Strong and Sexy

by Jill Shalvis

  “Don’t worry, I’ll understand either way.”

  Would she? Because he wouldn’t. “Dani, stop. We can talk about us later. What happened to you?”

  “Honest. You can go, I’ll be fine.”

  She’d be fine? She had a dent in her head, blood pouring out of it, but she’d be fine. Who the hell could walk away from her in this condition?

  And why did she think he would?

  Chapter 18

  A uniformed cop stuck his head around the curtain of the cubicle. “Dani Peterson?”

  Shayne looked at him. “Can I help you?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Dani’s husband.”

  Dani twitched, then at the movement, held her head and groaned.

  “We need to ask her a few questions,” the cop said, then looked at Dani. “You told one of the night keepers that you saw a dead body.”

  A dead body? What the hell? Shayne looked at her, saw the wince cross her face.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “That’s right.”

  “She’s injured,” Shayne said, feeling extremely tense. “This can wait.”

  “It’ll only take a moment.” The cop looked determined. “Ms. Peterson? Where was this dead body?”

  “It was in the closet of my office,” Dani said quietly. “I don’t know if it was the same one as before.”

  “As before?” The cop didn’t look happy at this news. “What does that mean?”

  “Dani, don’t say anything else right now,” Shayne instructed. He turned to the cop. “You’ll need to wait until her doctor clears her before asking anything else.”

  The cop’s jaw tightened but he nodded, then turned and left through the curtain, presumably to go get his clearance. Shayne let out a long breath and touched Dani’s face.

  She caught his hand. “Husband?”

  Yeah. And he did not want to discuss the ease with which the word had rolled off his tongue. “Focus. Dead body?”

  “You’re probably wondering what the hell, right?”

  “Yes. What the hell?”

  “I saw the dead body again.”

  “So I heard.”

  “In my office closet.” Lying back, she grimaced in pain. “Me and closets . . .”

  “Okay.”

  “I know. Sounds crazy.” She drew a shaky breath. “I thought so too, believe me.”

  “So what happened to you?”

  “I have no idea. I’m thinking my mom and her crazy relationships warped me more than I thought.”

  “I meant your head, Dani. What happened to your head?”

  “Oh.” She made a sound that might have been a laugh. “After I saw the body, I staggered backward, and then I think I tripped over someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Or thing. Maybe I tripped over something.” She put both hands to her head as if she could hold it in place. “I don’t know.”

  “Was someone in the office with you? Besides the dead body?”

  Dropping her hands, she looked at him, with mismatched pupils. “You believe me about the body, right?”

  Truthfully, he had no freaking clue what he believed, but he believed she believed. Before he could say anything, a nurse whipped the curtain aside. “How are we doing on that gown?”

  Dani closed her eyes. “I’m doing better at not moving.”

  “We’ll fix you up, don’t worry. We’re waiting on the x-rays.”

  “Maybe I can just hand my entire head over to you,” Dani said. “Then you can fix it and sew it back on.”

  The nurse took the gown from Shayne’s hands. “Here. Let me help.”

  “I’ve got it,” Dani insisted.

  “That’s what you said a few minutes ago.”

  “This time I mean it.” Dani reached up to unbutton her sweater. “Give me a minute.”

  “A minute, that’s it. You’re going to need stitches.”

  “Oh, goodie.”

  “It’s okay,” Shayne said. “I’ll hold your hand.” He’d hold her hand? Who the hell was using his mouth?

  The nurse gave him the once-over. “And you are?”

  That’s what he would like to know. But whoever was in charge of his mouth just kept using it. “I’m with her.”

  “No one’s allowed in here except—”

  “Family,” Shayne said, taking a good look at the back of Dani’s head when the nurse turned her. His gut tightened. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

  “That’s sweet, hon,” the nurse told him. “But the rules are—”

  “I’m her husband.” Well look at him, throwing that word around like candy.

  Dani stared at him. “You said it again.”

  Yeah. Yeah, he had.

  The nurse raised a brow at him. “Husband?” She turned to Dani. “Why didn’t you say you had a husband when I was charting you?”

  “Uh, because I didn’t—”

  “Newlyweds,” Shayne interrupted. “It’s new. To both of us.”

  “New,” Dani repeated softly.

  “Ah, that’s so sweet.” The nurse smiled. “How long have you been together?”

  “Two days,” Dani murmured, eyes closing.

  “Two days? Well, no wonder you forgot.”

  “It’s one of those whirlwind things.” Shayne’s cell phone was vibrating. Pulling the phone out, he saw Michelle’s name and clicked it over to voice mail. He’d talked to her earlier, gently explaining—again—that they weren’t going to date. He realized that this being Michelle meant he was going to have to have that conversation several more times, but he’d deal with it later.

  Soon as he dealt with his “wife.”

  “Whirlwind,” Dani repeated, eyes still closed.

  Okay, she was beginning to freak him out. “Is she okay?” he asked the nurse.

  “How about you get your bride into her gown and I’ll be right back with the doc. We’ll see what we’re dealing with then.”

  When she’d left, Dani let out a long breath. “Husband,” she murmured.

  “Don’t even try to distract me.” Because she looked pale, and green to boot, he simply pulled her into his arms, where she proceeded to bleed all over his shirt.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “Don’t. Don’t even think about apologizing.”

  She let out a shuddery sigh and closed her eyes.

  “Dani?”

  “Shh.”

  “Dani, don’t go to sleep.”

  “It’s that or throw up. Just want to nap for a minute, ’kay?”

  “Not okay.” She was leaning against him in a trusting motion that had his heart in his throat. “Dani.”

  She didn’t answer.

  This time his heart completely stopped. He’d been through a lot of injuries in his lifetime. At ten, he’d fallen from an attic window to the ground thirty feet below when one of his brothers shoved him out before he’d had a good grip on the rope swing. Then there’d been the variety of nasty injuries from basketball, snowboarding, wakeboarding . . . But this, this standing here next to someone he cared about when she was hurt was far worse. “Dani.”

  “Shh. She’s sleeping.”

  Sagging in relief, he took the gown from her hands and reached for her sweater. “Stay with me.” There were a thousand tiny buttons down her front. He managed three before deciding he was never going to live through the others, so he tugged it up over her head.

  “Hey.”

  That her protest came about five seconds after the fact, and was so weakly uttered, terrified him. She was wearing a pale yellow bra with a daisy between her breasts. His fingers brushed those breasts but he was so worried about her that he didn’t even enjoy it.

  Turned out her panties were also pale yellow, a pair of itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny string bikini bottoms with a daisy on each hip.

  He tried like hell not to notice.

  “Don’t even think about taking off my underwear,” Dani murmured. “I keep losing my underwear around you.” Her eyes were stil
l closed, her lashes black inky smudges against her cheekbones. “I’m not getting naked.”

  “Hate to tell you, babe, but you’re already half there.”

  “Don’t argue with your new bride.”

  He’d just pulled her arms through the gown when a guy in scrubs stepped through the curtain, holding a chart. “Dani Peterson? MRI time.”

  Because only one person could fit into the MRI machine, Shayne was sent back to the waiting room, where he was free to pace the length of the room.

  Brody sat sprawled in a chair talking to Noah on his cell phone. “Yeah, he’s here.” His eyes cut to Shayne. “He’s wearing a hole in the carpet.”

  A little girl sitting next to Brody tapped him on the arm.

  He covered the mouthpiece and looked at her. “Yes?”

  With a sweet smile, she pointed to the sign on the far wall that read: No Cell Phones in Waiting Room

  Brody stared at her. “Yeah, hold on,” he said to Noah. “I’m being told.”

  The girl put her hands on her hips.

  Brody smiled sweetly at her and lifted a finger to signal he was almost done. “I’m telling you, Noah, he’s as crazy as she is. Maybe we need an intervention—”

  “She’s not crazy,” Shayne told him. “She’s not.”

  “Noah, hold on. The guy lusting after the woman who sees dead people wants to talk.”

  Shayne tossed up his hands. “No one thought Noah was crazy for falling in love with the woman who hijacked him.”

  “We both thought Noah was crazy,” Brody reminded him. “You flew all the way to Mexico to retrieve him, remember?”

  “Ahem,” the little girl said, looking very serious about this no-cell-phone thing.

  With a sigh, Brody heaved himself out of the chair. Being six-foot-four, he towered over the tiny girl.

  She didn’t seem to care. She pointed to the door.

  Brody glanced in disbelief at Shayne, who if he hadn’t been worried to the point of nausea about Dani, might have laughed out loud at the way the big, badass Brody actually did the kid’s bidding and moved to the door. On the way, he snagged Shayne’s arm and pulled him along with him.

  “Hey. I’m not leaving until—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Brody didn’t let go of him until they were just outside the ER doors, standing in the chilly night. Still holding the phone to his ear, he ran his sharp gaze over Shayne’s face. “I’ll ask him,” he said. “Noah wants to know if you’ve fallen and can’t get up.”

  “Jesus.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m going back in.”

  “Wait. Noah says if you’ve fallen, it’s okay—What?” Brody repeated into the phone. “No. I am not going to say that—”

  Shayne grabbed the cell phone. “Noah? I’m going back in. Come get this asshole so I have a car here.”

  “Do you need anything else?” Noah asked.

  “A lobotomy, maybe?”

  Noah laughed softly in his ear. “Yeah, it does feel a little bit like brain surgery without the anesthesia, doesn’t it?”

  “What does?”

  “Falling in love.”

  “No one said anything about . . .” Christ, he couldn’t even say the L-word. “That.”

  Another soft laugh. “Right. Listen, you know Brody. He’s going to tell you to take yourself and your dick home, that no chick is worth this much trouble. But I’m going to tell you to go with it. Because it just might be the best thing to ever happen to you.”

  “What’s he saying?” Brody wanted to know, trying to hear.

  “Just come get him,” Shayne said, putting a hand over Brody’s face and pushing him away. “Before I knock his big fat head against a wall.”

  “On my way.”

  “You,” Brody said as Shayne shut the phone, “have completely lost it.”

  “Excuse me.” A nurse poked her head out the ER doors. “Which of you is Dani’s husband?”

  Brody’s eyes widened in horror.

  Shayne ignored him. “Is she—”

  “Back from the MRI. The doctor’s heading in there right now. Did your wife suffer high blood pressure and stress levels before this accident?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Because he’s concerned about her stress levels.”

  Shayne forgot about kicking Brody’s ass and rushed back inside.

  “Husband,” he heard Brody mutter as he moved. “Jesus. It’s a fucking epidemic.”

  Two not-so-pleasant things about splitting one’s head open? First, no matter what anyone said, getting stitches hurt like hell. And second, people tended to talk slow and loud around head-injury patients.

  But the ice chips were nice.

  And so was the fact that she’d somehow gained a husband. Dani glanced over at Shayne, who’d held her hand through the stitches, doing his best to distract her with sordid details of his wild youth. Not giving her time to freak out, he kept talking in that even, sexy voice of his, a running monologue of stories so funny she actually laughed while being stitched up. She looked into his face, into his amazing eyes, and felt her throat tighten.

  She’d only known him for a matter of days, and already he was more there for her than anyone in her life. “Shayne.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  He smiled and brought their joined hands up to his mouth so he could kiss her palm, then went back to his storytelling. He told her how he’d met Noah and Brody, how they’d partied their way through high school and a good part of college before finally applying themselves in preparation for Sky High Air, and when he ran out of stories—all wicked, all utterly fascinating insights into the man—and there was still a needle being put in and out of her wound, he leaned in, put his mouth to her ear, and whispered other even more fascinating things.

  Like, “Love your underwear.”

  This made her face go so red the doctor stopped to ask her if she was okay.

  “Y-yes.” She closed her eyes. “I’m fine.”

  When the doctor had gone back to his business, Shayne leaned in