Steel: (#5 The Beat and the Pulse) (12 page)

“Will I get to sleep?” I asked, pinching the slice of pizza from his fingers.

“Tonight?” He pressed his lips against my forehead. “Not a wink.”

T
hings worked
out pretty great between Sparks and me for a while.

She kept her promise, and I kept my secrets. I knew she wasn’t telling the whole story about her move from New York, but I’d be a hypocrite if I pressed her for answers. I let her get away with it so I could fly under the radar.

She said she didn’t care about where I’d come from or where my life was headed because she could see I was a good person. I just reckoned she saw whatever the hell she wanted. I got to believe a woman like her could love me, and she got all the sex she wanted. 

One thing didn’t change. I kept going to The Underground when Sparks was working nights and squeezed in a fight where I could. When she was finished work, I was there to pick her up. So far, she hadn’t twigged what I was doing even though I turned up with random cuts and bruises.

I didn’t know who she was in a relationship with, but it wasn’t the whole Josh Caplin.

I was currently standing in the middle of the hospital waiting for her to change so I could take her home. I had no idea where I was in relation to anything. This place was a warren of patched together rooms and corridors, loosely linked by a couple of elevators, but Holly seemed to know where she was going with her eyes closed.

“Oh, it’s you again.”

I turned to find Nurse Judy giving me the once over. She still hadn’t forgiven me for my grumpy attitude when I was in this place and didn’t mind reminding me every time she crossed my path. When she found out I was dating Sparks, she just raised an eyebrow, curled her lip, and that was it. Cross a nurse and you were doomed for life.

“Judy,” I said as I leaned against the bench of the nurses’ station where a large vase of white lilies was perched precariously on the edge.

“Holly know you’re here?”

“Don’t be so suspicious,” I drawled.

“Leave her alone, Josh.”

I turned to find Sparks behind me, a smile on her lips. Fuck, she was sexy. Her hair was loose, flowing wildly around her shoulders, and her eyes had a sparkle to them. Leaning down, I kissed her softly.

“Just giving as good as I get,” I replied.

Her gaze softened, and then she zeroed in on the fresh bruise over my left eyebrow. Sabre had smacked me in the face the night before. It’d been a rematch with no holds barred, and it’d left me with another visible mark to lie about.

“What happened to your face?” she asked, grasping my chin.

Shaking my head free, I said, “It’s nothing.”

“You’re cut and bruised!”

“It was a slip at the gym,” I lied. “Forget about it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Another one?”

“These came for you, Holly,” Nurse Judy said from behind me. “Another lot.”

Sparks glanced around me, and her expression fell like she’d been kicked in the gut.

“What is it?” I asked, straightening up.

Standing before the vase of flowers, she plucked the card from where it’d been placed between the stems. Reading it, she shook her head.

“Sparks,” I pressed.

With a scowl, she picked up the vase, rounded the counter, and dumped the entire thing into the bin.

“Who are they from so I can go punch ‘em out?” I asked, grinding my teeth.

“I don’t know. They never come with a name,” she said, rounding the counter.

“It isn’t the first?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

She shook her head, scuffing her toe against the linoleum floor. “At first, I thought it might’ve been you, but you never said anything, so I kind of forgot. Then there was this guy in the ER…” She trailed off, her brow furrowing in thought.

“What guy?” My hackles rose, my protective side simmering.

“Just some guy I patched up a couple of weeks ago,” she said, turning. When she saw my expression, she leaned against me and tangled her fingers into my shirt. “It was harmless. He asked me out on a date, and I said no. I forgot about it what with everything we were going through.”

I grunted, my lip curling. The thought of some other guy with his dirty paws all over my Sparks was making my anger surface. I wouldn’t be able to fight tonight, but I’d sure be able to fuck.

“This is the fourth lot of flowers now,” she went on “It’s beginning to get weird.”

“More than fucking weird,” I cursed. “I’m calling Charlie.”

Her head cocked to the side. “Who’s Charlie?”

“She’s a cop. She’ll look into it for you.”

“Wait,” Sparks said. “She’s the same woman who came to talk to you after your accident?”

So she’d ruled my ass beating as an accident. “Yeah. That’s her.”

“Do we really need to involve the police?” she asked. “It’s just some flowers.”

“It starts off as flowers. Then it turns into phone calls and creepy surveillance photographs. Charlie’s a friend. She’ll keep it off book.”

“Phone calls and photos? How do you know?”

I rolled my eyes and took out my phone. “It’s called the movies, Sparks. I’m not talking from personal experience.”

She curled her fingers around my wrist. “Leave it,” she said.

“I won’t leave it.”

Sparks sighed, pulling away from me. “Call her tomorrow. Tonight, can we just go home and forget about it?”

Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I echoed, “Tomorrow.”

W
hen Sparks
and I rolled up to her apartment, I was surprised to see the place was free of boxes. The brown cardboard was nowhere to be seen, and in its place was a home.

“What happened here?” I asked as she flicked on the lights. “A Christmas miracle?”

She laughed, the sound pulling my attention back to her. “It was about time, is all. I’ve been here for almost a year. That’s some epic procrastination.”

“I’ll fucking say.”

Turning, I wandered through to the living room, running my fingers over her furniture, and I stopped to look at the books on her bookshelf. They were all medical journals and textbooks. Really big fucking things with long names. Sliding one out, I flicked through the pages. It may as well have been written in gobbledygook for all I understood.

“Don’t look at that,” Sparks said, materializing next to me. She took the book from my hand and slid it back into place. “It’s dry as hell.”

“Yeah, but I can’t believe you understand any of it.” My inferiority complex was beginning to surface again and doubt that the longevity of this thing we were playing at would survive the year.

“Lots of long years studying and having no social life is how,” she declared. “Come. I’ve got you a beer.”

Threading her fingers through mine, she led me into the lounge room where I sank down onto the couch. Still a fish out of water. I thought about The Underground and telling her everything, but I only had to take one look at her and the life she inhabited to know keeping my mouth shut was a good fucking idea.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asked, popping the top off both beers and handing me one.

“Yeah.” I took a mouthful of the smooth brew to hide my reluctance.

“What
do
you do all day?” she asked, settling back into the couch, and I pulled her legs across my lap. “I don’t even know if you have a job or anything.”

I shrugged. “I’m between gigs at the moment.”

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Really?”

“
Really
.” It came out harsher than I intended, and when her expression fell, I knew I’d hurt her.
Dick
.

“I don’t know that much about your life. What you do… I just…”

“I don’t have any direction in life,” I hissed. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

She sat up straight, placing her beer on the coffee table. “Josh…”

“You have this high and mighty career, and I’ve got no prospects whatsoever. You want to make a go of things with a guy like that?”

She sighed sharply, looking forlorn. “Where is this coming from?”

I shook my head, not knowing what to say. I never knew where any of the stupid things I thought about came from. They just appeared, and most of the time, they were the truth.

“I don’t know what I want to do, Hol,” I said. “I’m meant to know, and I don’t.”

“Then we’ll figure it out,” she said. “Not everybody knows their true calling when society tells them they should.”

“I just…” I sighed, my shoulders feeling tense. “I want to be worthy of you.”

“You are,” she murmured.

“Don’t think about this with your heart,” I argued. “You save lives, Holly. I just…float.”

“You’re a stubborn asshole, you know that?” she hissed, shoving my shoulder with her tiny hands. The same tiny hands she saved lives with. The same hands she saved
my
sorry ass with. “I thought I wasn’t good enough for you.”

I shook my head, seriously thinking the world was going bonkers. “Why would you think that?”

“C’mon,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You look like that.” She waved her hands up and down, gesturing at my body.

“That’s just looks, Sparks. That doesn’t mean shit.”

“It means a lot to heaps of people,” she complained. “You could be the nicest, most honest person with all the book smarts in the world, and that’s still not enough to capture the attention of someone who looks like you.”

How did this conversation turn into a me versus her argument? I had to put her on the straight and narrow.

“Sparks, you really don’t know?”

“Know what?” she asked, pouting.

Pulling her into my lap, which happened to be my favorite place to sit with her, I ran my fingers through her hair. “You’re beautiful, and it has just as much to do with who you are inside as it does the package. You mightn’t think it, but if you could see yourself like I do…” I stroked a thumb over her lips and leaned close.

Her honey-colored eyes sparkled in the dim lamplight. “You think I’m all that?”

I nodded. I thought she was all that and more, but I was the one who could never live up to it. When she finds out about the things I’d done and the things I did against my better judgment, she would walk away and never come back. I had to keep it from her as long as I could so I could love her a little longer.
Fucking selfish asshole.

Pressing my lips against hers, I kissed her softly, and as she opened up to me, I stroked my tongue against hers.

Beautiful, elegant, strong, intelligent, and brave. Those were the things I saw in her, the things I lacked. The things I wanted.

The real Josh Caplin would never be a match for Holly Walsh.

I
wasn’t
sure when the balance between lust and love had tipped, but I was falling for Josh Caplin.

There were still so many secrets between us. I had a couple, but Josh seemed to have them in spades. I was beginning to wonder who I was really falling for. The real Josh or a pale imitation.

When he’d said Charlie was a friend, I began to wonder what she knew that I didn’t. She was one of the detectives who questioned him just after he woke up, so she was privy to information I wasn’t. If she was going to help me look into my flower problem, then maybe I could prod her a little about Josh.

Josh arranged for her to come and see me at the hospital the next day. I remembered thinking she was beautiful the first time I saw her, but as she walked toward me, I couldn’t help feeling jealous…no matter what Josh had told me last night.

Charlie Croft could ditch her job as a Detective and walk straight onto a Victoria’s Secret runway. Tall, blonde, flawless. Every man she passed, stopped what they were doing and stared like she was the sun in their bleak existences.

“Holly,” she said, smiling widely. Shit, even her teeth were perfect.

“Thanks for coming to speak with me,” I said, shaking her hand. “Josh insisted on it.”

“No problems at all. It may turn out to be nothing, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“You’ll keep it off record?” I asked, glancing around. “I mean, I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. It’s just some flowers.”

“Off book until you say the word.” She smiled again, and we walked down the hall to the staffroom so I could change out of my scrubs.

Luckily, we had the room to ourselves, so I changed behind my locker door as she asked what sounded like stock standard detective questions.

I told her about David, the guy I’d patched up in the ER, about Archer, and about Gunner and her need to keep pushing me into bed with any eligible guy she laid eyes on. I even told her about Sammy, the little boy with the tumor we couldn’t save despite our best efforts, and about his family. I gave her details on every patient who might have motive to send me gifts after I’d treated them.

“There have been four lots of flowers, all the same. White lilies,” I said.

“Do they have any significance?”

I thought about it for a moment and shook my head. “No. Not at all.”

“Did they come with cards?”

“Yeah. They all had a quote written on each. Things about love and belief. And ones about having confidence in yourself.”

She raised her eyebrows but was otherwise passive. “Did you keep any of them? Or did you throw them away?”

“I threw them all away. I seriously didn’t think anything of them at first. Then I got another lot and another… Nobody has come forward. It was only because Josh was there and saw them that I’m even talking to you.”

“Hmm,” Charlie mused.

“Do you really think it’s more than just a secret admirer?”

“It’s hard to say. I’ll look into this David guy. He seems to be the most likely suspect. Like you said, it’s probably harmless, but there are some cases like this that turn sour. I’ll check it out and make sure you’re okay.”

“Thanks for doing this,” I said, pulling my boots on. “If it puts Josh’s mind at ease, then cool.”

“What about yours?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “You’re not worried?”

“It happens from time to time. Patients sending thank-you gifts and asking female staff out on dates.” I shrugged, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “I’m not that worried. These things usually fizzle out after a while.”

Charlie raised her eyebrows again and rose to her feet. “You need a ride home? Josh said you live in the Docklands. I can swing by that way.”

“You sure?” I asked. Getting a taxi was a pain at this time of night. Eight p.m. was peak on a Friday, and half the time, I had to sandwich myself onto a tram.

“It’s no problem. You’re not far out of my way. Five minutes, tops.”

Sounded great to me. I’d be able to get to know her a little better, and if she was a part of Josh’s unknown life, then I’d be able to learn more about him, too.

She’d parked in the undercover car park on the east side of the hospital, so it took a little time to walk through the wards and out into the ugly concrete building. We didn’t speak the entire way, but once we were in the car, it was like someone had flipped a switch, and Charlie was all talk.

She asked me about working at the hospital, how I liked Melbourne, pretty much anything to do with me and nothing about her. That was until she asked the biggest question of the lot.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how are things going with you and Josh?”

“Why?” I asked, beginning to feel uncertain.

“He seems happy. After everything he’s been through, it’s nice.” She turned her head and glanced up and down the street for oncoming traffic. Pulling out of the hospital lot onto Brunswick Street, she headed toward the city.

“Are you two good friends?”

“We know each other from around,” she replied absently. “He started going to the same gym as me a couple of weeks ago, so we’ve been talking more.”

“Oh.” I glanced out the window and scowled. I didn’t even know what gym he went to, or who his friends were, or that he knew Charlie so well. I was falling into another relationship hole I couldn’t get out of. There I went, always diving in headfirst without thinking about the consequences. I had been so hell-bent on not doing it again, and here I was, regardless of all intent. Talk about a major character flaw.

“What gym?”

“Pulse…” She said it slowly like the word was key to everything.

“He doesn’t talk about himself much,” I muttered, watching the city go past.

“Well, that’s fighter types for you. More brawn than brains sometimes.”

Turning my attention back onto Charlie, I wondered what she was getting at. “What do you mean ‘fighter types’?”

Her expression fell, and she shook her head as she realized she’d said a little too much. “Ah, shit.”

“
Charlie
.”

“I don’t know what I should say,” she said. “Josh obviously hasn’t said anything for a reason. Maybe he should be the one who tells you.”

“Tells me what?” I wasn’t having any of that. She’d dropped herself in it, and now I wanted an explanation.

She pursed her lips, obviously uncomfortable.

“You were one of the detectives who spoke to Josh after his accident,” I said, starting to put the pieces of the puzzle that was Josh Caplin together.

“That’s right.”

“The accident he doesn’t want to talk about. The one where he didn’t want to press charges…” The more I thought about it, the more I realized Charlie was holding back on something. She knew the real circumstances of the night Josh was left on the footpath and probably even more than that. “You know, I thought it was an accident after you questioned him. Somebody stuffed something up and didn’t want to take the fall for it, so they left him out the front of the ER to avoid getting their involvement on record. I always suspected something else was going on, but I trusted him to tell me when he was ready. Now I see he probably won’t.”

“Holly, it’s not that simple.”

“What’s simple is that he doesn’t trust me,” I snapped. “What am I doing with him if he won’t let me in, Charlie? What am I supposed to do? Stick my fingers in my ears and pretend nothing’s wrong? Was he in trouble?”

She sighed. “No. At least, I don’t think so.”

I scowled, my stomach dipping with every passing second. “What’s that meant to mean?”

“He fights,” she said slowly.

“He was beaten up, right? That’s how he got his injuries? By who?”

“I better let Josh explain himself,” she began, but I could see it in her eyes. She didn’t think he’d tell me the whole story, either. How was I meant to make things work between us if he couldn’t be honest with me?

“He was pretty fucked up,” I hissed at her. “Broken ribs, fractured jaw, and broken arm. Fuck, his spine was compressed so much he was
paralyzed,
and he still kept his mouth shut. Who did this to him, Charlie? Why the fuck doesn’t he want to press charges?”
What was so wrong with me that he didn’t want to trust me?

Charlie’s phone began to beep.

“You need to say something,” I exclaimed. “I need to know what’s going on.”

Ignoring me, she pulled the car over into a loading bay and checked her phone. I wanted to punch the living daylights out of her.

“
Charlie
.”

“It’s my boyfriend,” she explained. “He’s a fighter, too.”

“Too?”

“Josh and Kane, they fight at this place called The Underground. Cage fighting.”

“Cage fighting?” My eyes widened. It was a brutal, bloody sport and explained a great deal. The cuts and bruises he’d been shrugging off as accidents at the gym, why he didn’t seem to have a job,
how he ended up in hospital
.

“Josh has been fighting there…”

“At this Underground place?”

“Yeah.” She read the text, and her expression tightened. “
Dammit
,” she cursed and went to turn the screen off, but I’d already leaned over and caught sight of one word that sent a chill down my spine.
Josh
.

“He can’t fight, Charlie. If he gets hit the wrong way…”

“You already said and I’m sorry.” She glanced at me, her expression full of regret. “I didn’t know. He didn’t say anything.”

“Is he there now?” I asked.

“I’ll handle it,” she replied, pulling the car back out onto the road. “I’ll drop you home.”

“No fucking way,” I exclaimed. “Take me there now.”

“I don’t think you understand, Holly. It’s not a nice place. They’re not nice people, and they have eyes on Josh. If they know about you and he threatens them…”

Then I was in big shit. I was pretty much in it already. Stalked by a creepy unknown guy with a penchant for white lilies. I was lied to by the man I was falling for, and I was pretty much the least trusted person in his books, too. But if Josh fought…it could send him straight back into that hospital bed, never mind the alleged threats from the bosses at this Underground place.

“You’ll fucking take me there,” I demanded. “If he fights and gets hit the wrong way, he could put himself into a wheelchair.
Permanently
. Who’s going to get that through his thick head other than me?”

“You’re going to give him an ultimatum?”

“If it’s like you say, then he’s got to get out of that place and never go back. I don’t know how else to make him see reason.”

Charlie hesitated and thought for a moment, then sighed sharply. Wrenching the wheel around, I held on for dear life as she did an abrupt U-turn, making the tires squeal on the tram tracks as we swerved over them.

“You better stick with me,” she commanded as car horns honked at us. “I’ll have your back. That place is full of sharks, and one look at a wallflower like you, and they’ll want to take a bite.”

I felt vomit begin to accumulate in the back of my throat. “Got it.”

I had to believe Josh wanted me more than anything. He’d put up with a lot of shit and was still hanging on, so I had to take it and gamble. Me or the fight. He couldn’t have both. With me, he had a future. With fighting, he had nothing but a one-way ticket to a wheelchair.

I hoped I was right about how he felt because if I wasn’t, I’d lose him forever.