by Ophelia Bell
He laughs. “Sweetness, I told you—you’re a wildcat. But I love it. It’s only a few scratches. I’ll live.”
But he’s bleeding. I can’t just leave him like that. I climb off the bed and dart into the bathroom, closing the door to use the toilet before I do anything else. I almost regret wiping him from between my legs, but he’ll get other chances to mess me up again. I quickly clean up and wash my hands, then grab a fresh washcloth and wet it with hot water.
“On your belly,” I command when I emerge back into the bedroom.
Mason stares at me with eyebrows raised. “You talk to all your patients that way, Doc?”
I scowl and turn on the bedside light. “I’m not used to making people bleed who aren’t actually on the operating table. Forgive me if I want to clean you up.”
With a low laugh, he obeys, settling on his stomach. In the light, I can finally get a good look at his tattoos. His back is a swath of inked wonder with the most glorious, elaborate tattoo of a koi fish swimming up his spine.
I stop short, my breath leaving me in a rush.
Because I know this back. I know this tattoo. And I am intimately acquainted with the long scar that extends several inches straight down his spine between his T6 and T9 vertebrae.
I know, because I watched that cut get made three years ago. I still have the bullet that was lodged beneath.
19
Mason
Callie goes so still and silent that for a second I worry she got spooked again and left. Then she begins to dab a hot washcloth at her claw marks and lets out a shuddering breath.
“I think I just figured out one of your secrets, Mason. Or is it J.J. Santos?”
A shiver courses down my body at my old name and I close my eyes, taking a deep breath to steady myself.
“I wondered if you’d remember. You didn’t recognize me at the hospital on Monday. I thought you must have forgotten.”
“Do you wish I had? Because I may forget the occasional patient’s name after all this time, but I could never forget you. You were my first surgery as a resident. And then you . . .” Her breath hitches, and her next words are so shaky they reach straight into my chest and clench at my heart. “Then you fucking died.”
Her voice is filled with so much pain I turn onto my side to face her. My heart clenches at the tears in her eyes. Without a word, I pull her down against me, encircling her in my arms.
“I didn’t die. I’m here with you. I’m here.”
“What the hell happened to you? I tried to find out, but there wasn’t a damn thing in your medical records to give me a clue, and my attending wasn’t very forthcoming. Can you tell me? Or is it top secret?”
She peers up at me through wet lashes, one tear trickling down her cheek. I lean in and kiss it away, then look into her eyes again. “I never forgot you, either. But it’s a long fucking story.”
“Well, I have all night.” Her tone is insistent, and I sigh, then urge her up.
“Okay, but let’s at least get comfortable.”
She nods, and we climb under the covers. Once beneath, she presses tight against me again, her soft, warm skin heaven where it slides against mine. Her hand glides across my chest, stopping at the thick scar that extends down my sternum. She traces it, then leans up on one arm to look down at me.
“Jesus, it really is you. I knew there was something off about that whole situation. You were stable when I left you that night. What the hell happened?”
I debate how much I should share, but when she looks into my eyes, pleading for answers, I know I’d give this woman everything if I could. So I let it all out—my discharge from the Navy; working with Gustavo on the gun deals, followed by my accidental betrayal; my brother’s ties to Arturo Flores, and then my own redemption offered by the same man after he spirited me away from the hospital late that night three years ago.
“Marcella is your mother!” Callie exclaims after my description of the night I came into her emergency room—the night we first met. “You should be with her. With your family. Not here with me.”
“Sweetness, I’m right the fuck where I want to be. You said yourself that Mom’s in good hands. I trust you. Besides, she still thinks I’m dead. They all do, except Mad Dog and Flores. I can’t go back for good until I take care of things. I have to finish this assignment.”
“What is the assignment?” she asks.
I stroke her shoulder without answering, because starting down that path leads to too many things I’m not ready to say out loud. “I can’t . . .” I wince, hating the idea of leaving her unsatisfied.
“It’s okay,” she says softly. “I should know better than to ask. My family . . .” She pauses as she rubs lightly at my scar, then heaves a sigh. A pained look crosses her face before she says, “I just want to know you’ll be safe. That’s all.”
I’m sure she was about to say more, but I’m not exactly being the most forthcoming with secrets. I just tilt her chin up and kiss her tenderly.
“I can’t tell you everything, but I won’t lie and say it’s not dangerous. But if everything plays out the way I hope this week, I’ll be free and clear soon. In the meantime . . .” I swallow as a crazy idea floats to the front of my mind. Callie lifts an eyebrow, so I dive right in. “Spend the weekend with me. I’m stuck in Denver waiting to get word about the next step. It could take a few days, maybe the whole week. You said you have to head back to LA in a couple days, so spend those days with me.”
I’m telling myself I need the distraction, but deep down I want to milk every single second of time with Callie while I have her. I don’t know what’s going to happen after. Of course I hope that Zavala honors his deal, but with Amador still hunting me, I’m still living with a sense of impending doom. I need to do everything I can to forget that, at least for a little while, otherwise I might just go insane. But really? I just can’t get enough of her.
Her eyes brighten, and fuck if my heart doesn’t just start beating double-time. “I’d love that. Under one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You better come find me when you make it back to LA. Don’t you dare let me go three more years believing you’re dead, okay?”
20
Callie
A cold, bitter rain is falling when Nina and I leave the hotel the next morning after breakfast. It pours down in icy sheets, heavy droplets smacking against the window of our rideshare as it pulls up to the curb outside Mom’s building.
“Shit! I don’t have an umbrella. Or a raincoat. Can’t you get any closer?” I beg the driver.
He apologizes with a shake of his head, gesturing at the other cars in between.
“Shit,” I mutter again, eyeing the stretch of unprotected sidewalk between where the car idles and the entrance to the building.
“Better get a move on,” Nina says. “Call me with a report later, all right?”
“I will, but I don’t know about this weather. What if he changes his mind?”
I pause with the car door cracked, not enthused in the least about stepping out into the shitty weather.
“Sweetie, I saw how he kissed you goodbye in the hallway this morning. I’d be surprised if he’s not already waiting on your doorstep.”
I smile to myself, remembering that particular kiss, my entire body tingling. Then I look pointedly at my friend. “Yeah, well, you want to explain that exchange between you and Wyatt? That looked at least as intense as what Mason and I have going on. How deep did you two get last night?”
Nina blushes and stares at her hands. I gawk at her. She only ever gets that look when she’s either ashamed about something or . . . holy shit. Is Nina actually falling for the guy?
“No way. Okay, I need to woman up and go. But you are going to call me as soon as you get home. I need to know everything. Love you.”
I lean in and kiss her on the cheek, then brace myself to plunge into the icy January rain.
“Love you too,” Nina calls after me.
My clothes are a cold, sodden mess when I reach the elevator, garnering a few down-the-nose glances from one or two of the more high-brow residents who are well-equipped with trench coats and umbrellas. All I have is a thin, cashmere cardigan that’s now drenched. Fuck them. I’ll drip where and how I please.
I drip defiantly all the way up the elevator ride to my floor. My hands shake from the chill when I try to fit my key into an unresponsive lock.
“Fucking get in.”
The ornery lock relents and I tumble through the doorway into the big, airy loft. Mom’s probably back in Englewood at the estate now that the party’s over. I’d like to think she’ll follow through on her promise to spend time together before I leave, but I’m not holding my breath. I didn’t see her again at the party last night, though I know she was there. Admittedly, by the time I found Mason, I had no interest in anything but him.
“Damn icebox,” I mutter, closing the door behind me and shivering all the way to the thermostat in the kitchen. I set the temperature in the high 70s. If Mason does manage to brave the weather, I want it nice and inviting in here.
I take a hot shower while the place heats up, then spend far too much time contemplating the style of panties I should wear, finally settling on a silky blue set that feels nice against my skin. Over those I pull on leggings and a tank top, tossing on a bulky, cable knit sweater to top it all off.
The clock moves with incremental slowness. One o’clock.
Mason and I agreed that he’d come by around four. Three hours. Christ, am I that desperate to be counting the minutes? Not desperate, I decide. It isn’t about the sex, though frankly, it was spectacular, and I’m looking forward to a whole weekend of more. But after discovering who he is, that in one night I’ve managed to solve the biggest mystery of my life, I realize I still want more.
Maybe it’s all about the secrets? It’s possible that I’m attracted because he’s being cagey about his life. Maybe Nina was right and Barnaby never did it for me because he was just too normal. It made it easy not to push to get him to move, and I just let myself keep thinking we were being reasonable adults by letting each other pursue our careers in different states.
Mason’s secretive nature is probably not a healthy reason to want to spend time with him, but there is more to my attraction than that. He awakened a part of me I didn’t know even existed until that night on the plane. And a full night together only made me want more. As the minutes tick by, I realize I’m probably going to drive myself crazy staring at the clock.
Desperate for some perspective, I dig into the pantry and pull out a bottle of wine. Uncorking it, I inhale the heady aroma of the tannins and pour, watching the burgundy liquid catch the light as it fills the glass.
Wine, the great equalizer.
Steadier now, I settle on the sofa and flip on the television, finding a cheesy medical drama rerun I can scoff at.
“Oh, that is such bullshit!” I’m yelling at McDreamy's assessment of some random neural affliction a few hours later when the video pauses and a message pops up on my screen. It’s accompanied by pleasant dinging noise, and a canned woman’s voice announces, “You have a visitor.”
I almost knock over my wine glass in my struggle to find the right remote to buzz Mason up. Meanwhile a camera angle of the building’s entry appears, displaying a forlorn, hulking shape in the pouring rain. He enters a second later. Then I’m in a mad rush, heart pounding as I hit all the various buttons to switch off the show and turn on the playlist I queued up in anticipation of his arrival.
I jog to the door when the doorbell sounds. “Hey!” I say, flinging open the door, not even trying to disguise my excitement. My smile disappears once I take in the full scope of what I saw as a fuzzy shape on camera a moment ago. “What happened to you?”
A waterlogged mountain stands before me, shivering and dripping in camouflage fatigues. At least he has a heavy woolen coat, but that appears to be soaked through as well.
“It’s raining,“ he says through chattering teeth. “And I'm really fucking cold.”
“No shit. Come in!”
He’s even more soaked than I was earlier. Icy cold water drips off him in the foyer, and I can’t help but shiver in sympathy.
“Jesus Christ. Did you walk? What were you thinking?”
He flashes his chattering teeth and his gray eyes twinkle in amusement. “Give me a minute to regain feeling in my business and I'll show you what I was thinking.”
He dumps a rucksack on the floor by the door where it makes a heavy thud. I laugh, relieved at his positive outlook in spite of what had to be a miserable journey.
“Well, you’re on time. But didn’t it occur to you to take an Uber or something?”
“I’m from LA. If it’s less than two miles, it’s easier to walk. The rain stopped just long enough to give me a false sense of security. And I admit, I’ve never Ubered before, so I have no clue how it works.”
“C’mon,” I say, grabbing his cold, wet arm and dragging him down the hallway. I’ll have to clean up the puddles later.
I deposit him in the guest bathroom with a couple fresh towels and a blanket.
“Take it off,” I call through the closed door. “I’ll throw it in the dryer.”
“Uh . . . all of it?” his muffled voice calls back.
“If it’s wet, take it off.”
“All right, sweetness. It’s all coming off.”
A moment later, a muscular arm reaches through the bathroom door with a pile of wet clothing. I eye the smooth length of nearly bare skin, the fresh tattoo stark against his forearm, before grabbing the soggy garments and heading across the apartment to the laundry room.
For a little while last night, I managed to forget about the tattoo and what it might represent. But the image of those arms wrapped around me that morning returns, and I question whether I’m willing to wait until he’s ready to tell me the story. Hopefully he will sooner rather than later.
When I return, he’s seated on the sofa, bundled up in the blanket and shivering.
“Do you drink coffee?”
“I’ll drink anything if it’ll warm me up.”
I detour into the kitchen, checking the kettle. It’s as cold as the apartment was when I arrived. Coffee will take a while, and I need to get something warm in him fast. Microwave cocoa it is.
Cocoa mixed and steaming, I stand staring at the pair of mugs, my stomach churning, not quite ready to face him until I can let some of the questions go. I’m the kind of person who relentlessly seeks answers. Having questions that I can’t poke at makes me edgy, especially after three years of feeling helpless when it came to answering the biggest question I’d had in my short career as a doctor. How did he really die?
The answer was so easy: He didn’t.
But I don’t think the other answers are going to come quite so easily now that I know that one.
Compromise, Callie. That’s what has to happen here. If you want more from him, you have to be willing to compromise. Something I clearly never cared enough to do with Barnaby, so is it any wonder we never worked out?
Taking a deep breath, I head back to him, resolving not to fuck this up by being too pushy about getting what I want.
“So we pretty much have this place to ourselves. Mom might call, since we’ve barely seen each other while I’m here, but I’m not counting on it.”
He gratefully reaches out to accept the mug I hand him. The blanket clutched around him falls to the side, displaying more of his tattooed torso, the incision scar on his chest easily visible in the waning daylight. I’m still baffled that I managed to have sex with him twice before I even saw him shirtless. I’d have probably figured out who he was a lot earlier. His face wasn’t enough to trigger my memory since the first time I met him it was a swollen, bruised mess.
“This is your Mom’s place? Why isn’t she here?”
I settle down at the other end of the sofa, tucking my legs underneath me and blowing into my steamy
mug. “It’s more of an investment property and a convenient place to stay when she needs to be downtown. Our family home is over in Englewood, actually.”
“No shit? Isn’t that where John Elway lives?”
I make a noncommittal noise into my cocoa as I nod. I hope he doesn’t ask for more, because talking about my celebrity neighbors isn’t my idea of interesting conversation.
“Did you bring a change of clothes?” I ask, eyeing the damp bag he left in the entry.
He nods, savoring the hot beverage before he replies. “Yeah. Just needed to re-regulate before I went digging through my stuff. Can’t say I was prepared for weather like this, but Booth took me shopping for some duds, including a decent winter coat. It wasn't enough to keep my junk dry, but I figured you’d have a cure for that, and I was right.”
His eyes twinkle at me. Wow, this guy is unrepentant in daylight. I like it, but I should probably avoid indulging him, mostly because of how out of practice I am at the whole sex thing. Though I get the sense that a single weekend with him will get me wholly reacquainted with it.
The problem is that sex would make it too easy to avoid conversation, so finding a suitably benign topic, I grab on like it’s a life raft in an ocean of my own desire.
“So you and Wyatt have worked together for a while?”
“Since the start of this assignment. I thought he was a stuck-up prick at first, but he always comes through for me. Looked like he and your friend hit it off last night.” He wags his eyebrows as he takes a sip of his cocoa.
“That they did. I’ve never seen Nina so into a guy before. Usually she chews them up and spits them out, but I think she might want to see him again. Which is good, but . . .” I frown and he immediately picks up on it.
“You worried about something? I can vouch for him.”
“It isn’t him I’m worried about.” I look at him, debating how much to open up about my brother.
His gaze is intent, the earlier irreverence replaced by a focus I don’t think I’ve ever had from a man before—certainly not Barnaby. Except I have felt that level of focus before . . . from a certain patient who, despite just having surgery for a wound that could leave him paralyzed, found the wherewithal to proposition me moments after regaining consciousness.