by Jill Shalvis
third ring but didn’t speak.
He frowned. “Darcy?”
“Yeah.”
He could barely hear her so he turned up the volume as far as it would go. “You okay?”
There was a long pause. “I called in sick,” she finally said.
“I know. Do you need anything?”
“No thanks. I’ll be fine.”
And then she disconnected.
AJ frowned and stared at his phone. She hadn’t sounded fine. She’d sounded … upset.
The last he knew, she’d been in his bed practically purring. And not sick.
What was he missing?
He started with what he knew. He knew he’d slept with her last night, and though she hadn’t wanted to talk about Xander, they’d managed to exhaust each other out pretty good. He’d left her with a smile on her face, he knew that much. She’d come to work. She’d gone down the hallway to see him but hadn’t. And then she’d left sick.
Why? What could have happened? Maybe the Xander thing had hit her this morning harder than yesterday. He called her back but this time she sent him right to voice mail, and a bad feeling settled in his gut.
“I’m thinking if you’re having to run your own front desk,” Trent said, “I misjudged your business prowess.”
AJ turned to him. “I’ve got no problem taking a turn up front when I’m needed. But that’s not what this is.” He called Darcy’s house line with both Ariana and Trent staring at him; one with worry and the other with irritation.
No answer.
“You think there’s a problem?” Ariana asked.
“I don’t know.” AJ called Wyatt next. “Where’s Darcy?” he asked when Wyatt picked up.
Wyatt paused. “Hang on a sec.”
AJ could hear him giving directions on how to catch something coming out of a birth canal. Clearly the guy was hands deep, literally, at Belle Haven.
Then he was back. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know,” AJ said. “Probably nothing. You know where she is?”
“She isn’t there?”
“She left. Said she was sick.”
“What am I missing?” Wyatt asked.
“I wish I knew.”
Another pause. “Is this thing going to end badly?” Wyatt finally asked, sounding pained. “And before you answer, you should know, you’re like a brother to me, but if this goes south and she gets hurt, I’m going to kick your ass into next week.”
“Okay, great, thanks for the help,” AJ said and disconnected. Ignoring Trent’s long, impatient sigh, he tried Zoe. He got no answer, which meant she was probably in the air. Just as well. Wyatt had just threatened to beat the shit out of him but Zoe wouldn’t give him any warning at all; she’d cut off his nuts, feed them to the squirrels, and then let him bleed out slowly.
He stared at his phone.
“What now?” Ariana asked.
AJ accessed his contacts and scrolled down to the X’s.
Ariana blew out a breath. “Maybe I should clear your schedule for an hour.”
“I’m on his schedule,” Trent said. “And I came all the way from Boise for this. I thought you were serious about my offer, AJ.”
“I am,” AJ said. “But not as serious as I am about making sure Darcy is okay. If you’ve got a problem with that, you’re free to go. I understand the consequences but I have to do this.”
Ariana sucked in a breath.
Temper lit in Trent’s eyes. Clearly he wasn’t a man used to waiting on others. “If I leave, that’s it,” he said. “I won’t be kept waiting.”
“Then it’s best if you leave,” AJ said without hesitation.
Trent met his gaze, swore, and then turned on his heel and headed back down the hallway, presumably to get Summer.
“Oh, AJ,” Ariana whispered as he hit Xander’s contact.
“What the fuck do you want?” Xander said in lieu of greeting. “I’m in the middle of a tat.”
“You with her?” AJ asked, watching as Trent led Summer out the front door and out of his life without looking back.
“You mean Darcy?” Xander asked.
“No, the fucking Tooth Fairy.”
There was a beat of dead air. “Huh,” Xander said slowly. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?”
“My Find My Friends app says she’s out on Highway 64, fifteen miles from town. Shit. She must be heading to Johnny’s for another dog. Wait— No, her dot is still. She’s not moving. Why is she on the highway not moving?”
Any answer AJ could come up with made his gut hurt like hell. He disconnected from Xander and strode out of the wellness center. On a good day with no traffic the trip would’ve taken him twenty minutes.
He made it in ten.
She’d driven into a ditch, and at the sight of her piece-of-shit car leaning at an angle with its two right wheels buried into the edge of the muddy ditch, his heart just about stopped.
He threw his truck into park and ran toward the car, having to drop to his knees to peek into the passenger window. The driver-side airbag had deployed. It had mostly deflated but the blood spatter had his heart kicking back into gear. “Darcy!”
“Here.”
Still on his knees in the mud, he whipped around and found her sitting on a rock about ten yards away. Pale as a ghost, a gash over her left eye, she was as still as the stone beneath her, as if it hurt to move even a single inch.
At her side in an instant, he crouched and ran his hands carefully down her arms and legs, searching for broken bones.
“I’m not hurt,” she said.
Since she had blood running down one side of her face, he ignored her assessment, until with a sound of annoyance she pushed his hands away. Conceding the body search, he checked her pulse, not liking how fast she was breathing.
“I’m fine,” she gasped, not looking anywhere even in the vicinity of fine.
“You’re starting to hyperventilate and your pulse is way too high,” he said. “It’s a miracle you’re even conscious.”
She smiled grimly. “I’m a very determined individual when I want to be.”
“Gee, that’s brand-new information about you.” He pulled out his phone.
“No!” she said. “No ambulance.”
“Darcy—”
Her eyes flashed. “I mean it, AJ.”
“I’ve got to at least call Kel and have your car taken care of.”
She tried to stare him down, but she clearly had a hell of a headache because she reached up to hold on to her head like she was trying to keep it on her shoulders. “I want you to go away,” she said.
Yeah, he was getting that loud and clear.
“Actually,” she said. “I want to tell you where to go. Which is straight to hell.”
He was getting that, too. What he wasn’t getting was why. Maybe Xander hurting her had made her decide to hate all men? Which, with Darcy, was entirely likely. He called Kel while she glared at him, and then he reached out to brush the hair from her face, wanting to better see her injury.
She smacked his hand away twice but he had grim determination on his side. She had an inch-long gash along with a nice goose egg. “This needs to be checked out.”
“No hospital,” she repeated, her voice even shakier now. “I’ve got a dog to rescue.”
“We’ll get the dog after we get you checked out, I promise,” he said.
“You don’t want to know what I think of you and your promises right now.”
“Actually, I do. But my wants are going to have to wait until you’re not bleeding everywhere.” Very carefully he went to pull her into his lap, but she resisted.
“Don’t touch me.”
He ignored that and tried again, as she was weaving like she might fall over. “Darcy,” he said gently. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No.” She swallowed hard. “It’s not.” Her tone said nothing was ever going to be okay again. Then she shocked the hell out of h
im by bursting into gut-wrenching tears like her heart had been utterly decimated.
Feeling his own heart crack in two, he gathered her in as carefully as he could and held on to her as she sobbed all over him. He was pretty sure she’d lost a gallon of fluids and also that she’d just wiped her nose on his shirt when she finally lifted her face, narrowing her eyes at the sheriff SUV coming down the highway toward them, followed by a tow truck.
“Kel’s going to take care of your car,” AJ told her. “I’m going to take care of you.” He lifted her chin. “And after that, we’re going to talk.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Is this about what happened with Xander?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then talk to me.”
“Right,” she said. “Because that always works out so well for us.”
He studied her a minute. “It would if you’d tell me what’s really going on here.”
“No need,” she said. “I’ve got it all figured out now.”
“Care to share with the class?”
“The ‘Love, AJ’ thing that you do on your notes,” she said. “It confused me at first, but I get it. They’re just words, like … ‘have a nice day.’”
What the hell? It took him a minute to figure out what she was even talking about, but once he did he felt like a first-class ass for not making sure she’d understood. “Those aren’t just words,” he said. “Not to me.”
The temper and pain in her gaze was shoved aside to make room for wary uncertainty.
“Darcy,” he said slowly, willing her to hear him. “When I say ‘I love you,’ it means I love who you are. I love what you do, how you live your life, your incredible passion and your strength. It means I’ve seen the best and worst of you, that I know who you are down to the bone and there’s nothing—nothing—you could do or say to change how I feel about you. I love you, Darcy. Just the way you are.”
“And you love Wyatt and Zoe and Ariana and your patients and your dad and your grandparents …”
“Love doesn’t really have a full-up capacity,” he said. “You can spread it around, you know that, right?”
She hugged herself and looked away. “Yeah.”
But he knew she didn’t. Unfortunately he didn’t get to press because Kel was there. And as AJ had done earlier, he crouched in front of Darcy.
“Hey, honey. Rough morning, huh?”
She managed for the sheriff what she hadn’t for AJ—a smile. “I thought maybe you were bored and needed some field action,” she said.
“Always a giver,” Kel responded. “Listen, don’t worry about your car, we’ll get it home for you. I’ll contact your brother and sister to meet you at the hospital.”
“Not necessary,” she said. “I’m not going to the hospital.”
Kel removed his ball cap, scrubbed a hand over his closely cropped dark hair, and shoved the hat back on his head. “Do you remember that time you got into that bar fight with Zoe and I let you both go with just a warning and you said you owed me a favor?”
She narrowed her eyes. “That was like six years ago,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Is there a statute of limitations on favors for friends?”
She blew out a sigh. “No.”
He smiled. “So we understand each other.”
“Fine,” she said. “But I’m not going to the hospital with him.”
No question who the him was.
Kel looked at AJ and then met Darcy’s gaze. “Patient’s choice. I’ll call an ambulance.”
“Dammit.” Darcy got to her feet and started toward AJ’s truck, but she wobbled and stopped short, hands out in front of her like she was walking a tightrope.
“AJ,” Kel warned.
“I’ve got her.”
But when he got close, she pointed at him. “Don’t you dare—”
Tired of this and over her anger that he didn’t understand, AJ simply scooped her up and carried her to his truck.
She sighed and set her head very carefully down onto his shoulder. “I really hate that it was you who came for me.”
“Because … ?”
“You know damn well why.”
“My mind-reading powers have never really kicked in.”
She glared at him.
“Though I don’t need to read your mind for that look.”
“Just put me down, I’m fine.”
“Not yet, you’re not,” he said, and set her down in the passenger seat of his truck, pulling the seat belt across her to buckle her in. “But you will be, in spite of yourself.”
Kel stopped him before he could shut the door. He leaned in and looked at Darcy. “I want to hear you say you’re good with going to the hospital with AJ.”
Darcy’s gaze slid to AJ and then back to Kel. “Feeling guilty for making me take a ride with the guy?” she asked.
“I don’t do guilt. Yes or no, Darcy?”
She closed her eyes again and turned her head away from the both of them. “Yes.”
Twenty-eight
Darcy drifted off with AJ’s I love you on repeat in her mind. She knew better than to misread the words or let herself pretend even for a moment that it was the kind of love she felt for him and wanted him to feel in return.
Not even for a second …
She knew she’d have to get to a place where it was okay, and she would. But not today with a jackhammer in her head and a pity party for one on tap.
Maybe tomorrow.
She woke when she was lifted into a pair of strong arms and hugged tightly to a muscled chest. For a moment she let herself snuggle in close because when she was in AJ’s arms like this, she felt as though nothing could touch or hurt her.
We’re not a couple …
Dammit.
“Put me down,” she said.
He didn’t, and with her head still on his shoulder, eyes closed—trying not to toss her cookies—she felt the vibrations rumble in sync with his voice as he spoke to the nurse at the ER station.
Then they were on the move again. When he set her down, paper crinkled beneath her and the smell of disinfectant and the faint