination first chance I could. I could tell by the blood flow that the bullet didn't sever an artery. And the bone's not broken.”

“Still, it did damage, Doc.” Kye tried not to stare at the way Yardley was smoothing the hair back from the man's face. But he was jealous. So green he made the Hulk look jaundiced. “You've got a lot of swelling, and judging by the heat around the wound, infection could be an issue really soon.”

Gunnar was swearing softly by the time Kye finished rebandaging the arm. And his complexion seemed to be draining away behind his deep tan. He needed liquids, and probably some kind of sedative. But he wasn't complaining.

“Think you can scare up some painkillers from the clinic, Yard? I figure Dr. Gunnar will know which he can safely take and at what dose.” He glanced at his patient. “Of course, you won't get the cherry flavoring.”

Yardley passed a worried glance between the two men before she turned to leave.

“Take Oleg. For safety.”

She nodded, grabbing the dog's leash. Lily had long ago curled up under the bunk the doc occupied.

When she left, Kye turned to David. “Start talking and make the words count.”

Gunnar watched Kye for a moment, and Kye knew he was weighing his options. “How long have you known Yardley?”

Kye glanced at the door. Yardley would make that the fastest trip possible. “I trained under her father about a dozen years ago.”

“Why do you call her Yard?”

“All her friends do.” The doc was getting exactly one more question before it was his turn again.

“You're more than a friend.”

Kye held the man's gaze. He knew what he was asking. “We've got a lot of shared history. First her father. Then I served with her brother in Afghanistan.”

The doctor blinked. “I didn't know she had a brother.”

“If you want to know more about Yard, you'd better ask her.”

A sketch of a smile appeared on Gunnar's face. “She's a very independent and private person. It's one of the things I like best about her.”

Kye flicked him a look. “Let's cut to the chase. I haven't called the authorities because she asked me not to. But I don't trust her judgment about you. You put her through hell. So you don't get to come here with your wounded-warrior act and lean on a woman whose only real flaw, in my opinion, is her weakness for you. You need to tell the truth about what's going on. Then let her decide if she wants to be part of your bullet-dodging world. Do we understand each other?”

“That's a lot of talking for an uninvolved man.”

“Yeah. I work alone a lot. You should ask my dog Lily about how I can chatter on.”

“You have feelings for Yard.”

“Well, I'm just a touchy-feely kind of guy.”

“Does she know?”

“If it mattered do you think I'd be talking to you instead of hauling your ass out of here?”

Gunnar gave him a long look. “I haven't done anything illegal.”

“Tell Yard the whole truth. She's a big girl. She can deal. If she wants to. If she doesn't, I'm going to be a bigger problem than anything you've got going now.”

Yardley came back then, moving in a hurry, Oleg at her heels. “I found several meds that might work. But we need to move David to the house. It's freezing in here. And the weather is getting worse.”

 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Yardley sat beside her bed watching the handsome man propped up on her pillows. How many times during the last three months had she lay in this bed wishing David could be here with her? Now he was. Yet all she could think about was being overheard by the man on the other side of the closed bedroom door.

Maybe that was because what David had explained to her so far about what lay behind his sudden disappearance was a long way from reassuring. The fake drug industry, that's what David had set himself against. He was a witness in a government task force to take down traffickers in bogus pharmaceuticals. She didn't have to ask if it was dangerous. He'd been in protective custody, waiting until he could give testimony in a trial. And when he left, he'd been shot. She had a thousand questions but he was very weak, and getting more so by the moment. There was one, at least, that demanded an answer.

Her gaze strayed to his wound. “You haven't told me who shot you.”

“The less you know the safer is it for everyone.” His expression was strained by pain since she and Kye half carried him to the house. He was gray-faced by the time they got him into bed. He had rallied a little after sips of Gatorade, green tea, and a couple of the heavy-duty pain meds she'd found in her bathroom cabinet. She'd kept them after healing from a muscle pulled while demonstrating how to rappel down a thirty-foot wall with a K-9 strapped on.

“You've got to give me something, David.” She locked eyes with him. “Why did you come here?”

“You.” His smile winked in. It didn't have a firm perch on his lips.

“I never gave you any personal information. How did you know how to find me?”

“The FBI.” He closed his eyes, the effort to speak taxing him. “They told me you had come to them for help finding me.” His eyes opened again, searching hers with a seriousness she'd never before seen from him. “Is that true?”

She nodded, feeling acutely uncomfortable. “If that's the only reason you came, you shouldn't have.”

His smile turned tender. “That's my Yardley. Prickly as a cactus and still as intoxicating as tequila shots.” He sucked in a long breath. “You were looking for me. Why?”

Yardley stood up, began straightening the things arranged for him on her bedside table. Anything was better than sitting next to him feeling as she did. “I needed closure. When we parted at the airport, you could have just told me then that you were going away and not to expect to see or hear from you again.” She paused to look at him, her gaze direct. “I'm an adult. I would have handled it.”

“That's not what I wanted to say to you.”

“Then what?”

“I love you.” He laughed at her expression, a coarse hollow sound cut off almost instantly by a grunt of pain as he clutched his side.

She moved quickly back to him. “David, what's wrong?”

He hissed in a breath between clenched teeth. “Your bodyguard wasn't as thorough as I would have been. He missed diagnosing my bruised ribs.”

Yardley nodded slowly and brushed the hair back from his forehead, trying desperately not to let her feelings get in the way of what she was hearing and needed so badly to understand. He was hurt more badly than he'd told her. “What can I do?”

“Love me?” He said the words carefully this time, a grin forming.

She smiled back but shook her head. “I think that's the painkillers talking, David.”

“No.” The word was harsh. “You were right about the last time we were together. I intended to break up with you.” He took another shallow breath, but the blue of his eyes blazed a path right through her. “I knew it wouldn't be safe.” He swallowed, his lids fluttering. “But that was before.”

“Before what?”

Once more he seemed to rouse himself and she realized he was fighting the medications she'd given him as well his pain. He gripped her hand. “You aren't safe. That's why I'm here. You aren't safe, Yardley.”

*   *   *

Headphones on, Kye had had two hours to do some soul searching while the doctor and Yardley were locked behind her bedroom door. At the end of the first hour, he'd used up all the reasons why he wanted to drop-kick the good doctor from here into the middle of next week. Reality began to reassert itself shortly thereafter. The upshot was, he was being a douche.

The reasons why the doctor disappeared, had gone silent, and then miraculously reappeared were none of his business. Even who'd shot him and why. Only Yardley's business. He had no right to an opinion, or to try to influence hers. He knew coming here that what Yardley wanted was to find the man who'd gone missing from her life.

Now the doc had turned up. It didn't matter what his story was. How weak-assed or un-fuckin'-believable his story was. He'd seen the look on Yard's face when they'd lowered David Gunnar onto her bed. She was totally absorbed with the man. Those where the facts. For everything else he'd have to work around them.

As for anything else that had been going on in his own mind since dawn, that was strictly his problem. Sure they'd slept together. How could he blame her for seeking a little solace after the night she'd had? Damn. She'd fought Stokes thinking that he'd abandoned her. The realization made him feel a little sick each time he remembered it. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he hadn't shown up in time.

Kye glanced at that closed door, trying like everything not to imagine what could be going on behind it, and failing miserably. He knew what would be going on if he were in Gunnar's place. He was jealous.

No. He pushed away any wording in his thoughts that made it her fault. She'd come to him for security reasons the night before. She'd needed to feel safe. And she'd come to the only available safe place. If she'd decided that his protection included participating in the life-affirming need to merge bodies then, hell, he was one lucky sumbitch. But that didn't give him any rights or sense of ownership over Yardley Summers. He'd lost the opportunity to build on the perfect union of bodies. For a few precious hours she'd been his again. And it was her idea. Her way.

“Fuck.” He hurled the magazine he'd been half reading for two hours across the room. This was not good. He was feeling things he shouldn't be feeling about a woman that he could in no way lay claim to. Because, much as he didn't want to feel this way, he could feel it eating away inside him. He was jealous as hell of David Gunnar.

He itched to call Law but he could imagine what he would have to say about recent events. He'd sent Kye here to be his sister's protector. Not his finest hour, leaving her to deal with Stokes, innocently or not. Still, nothing had changed now that his responsibilities included Yardley asking him to protect her almost-fiancé.

He looked around the living room that seemed cold despite the pile of logs snapping and hissing in brilliant flames in the fireplace. There was nothing here for him but a sorry-ass assignment that he wished he hadn't taken. Curiosity, hell! He was feeling way too many things than was good for either of them. He was only going to get his head handed to him on a platter, again.

Kye shook himself like a dog, causing Lily to lift her head and bark.

“
Shh.
Sick people inside.”

She gave him her famous huff and laid back down.

Even Lily thought he was out of line.

He wagged his head and turned his music volume in the headphones up to eye-bleed territory.

*   *   *

Kye almost missed the knock on the front door for what it was. The person was knocking a second time when he reached the door. He flipped on the porch light and peered through the small window set in the plank door at eye level. Yardley's eye level. He had to stoop.

Beyond the door, a man in a baseball cap was bouncing on his toes and shivering. His hands were shoved in his jean pockets. He looked cold. Which made perfect sense since he wore only a corduroy jacket unbuttoned over a T-shirt advertising a microbrewery. He was lean, almost wiry, not carrying much insulation.

Kye opened the door six inches, bracing a booted foot firmly behind it. “Yeah?”

The guy flashed him a grin, revealing a gap between his right front tooth and incisor. “Hey, man. Sorry to bother you but my truck broke down back on the road.” He pulled a hand from his pocket to hitch a thumb over his shoulder. “I'm Purdy Hollister, by the way. I called a buddy who lives over this way to come get me. But he says the roads are so bad he don't know when he'll get here. I been waiting over an hour and freezing my ass off in the truck. Now I'm about outta gas. Last time I leave Georgia without checking the forecast first. Friggin' Yankee weather.” He paused, waiting for Kye to respond.

“You want to come in to warm up?”

“Hell yeah. If that's cool with you. Not disturbing the family or anything.”

He reached for the door but Kye held it firmly. “Where's your truck?”

The guy grinned wider and pointed in the general direction of the road. “Just back up over there.” He turned and picked up a sack he had evidently brought with him. “Got some New Year's cheer, if y'all partake.”

Liquor in a sack. Real class. Kye gave him his MP stare, noticing that the man wasn't as young as he'd first appeared. And his scruffy jaw and country way of talking were at odds with his haircut. A very complicated fade was only partially hidden beneath his cap. Not that it mattered. “You can get warm but you can't stay here long.”

“Sure, man. Just need to thaw my balls.”

Kye blocked him as he was about to enter. “Also. You can't use that kind of language here.”

“Oh, sure thing. Excuse me. All due respect.”