by Dale Cadeau
Clay walked up to Laura’s bedside and moved the bed tray to the side. “Where’s your clothes, honey?”
“Jane just brought over some and they’re in the bag in the closet. What’s the hurry? I thought you told me to take it easy. Do you really think the doctor will let me go so soon? They didn’t say anything to me about it when they did their rounds while you were gone.” Laura watched Clay go to the closet and pull out the bag. He opened it on one of the chairs, grabbed her clothes, and brought them back over to the bed with him.
“Sure they will let you go. It’s just your hands, and you have me to help you. So it should be no problem. You’ll be more comfortable out of here anyway.” Clay tried to work slow and not unnerve her with his hurry to get out of there as he helped her sit up and move her legs over the side of the bed.
Reaching for her back, he undid the ties holding her hospital gown and stripped her of it. Grabbing the short-sleeve blouse Jane had brought her, he had it on her in minutes. Next he took her panties and pulled them up her legs with stretch pants next. Clay had done it so fast and clinical that she didn’t have time to be embarrassed. Laura watched as Clay gathered her stuff from around the bed and hurriedly packed it back in the bag.
She was just going to ask him why he was in such a rush, when the door opened and the doctor walked in with Brad dogging his footsteps.
“Well, Miss Branch, it seems like you’re in a hurry to leave us. I think that a few days here wouldn’t hurt, but this gentleman said that you had commitments that couldn’t be put off. And that they would both would take full responsibility for you. Is that agreeable with you?”
Laura just nodded at the doctor, looking up at Clay.
The doctor walked to her bedside and picked up her hands and looked at the bandages. “They look OK right now, but the dressings will have to be changed twice a day.”
He turned to Clay, who was hovering over Laura on the other side of the bed. “Who is going to do this, if I release her now? You have to be very careful that infection doesn’t occur.”
“I’ll look after her, you don’t have to worry. My fiancée knows that from my stint in the army that I have medical training and looking after her shouldn’t be a problem.” Clay looked at Laura, and said to her, “Don’t you have complete faith in me looking after you, dear?”
Laura didn’t know what to say. She felt she was in some episode of The Twilight Zone, with nothing making sense. But she could tell by the look that Clay gave her that he wanted her to agree with everything he had just told the doctor. It was a leap of faith on her part, but she knew she could trust him. Until she could get out of here and question him, she had to go with her gut, and it was telling her something was up but to just follow his lead.
“Yes, my fiancé will look after me, have no worries. I have complete faith in him.”
The doctor didn’t look fully convinced, but let her hands go and turned to Clay with a prescription. “This is for pain and I’ve also marked down the salve that will have to be applied every time you change her bandages. Make sure that they don’t get wet for a least a week. If any infection starts, bring her back here or to the nearest doctor.” He handed the prescription to Clay and walked out of the room. Brad was already standing at the door holding her bag and seemed to be on guard.
Clay gently helped Laura to her feet after he put her sandals on her. With his arm around her, he led her hurriedly out of the room to the elevator and then out of the hospital. Brad had his truck waiting at the curb. Clay wanted to scoop her in his arms and carry her out, but didn’t want to attract any unnecessary attention to them.
Helping her up into the backseat, he followed her in. Quickly the door was shut and she was safely buckled in. Brad took off a little fast out of the hospital grounds and toward the highway.
Brad gave a quick look back at Clay when he stopped at a red light right before the on ramp.
“Where to, big guy?”
Clay, who had been holding Laura close with his arm around her back, told Brad to take them to his apartment.
Laura was still dazed and trying to catch up. “Why are we going to your apartment and not to my house?”
Clay turned his gaze to her from the back window. “Don’t worry, love, I’m looking after everything.” Giving her a tight little one-armed hug, he told her, “Be patient just a little longer. As soon we get to my place, I will tell you everything.” Clay gave her a kiss on the top of her head.
Laura just sat back and closed her eyes, she was so tired. She knew it was useless to ask questions now. She just had to be patient and trust them.
Clay knew it must have been the medicine that the doctor gave her that calmed her down and was clouding her thinking. The way she had lived for the last ten years, he knew she wouldn’t normally allow or let this go so easy. Anyone who had been in her situation wouldn’t have let him take over the last little while without an explanation.
Clay hoped the medicine kept working until they were in his apartment.
Once the three of them were safely behind the doors of his apartment, Clay took Laura straight into his bedroom and made her lie down. The experience of just leaving the hospital and coming here had exhausted her. Clay knew from the look in her eyes that she wanted to start asking questions, but her eyelids kept drooping as the tiredness overtook. Clay pulled the covers over her and tucked her into his bed and she fell into a sound sleep.
Going into the living room, he found Brad talking on the phone.
Closing the phone after a few minutes, Brad told Clay that he had been speaking to Angel. Angel had set up a meeting about the VSP club to tell them of an unexpected development.
“We should be at that meeting,” Brad told him as he took a seat on the couch and put his feet on the coffee table. “It sounds like Angel might need some help and someone might be in trouble.”
“You go. I can’t leave Laura.” Clay understood Brad’s sentiments. They were always there for each other. He was torn between his duty to his friend and Laura. Hell, Angel was only at the club because of a favour he had called in. But there was no way he could leave Laura, not with what he knew now. It was impossible. Clay finally sat down in his favourite lazy boy chair after running his hands through his hair.
Brad could tell that Clay was in a quandary. “What if I get two of Detroit’s finest to come and babysit for a couple of hours? Laura will probably sleep through us being gone anyway.”
“Who do you trust with your life enough to leave Laura with? Because if anything happens to her. I will blame you.”
“Back down, Clay, I wouldn’t just get anyone. Do you remember a few years ago, the job we had that made it necessary for me to go undercover as a cop? Well, I made some good friends on that job. The guys are still pals with me and they are straight shooters. Both are ex-seals and I would trust my life to them. They’re not on the police force anymore. Now they work on their own. I think I could get them to look after Laura for a few hours. Do you trust me enough to call them?”
“Yeah, I trust you. Call and see what they can do. But I’m warning you, friends or not, if I don’t think they pass my inspection, then I’m not leaving. I will run down the block while you call them and get this prescription filled.” Clay walked out the door as Brad was picking up the phone and dialing his friends.
When Clay got back, he saw two large muscular men sitting on his couch talking to Brad. They were big bruisers of guys and would have given Angel a run on height and size.
As soon as the door closed, both men rose and extended their hands in greeting to Clay. Clay walked over, sizing them up. They looked like they knew how to take care of themselves. While Clay shook their hands, Brad introduced them as Jared and Stan.
“Brad told us about your situation, and we’ll be glad to help out and watch Laura for you. We like to think of Brad as our younger brother. He hung around us so much at the station that we learned to accept him as one of us. All the guys at the station had sort of adopted
him.” Jared explained to Clay.
Clay knew, Brad’s job had entailed him, acting as a cop on another police force to weed out suspected cops that had turned drug dealers. He liked their easygoing way with Brad, and could tell that they really all were good friends, even with their razzing of Brad.
Clay knew he had to go and find out what Angel needed, even if he couldn’t help. After all, Lance was his friend and he was supposed to be handling matters at the club. Thank God Angel had stepped in for him.
Clay sat down and explained to the guys what was going on and how much Laura meant to him. They assured Clay that they would take care of her like she was their sister. Nothing would happen on their watch. And if it did it, it would be over their dead bodies.
Clay could hear the sincerity in their voices and knew that he could trust these men with Laura. Clay told them to make themselves at home. After taking a quick look in on Laura to find her still sleeping, he and Brad walked down to the truck and went to their office.
Two hours later, Clay was on his way back to his apartment. He couldn’t believe that a simple job of helping Lance had turned into Angel making arrangements to go across country to save Cyn, Lance’s partner and friend. Lance had taken Clay aside and talked to him more about the situation and the fear he felt for Cyn’s life. Lance explained that they believed her old life had caught up with her. He suspected she was under the mind control of the Lost Souls Cult again and headed back to California, the cult’s headquarters. While he trusted the rest of the unit, he really wanted Clay to help as it could turn out to be a life or death struggle.
Clay didn’t know what to do. He turned the situation over and over in his mind, but the one thought that kept coming back to him was that Angel had always been there for them. Angel had saved their butts too many times to count with his uncanny sense, but Clay knew he really couldn’t let him go without backup. Brad and Grant would go, but James had made it painfully clear that he didn’t want to be disturbed anymore after having to cut his honeymoon short to deal with Sam’s frantic call about Chase missing from her compound. Chase had gone missing shortly after signing up for training. Clay didn’t blame James. Having to come back and find Chase, his baby brother was the last thing James had wanted to do. If Clay was on his honeymoon with his lady, he wouldn’t want to be disturbed to deal with family troubles either.
Arriving at the apartment, he opened the door with his key and found he had gained another guest. Sitting on the couch was a woman in a nurse’s uniform talking to the guys. The men both had guns resting on their laps.
Clay took one look at the nurse and rushed back to his bedroom, fearing the worse. Opening the door with his heart in his throat, he found Laura curled up, sound asleep, just as he had left her. He allowed himself one long look and silently closed the door.
When he went back to the living room it was to find them staring at him from their seats on the couch. Jared got up from his seat and told Clay to sit down, while he walked to the small kitchenette and poured Clay some coffee. He could smell it now that his heart was back in place. Jared put the cup on the table in front of Clay’s chair and sat back down.
“Sorry, I guess I should have called you but Brad made the meeting that you went to sound so important that I didn’t want to interrupt it.”
Jared picked up his own coffee cup and laid a possessive hand on the woman sitting on the couch between him and Stan. “I just called Janet, our wife, to come over to be prepared if something did happen. She’s a nurse at the local hospital and was just getting off shift, so I had her come here instead of heading home.”
Janet got up from her seat and shook Clay’s hand. “I checked on Laura a few times, but she is resting peacefully so I didn’t wake her up. She doesn’t have to take any pills until after supper, according to the prescription instructions. The bandages look good, so they won’t have to be changed until tonight. My guys told you they would looking after your lady, and I can attest that they are good at their job and their word is their bond. We have been married for two years and I have become fond of Brad myself. He talks about you guys so much I feel like I know you already.” Janet sat back down and picked up her coffee cup.
“I didn’t mean to give the impression that I didn’t trust you to look after her. It was just seeing the white uniform that I thought something bad had happened to Laura. We are all on edge right now. So much is going down that I don’t know what to do.” Clay wiped a hand through his hair and picked up his coffee and sat back.
Stan put an arm around Janet and asked Clay, “So what are you going to do now? Can you tell us what is happening? Maybe we can help and take some of the pressure off you and the other guys. We don’t have anything pressing at the moment, so we could be glad to help. Janet is also off her rotation at the hospital and has a few weeks off, if she is needed. As she said, we are all fond of Brad and that extends to his family also.”
“I appreciate the offer and I think I just might take you up on it, if Laura agrees. I have to get her out of the city as soon as possible and to a safe house for a while. The Feds wanted to take her, but I talked them out of it. It’s a long story but, they couldn’t keep her safe before, so I’m not taking any chances now. The meeting at the office was with Angel. He was doing me a favor stalking out a club that a friend of mine owns. It has turned from hunting a guy trying to grab the women in the parking lot, to a missing person.
“Cyn, my friend’s partner, is missing. Also, Angel has taken quite a shine to this lady and is about to go off half-cocked across the country to try and save her. I would like to be able to have his back. He has always been there for us as a unit. Brad and Grant will go, but James is on his honeymoon and doesn’t want to be disturbed. So I really feel that I’m needed.”
Janet spoke up. “Why don’t you let us take her to our cabin in the mountains? We inherited it from Jared’s uncle two years ago and the guys have already got it wired for bears. No one can come on the property without the alarm being sounded. We also have a safe room in the basement that his uncle made, as he was a conspiracy nut that thought everyone was after him. If Laura agrees, we can have her there by tonight and you can leave and do what has to be done to help your friend. What do you guys think?” She turned and looked at both Stan and Jared as she asked them.
Stan just hugged her and Jared squeezed her thigh. “We think that’s a great idea. We can have you to ourselves without any outside distractions and also help Clay and Brad. I think it would work.”
Clay watched the interaction between the three and finally clued in that the three were a family unit. He had heard of it before, but had never met any trios. He could see the love between all three. If their cabin was wired to keep Janet safe, it would also protect Laura.
Clay thanked them and rose to go and see if Laura was awake. He found her sitting up in bed taking in her surroundings.
“Hey, sleepy head. How you feeling now?” Clay asked as he sat on the bed beside her.
“Not too bad. My hand still stings a bit but not as bad as this morning. I’m sorry I fell asleep on you.”
“Don’t apologize. You probably needed the sleep and was helped along by the pain killers that the doctors gave you.” Clay reached out and brushed her hair back from her face. “I have something to discuss with you. While you were sleeping, two of Brad’s buddies, ex-seals, came over and watched over you so that Brad and I could go to a meeting with Angel. Any other time I wouldn’t have left you, but Angel sounded like he was on his last nerve. I just couldn’t ignore him. He’s always been there for me and the guys.
“At the meeting I found out that Angel’s lady is missing and they think she might be brainwashed and heading across the country. I don’t like having to say this to you, but I would like to go to have his back. But I want you to know that you come first, always will with me.
“Jared and Stan, Brad’s friends, have offered to take you to a cabin that they own and protect you. Their wife, who just happens to be a nu
rse, will be going along to help and treat your hands. But I want you to know that this is conditional on you feeling safe with them and not minding them looking after you for a few days.”
Laura was about to protest and tell him she didn’t want to go with strangers, but she looked into his eyes and could see the difficultly he was having asking this of her. She didn’t want to add to his burden. “OK, but I want to meet them first before I agree. Could you send in their wife…you did say their, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. Janet is her name and I will send her in right away. Sorry to be rushed, but Angel is leaving in a couple of hours with or without me.”
Laura tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice at the thought of him leaving. She had just gotten him back. She didn’t want to let him go. “I’m sure. I’ll meet her and her men. You go get her and start getting ready. I’m sure everything will be OK.”
Clay reached down and kissed her forehead, pushing her hair back again behind her ears.
“You know you’re more important to me now than even Angel, or anyone else for that matter. So if this isn’t OK with you, or you don’t like or feel safe with them, just say the word and I will stay. I’m sure that Angel will be OK with Brad and Grant to back him up.”
Clay got up from the bed and walked out of the room, looking back at her as he passed through the doorway. Laura pasted a smile on her face. At any other time, Clay would probably have questioned it, but his mind was too occupied with helping his friend.
In a few moments Janet appeared at the door. Laura hadn’t expected her so fast, so she didn’t have time to hide her downtrodden look without Janet seeing it. Janet came in the door with a friendly smile and sat on the bed where Clay had just been.
“HI, I’m Janet. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances. I know the look I just saw. I know you don’t know me, but I can assure you that in my husbands’ and my care you will be safe.
“Clay doesn’t want to leave you right now, and you can see he is torn between being there for his buddy or staying with you. I can see that you don’t want him to leave also, but I think you should let him go. I find that it is never a good thing to make a man have to choose between you and his buddies. He will choose you, I have no doubt, but if something happens to Angel, he will never forgive himself.