“Like an urgent care?”
“Sort of, but without all the crowds. We’ll take X-rays, see what the damage is, and go from there. But trust me, lungs are not something you want to mess with. Better to play it safe.”
A firm, but polite knock sounded on the door. Danny opened it but kept one hand on the knob, only leaving a two-foot gap between the edge and the jamb. Her brother’s Goliath frame blocked whoever was on the other side. “Hey, Jace.”
A deep rumbling voice issued from the hallway. “Everyone’s pulling out. Beckett’s got a crew coming by to do their own check of Wallaby’s house.”
“Who’s Beckett?” She shifted closer to Danny so she could put a face with the voice.
Danny stepped away at the same time, revealing yet another seriously hot guy with one hand propped on the door frame. So this was Jace. She’d heard Danny mention the name a time or two, but never imagined he’d look like this. He wasn’t GQ hot like Zeke. More like old-school rock-star hot, complete with shoulder-length dark hair and a full beard/mustache combination. She’d bet he had at least one custom Harley lined up in his garage to go with his faded jeans and well-worn leather jacket. He even had the dirty growling voice and the wicked, all too assessing stare to go with the image. “How you holdin’ up, sugar?”
Gabe ducked her head, her sturdy boots the visual equivalent of a lifeline.
“Best guess is two or three cracked ribs,” Zeke answered for her, “but I need X-rays to rule out pneumothorax.”
Quiet stretched in the tiny room. Even without looking up, she had a good feeling there was a lot of silent macho man eyeballing going on.
Zeke broke it with a firm, “I want to take her to Sanctuary.”
That got her attention. She looked up in time to see Jace’s grin flatline.
Jace studied her, considered Danny for another second, then focused on Zeke. “You sure?”
“What’s Sanctuary?” she asked.
Zeke stayed focused on Jace. “Not safe to let it go without checking and she’s not comfortable in a public place.”
Funny how he’d zeroed in on the real stickler instead of the cost aspect of her not wanting medical treatment. The care and concern probably should have been a comfort, but the fact that he’d figured out what a freak she was only made her feel two more shades of stupid. “I’m fine.”
Jace pulled a toothpick from his pocket, tucked it under his tongue, and scanned Gabe head to toe. “Sugar, if my brother’s willing to put his ass out there and take you to Sanctuary, then I doubt the word fine is anywhere in his diagnosis.” He dipped his head toward Zeke, an unspoken and indefinable meaning behind the look so intense it sent a shiver dancing down her spine. He turned and sauntered down the hallway. “Let’s huddle with Axel, and we’ll head out.”
Chapter Three
Only an industrial-grade exterior light marked Sanctuary’s heavily secured, yet nondescript entrance, but Zeke could have navigated his way there in his sleep. From the outside, it was little more than a standalone warehouse nestled alongside a whole string of storage buildings. The inside was a whole different ballgame, one he and his brothers leveraged for a variety of favors when the right opportunities presented themselves.
He parked his hot rod just outside the main door, and Danny swung Gabe’s truck in right beside him. Thankfully, Jace and Axel had agreed to let him handle the thing with Gabe solo. Neither of them were too thrilled with the fact he’d mentioned Sanctuary in front of Gabe, but once he’d reminded them how close Danny was to being family, they’d dropped their argument and headed back to work. It didn’t hurt that Zeke had come up with the idea of playing the mini emergency facility off as a private medical care operation to cover what really went down inside.
Punching the automated locks Danny had added to the car, Zeke ambled to Gabe’s truck and held the passenger door wide while Danny helped Gabe out of the raised cab. “The ride hurt too bad on the way over?”
Gabe didn’t look at him, but shook her head. Understandable considering the night she’d had and the pain she wrestled.
“We’ll get this over with as quick as we can, then Danny can pick you up some painkillers on the way home.” He flipped the locks on the building’s front door and deactivated the high-end security system inside the entrance. When Beck had insisted on the fingerprint scanner on top of the standard key code, Zeke had argued they were going overboard on precautions. Then Beck had pointed out the total cost of the assets hidden inside, and Zeke had conceded overkill might not be a bad deterrent. Especially considering the type of people he treated here.
He flipped the light switches and the rows of commercial fluorescents overhead hummed their eager greeting. Two emergency gurneys were centered on the industrial tile floor with focal lights mounted above them. Racks stocked with all the basic emergency gear he could ask for lined both side walls, while huge monitors and Knox’s state-of-the-art computers were mounted along the front.
Danny paced to the center of the room and gaped at all the equipment. “Man, this is cool.”
“Where are we?” Gabe didn’t seem nearly as impressed, holding her spot by the door just as tightly as she kept that arm of hers coiled around her waist.
Zeke shrugged and fired up the main computers. “It’s not as big of a deal as it looks. Just self-insurance taken to the extreme.”
“Self-insurance.” The way Gabe said it made it more of an openly skeptic statement of disbelief than a question.
“Yep. Some people would rather fork over cold hard cash for their own setup and guaranteed privacy. Not to mention, there’s no wait time.”
“And you know people like this?”
“I know a few.” Most of them were men with a dirty background and zero interest in getting anywhere near a public facility with records and a friendliness for cops. Not to mention, they were usually plugged up with bullet holes or knife wounds when they came through Sanctuary’s doors.
He motioned to the dark, isolated room off to one side. “Danny, do me a favor. Turn on the light in there and help Gabe have a seat.”
The two shuffled off in the direction indicated while he dug through the cabinets in search of a hospital gown. He could have sworn he’d ordered some when they first tricked out the facility, but damned if he could find them now. Then again, modesty wasn’t something he normally had to deal with behind these walls.
To hell with it. He gave up looking and headed in with Danny and Gabe. If her color was any indication, she needed pain relief and quiet a whole lot more than she needed standard protocol. One look at her, tense and obviously shaken as she perched on the edge of a metal chair, and the same protective impulse he’d battled when he’d touched her at her house roared full bore. “Okay, gatinha. I’m just going to snap some pictures, take a look at what’s going on and we’ll see if we can’t get you home. But first, we’ve got a tactical hurdle to leap.”
She frowned at him then glanced at Danny. “What kind of hurdle?”
He nodded in the general direction of her torso. “My machine doesn’t play nice with metal. I might not be a woman, but even I know pretzeling into or out of a bra is a trick even without a broken rib. With one, it’s going to be impossible. So who do you want to help you out of it? Danny, or me?”
In all of two seconds, her cheeks flamed a bold red and her already shallow breaths turned even threadier. “I can do it.”
Zeke lifted a brow. “You willing to risk hurting yourself more in the process?”
Unlike Danny, who had an unbelievable poker face when he chose to use it, every thought and emotion Gabe processed burned bright and beautiful across her face. Embarrassment. Fear. Confusion and acceptance. It kind of made him want to see a whole lot of other expressions on her face. Like the fleeting glimpse of pleasure he’d caught when his fingertips first touched her skin.<
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“You won’t look?” she said.
He fudged as much as he could. “I promise I’ll give you all the privacy I can, but you’ve got to remember, this is an everyday thing for me.”
She bit her lip and stared down at the floor. “Then I’d rather have you.”
“Thank God,” Danny said, twisting for the door and fiddling with his skully like he always did when he was antsy.
Zeke held out his hand and pulled Gabe to her feet. “Danny, why don’t you wait in my office across the hall? It shouldn’t take us more than five minutes once we get her situated.”
Seemingly happy to have dodged an awkward moment with his little sister, Danny hightailed it out of the room and shut the door behind him.
Zeke stood behind Gabe and peeled her flannel shirt off her shoulders with as much indifference as possible. It was a hell of a lot harder the second time knowing what was hidden underneath. Unlike her brother, Gabe’s skin was closer to cream, only a hint of golden goodness taking the edge off what could have made her seem pale. And it was soft. Soft, taut and stretched over easy, lithe curves that made him want to touch her in ways that would make Danny shoot him on sight.
He eased the hem of her tank up.
Her hands closed over his, stopping him in his tracks.
“It’s okay. I’m just lifting it enough you can slide your arms out. We’ll get the bra off and get the tank back in place. The cotton will be fine for the X-rays.”
For a few seconds all she did was stand there, locked in place. More than anything, he wanted to move in closer and give her comfort. Tactile, lingering comfort.
She swallowed so big, it looked like it hurt, then she nodded and released his hands. “Okay.”
Moving as quickly as he dared, he lifted the shirt up, thankful for how the stretchy fabric allowed her to slip her arms out with minimum distress. He didn’t give her time to process what came next, flipping the clasp on her bra.
Her gasp ricocheted through the room and made his dick twitch with a whole lot of ideas on how he could illicit the same sound.
God, he was an asshole. A patient was standing in front of him, hurting and mortified, and he was entertaining how many ways he could get his hands all over her. He slid the straps off her shoulders and tugged the tank back down so she could maneuver her arms back in. “See? All done.”
Before she could answer, he strode around her, folding up her innocent white bra as he went, and laid it in the chair next to her purse. His mind conjured up a whole slew of images to go with that plain scrap of fabric, none of them decent or acceptable given the circumstances. He ground his teeth together and forced his thoughts back to the task at hand. “Okay, let’s see what’s going on with your ribs.”
The process went relatively quick and easy. Or easy for him anyway. To her credit, she muscled through the difficult times when the shots required she lift her arms up and out of the way, but shook with fatigue by the time it was over. He guided her back to her chair and paused by the closed door. “You want help putting that back on, or can you handle freewheeling it on the way home?”
Another appealing flush rushed up her neck and she stuffed the bra deep in the hippy-style hobo bag. “I’m good.”
Yeah, she was. Tough in a way that put most of his patients to shame. And yet, she was still the kind of soft and sweet you wanted to see curled up next to you. Definitely a feral kitten.
He opened the door and found Danny anchored on the other side, his arms crossed and his mouth pinched in a hard line. “You done?”
“Yep. Give me five and we’ll know what’s up.”
Reality was more like three minutes, the result pretty much what he’d expected—two clean, nondisplaced fractures and no sign of damage to the lung. Good news for her as far as risk went, so long as she didn’t push matters in the early healing process. He grabbed an Rx pad, powered down his computer and flipped the lights.
Gabe’s semiwhispered words drifted into the intersecting hallway. “Don’t you think it’s weird he’s got access to his own mini hospital?”
Zeke hesitated outside the X-ray room door.
“It’s not a hospital, Gabe.” Danny didn’t seem as interested in hiding his commentary. His deep voice traveled crystal clear. “It’s like an Urgent Care. You can find one of those on every damned corner anymore. And no, it’s not weird. You know how rich people are. Enough money and connections and you don’t have to wait or deal with the riffraff. So what if it helped you out this time?”
“It’s just weird. How do you know those guys aren’t into illegal things?”
“Trust me. The brothers are many things, but the one thing you can count on is them doing the right thing. Always.”
“That’s the other thing. Why do you keep calling them brothers?”
“Because they are.”
“They don’t look a thing alike. No way they’re family.”
“Blood ain’t everything, Gabe. Let it go.”
Danny wasn’t wrong on that score. In the ten years he’d known Jace, Axel and the rest of the guys who came after, he’d had more of a family than he ever did growing up. Not that his parents didn’t try, they were just usually too beat after trying to make a living to have much energy left for a little kid.
Gabe kept up with her arguments, her suspicious nature undoubtedly something he should be more concerned about, especially with Danny having one foot in the brotherhood. Instead, all he could focus on was her voice. Soft and sweet as a fluffy kitten even if she was talking ninety miles an hour. Which was kind of funny when he thought about how limited her words had been throughout the rest of her ordeal.
A shaky vulnerability crept into her voice. “What happens if they’re not as good as you think they are and something happens to you? You’re all I’ve got left.”
“Jesus, I’m not in high school anymore, Gabe. I haven’t done anything like that in years.”
Well, not entirely true. Zeke knew damned good and well Danny had done at least three sizable B&Es to pay off his dad’s mortgage. But Gabe had gotten to keep the house she’d grown up in.
“I’m not Mom,” Danny said. “I know you missed her growing up, but I’m not going anywhere. Not by choice or by accident. The brothers are just guys like me who found a way to make their mark on the world. They’re helping me find my way.”
“How? Doing what?”
Danny hesitated.
Zeke straightened off the wall he’d leaned into and rounded the entry. Keeping his head down, he scribbled out a prescription, hoping his preoccupation would cover the timing of his arrival. “Well, the good news is your lungs are solid. On the downside, you’ve got two fractured ribs.”
“How do you treat that?” Danny said.
Zeke halted in front of the two of them and focused on Gabe. “Not much I can do. In the old days, they’d wrap the chest to alleviate the pain and support movement. Some folks still do, but I don’t advise it. The most important thing you can do is take big, deep breaths several times a day. If I wrap your ribs it’ll make deep breathing hard to do.”
“What about work?” she said.
“Danny says you’re a mechanic, right?”
She nodded.
“Yeah, engines aren’t going to be on your short list for at least three to four weeks.”
“I can’t be off work for four weeks.”
Danny squeezed her shoulder. “Mike’s cool. He’ll work you some kind of deal.”
“If he doesn’t, let me know,” Zeke said. “My brothers have all kinds of businesses. I’d bet at least one of them needs some short-term help that wouldn’t put too much strain on your ribs.” He handed her the script. “These ought to help with pain until you can shift over to ibuprofen. For at least two or three nights, I want you to be sure and take them at night so you
r breathing stays steady while you sleep.”
She carefully tugged the paper from between his fingers and scowled down at it. “You don’t have drugs here?”
And there were those cute claws. Funny how all they did was make him want to provoke her a little more. “This is a medical facility. Not a pharmacy. Besides, uncontrolled narcotics are against the law. I’ve got a license to protect.”
Talk about a complete load of shit. He had enough narcotics to cover all kinds of injuries locked up nice and tight in storage, but no way was he clueing her into that after what he’d overheard. He stepped back and motioned Danny to the door. “Why don’t you get her home so she can rest? There’s a twenty-four-hour pharmacy just up the street, and those should be pretty cheap generic.”
Danny helped Gabe to her feet. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Nope, gotta clean up and turn everything off.” Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out his billfold and snagged a business card. He handed it to Gabe. “If the pain gets worse or you’re worried about anything at all, call me at that number. I don’t sleep much so don’t worry about what time it is.”
Danny stretched out his hand. “Thanks, man. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you helping us out.”
Zeke shook the hand offered and slapped Danny on the back. “Wasn’t a problem. Happy I could help.” He made it until Danny and Gabe reached the main door before he gave in to pure impulse. “Hey, gatinha.”
She kept her torso ruler straight, but craned her neck toward him.
“Whether you call or not, I’m stopping by in a few days to check on you.”
Gabe frowned.
Danny smiled huge and almost smacked Gabe on the shoulder, but stopped a few inches before he made contact. “See? Told you the brothers were awesome.”
An unapologetic snort drifted back to him a second before the door shut, leaving him alone in the sterile room.
Wild & Sweet (The Haven Brotherhood) Page 4