The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  Good Lord, she didn’t even want to think about it.

  But somehow, she’d get them through this. Hopefully without taking off her clothes.

  The manager of the “entertainment” agency she’d signed on with had called her today, telling her she’d received a glowing compliment from last night’s client. Probably because Rogan Murphy was embarrassed by the whole thing and wanted to make it go away as painlessly as possible.

  Sam couldn’t have agreed more.

  The money had been good, but it sure as heck hadn’t been easy.

  There had to be a better way.

  Swallowing a yawn, Sam opened her book to the next to the last chapter. She and Donnie had been reading this one for a little while, as her dyslexia made the process slower, but she was anxious to see how it ended. She’d just started to make some headway when a soft knock sounded on the metal pole that held the privacy curtain. Private rooms were way out of budget, so her brother shared his space with several other long-term patients. She looked up from her book to find Justin’s familiar face peeking around the curtain.

  “Hey,” he said as he pushed the barrier aside. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  “Not at all.” Which was a lie, but she figured she might as well get this over with. She’d been expecting this conversation ever since she ran into him outside Murphy’s last night. Over the past few months of painful setbacks and even more agonizing lack of progress with her brother’s condition, she’d come to think of Justin as a friend. He was no longer technically her brother’s doctor, but he always managed to make himself available. He’d answered endless amounts of questions as Sam had familiarized herself with traumatic head injury, and they’d shared coffee and some pathetic hospital cuisine on more than a few occasions. He’d been helpful and respectful and engaging, and she genuinely liked and admired him.

  It was why it was so humiliatingly painful that she’d run into him last night.

  He lowered his long body into the cramped plastic chair, heaving out a sigh as he collapsed back against it. “Man. Sometimes there is just nothing better than sitting on your butt, you know what I mean?”

  Despite her trepidation, Samantha laughed, and Justin ran his fingers through his perpetually mussed hair before sliding his gaze toward her lap. His eyes widened at the Highlander with the improbable pecs brandishing a broadsword from her book’s cover.

  “Well. That’s an interesting change from Tom Jones.”

  Sam resisted the urge to make a flippant comment about strippers and their smut. “It’s actually a wonderful story. And since reading Donnie’s favorites was doing no good, I thought I’d shake him up a little. I like these historical romances. And having his sister describe another man’s sexual prowess out loud should be enough to bring any guy around, just so he can shut her up.”

  Justin grinned, and Sam’s tension eased.

  “How long have you been at it?”

  “A little over a week now,” she admitted. “It takes me a long time to read.”

  “More time to enjoy it. Me, I’m a speed reader, which has its benefits when it’s a medical journal. But then I wait months for a new Dean Koontz to come out and I finish it in a few hours.”

  “I’m surprised you have time to read,” she told him honestly. It seemed like he pretty much lived at the hospital.

  “Yeah, well, it’s either read or have a social life, and reading takes a lot less effort. Dean doesn’t mind if I fall asleep while I’m in the middle of a conversation.”

  Sam laughed, and he offered another of his rare smiles. It was a shame he didn’t share them more often.

  When his smile slid away and he sucked in his bottom lip, Sam knew he was ready to discuss the giant g string-clad elephant lurking between them.

  “About last night –”

  “Don’t.” She put her hand on his arm, warm beneath his scrubs. “You know what I was there to do, and I think you know why, so there’s really no reason to rehash it.”

  “But Sam –”

  “No. Don’t you but me. There was plenty of butt to go around last night. I don’t think we need any more.”

  Recognizing her play on words, Justin laughed, which was even rarer. But it was more rueful than amused. “It’s just… man, Sam. I wish there was something I could do. Are they still balking about Donnie’s care?”

  “Same story, different day.” She put her arms above her head and stretched. “They’re pushing for me to move him to some kind of institution, like they’ve already written him off. There’s a window of only so many months they’ll allow for hospitalization, and we’re coming up on it fast. But what happens when he gets an infection, like the one he had a few weeks ago, and there are only semi-trained nursing aides to take care of it? I’m afraid he’ll die if I move him to one of those places. And he’s not going to be in here much longer anyway. I’ve seen signs that he’s coming out of it.”

  Justin stared straight ahead, his expression a remote mask, and Sam swallowed a sigh of frustration. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone over to the Dark Side. I thought you were stronger than that, Luke.”

  Justin’s smile this time was thin. “There’s been… progress,” he admitted, though he couched his words. She hated it when he went all professional on her. “But Sam, you know as well as I do that that doesn’t mean he’s coming down the home stretch. Response to painful stimuli and spontaneously opening his eyes are not necessarily positive indicators of a coma reversal. They could mean any number of things. We’ve discussed that.”

  “Yes, but I can feel him, Justin. And I know it sounds crazy, but for a while he just wasn’t there. But lately –” She shook her head because she knew he secretly thought she was ridiculous. “He’s in there, Justin. And he wants to come back. Every time I leave, I almost sense his tension. When I’m here… look, I know it sounds crazy, but he’s relaxed. He’s happy that I’m with him.”

  Sam didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to know what was going through Justin’s head – looney alert at three o’clock. She punched his arm and rolled her eyes. “Just because I can’t scientifically prove what I’m telling you, you think that I’m full of crap.”

  “I’m a scientist,” he defended. “It’s sort of my thing. And I don’t think you’re full of crap, Sam. I think you’re full of hope. Which is a good thing, as long as you’re also realistic.”

  “That’s what I have you for. The Voice of Doom.”

  Shaking his head, Justin pushed himself to his feet. “I have to get back to work. At least the folks down in the ER don’t mock me.”

  “They’re either sedated or unconscious when you meet them. Wait ‘til they wake up, and then see what happens. ”

  “Aren’t you just full of smart remarks tonight?” He put his hand on the curtain to pull it closed, peering seriously over his shoulder. “Just be cautious, Sam. If you continue doing… that, I want you to make sure you’re not endangering yourself.”

  “Careful is my middle name.”

  Nodding, satisfied for the moment, Justin left her and Donnie alone with the Highlander. And Samantha looked at her brother’s still form and told herself that she was right. Donnie was in there, somewhere, and he was trying to get better. And she’d do whatever she had to, to see that he had the chance.

  JOEY Santone hung outside the emergency room entrance. Sometimes he got good and tired of watching the chick, listening to her read those stupid books to her stupid vegetable of a brother, but the damn boss said that he had to keep his eye out. Why they were even still bothering when it was clear old Donnie wasn’t never gonna wake up was anybody’s goddamn guess. And if the boss was so worried about Don spilling his guts… well, a quick pillow over the face and problem solved.

  Except the damn sister would probably go ballistic and stir up a whole hornet’s nest of trouble.

  At least she had a smokin’ bod, and he’d more than enjoyed watching her get ready for bed at night on the occasions he’d followed her home. Chickie ha
d a couple of broken blinds that she needed to do something about. And last night, when she’d come home, there’d been an unexpected treat under that trench coat. Unless he was very much mistaken, goody-two-shoes Samantha had taken on a little side job.

  Maybe before this whole ordeal was over he’d get to sample some of baby sister’s wares.

  But for now it was strictly hands off.

  The boss said they didn’t need to arouse suspicion.

  Yeah, and suspicion wasn’t the only thing that girl could arouse.

  Striking a match against the side of the building, Joey ignored the prissy scowl of one of those stupid volunteers as she left the building, no doubt getting her granny-panties in a bunch because he wasn’t smoking in a designated spot. Those little glass box things they had all over outside the hospital were about as bad an idea as he’d ever heard of. Like smoking a cigarette was so bad a crime that he should be penned in like some kind of freak in a cage? Like what? They was all gonna get cancer and croak on the spot because they’d breathed in some secondhand smoke?

  Shit. He’d been smoking since he was nine, and it never done no harm to him.

  Coughing, Joey blew smoke rings out through his nostrils just to give himself something to do. No doubt one of those damn nurses was probably lookin’ for his ass, wantin’ him to empty out a trash can or transport a patient or some such shit, and he guessed he’d have to get back in there in a minute. Wouldn’t do to get fired for slacking on the job, as the boss would be good and pissed. Said they needed somebody to be the eyes and ears at the hospital, make sure Donnie-O didn’t pull a Lazarus and return from the dead.

  Damn. How many years ago had he learned that shit when his mamma dragged him to church, and he was still rememberin’ it?

  Crushing the butt of his cigarette under the heel of his rubber soled shoe, Joey guessed it was true what they said.

  You never forget the stuff you learn in childhood.

  THE night was still balmy as Sam emerged from the hospital, pulling her car keys out of her purse. Visiting hours had ended long ago, but she’d become enough of a fixture around the place that most of the nursing staff were willing to bend the rules. Light from the harvest moon shone clear and bright, illuminating the advertisements for local festivals fluttering against the lampposts onto which they were stapled. She gave a brief thought to picking up a pumpkin to sit on the front step of Donnie’s apartment – Halloween was just a few weeks away – but given her reclusive and questionable neighbors and the generally depressed state of the neighborhood, she figured it was probably best to forgo drawing unnecessary attention. If she’d had any idea that her brother had moved out of the cute duplex he’d been renting and into that dump just so that she could attend classes full time, she’d never have agreed to let him help her with tuition. But as usual, he’d suffered in silence just because he wanted her to have something better.

  Pushing her key between her fingers and scanning the perimeter for anything hinky, Sam scurried through the creeping mist which had begun to roll in from the nearby waterfront. The air pressed in on her, heavy and electric, a portent of the rain which was due by morning. Despite the mild temperature her shoulders quivered with an unexpected chill.

  Stopping beside a battered minivan with fast food wrappers piled on the dash, Sam took a second to do another quick survey of her surroundings. This was the third or fourth time in the past couple of weeks that she’d gotten this itchy feeling between her shoulder blades, as if an unseen presence was boring a hole through her clothes, watching her with feral eyes.

  Sucking in a breath, Sam stepped quickly away from the vehicle, surreptitiously checking beneath it before doing a slow three-sixty, chin held high. She made sure her body language indicated pretty clearly that she was not going to be easy pickings, although she found no obvious source for her instinctive alarm. Maybe she was just tired, overreacting to the situation because she still harbored too many questions about what had happened to her brother several months ago. The police still had no suspect for the shooting which had landed Donnie in the ER, nor any explanation as to why he’d fled prior to surgery and found himself in the path of an oncoming bus.

  But she’d learned, over the past decade, to pay attention to her intuition. And right now that little voice was telling her that she was not alone in this lot.

  Feeling an unexpected rush of nerves, Sam set her feet into motion, sticking close to the pools of bluish light cast by the flickering security lamps. The mist had grown thicker, recoiling from her scissoring legs before settling down to obscure the blacktop. With one ear Sam listened for the telltale scuffle of soles hitting pavement, while the other ear registered the reverberation of her thudding heart.

  Shit. She hated feeling scared. But she knew it was simply her body’s instinctive reaction to a potentially threatening situation. Picking up the pace, Sam broke into a jog toward the back of the lot. She’d almost reached her car when the cat darted across her path.

  “AAhhhh!” Grabbing her chest, jumping three feet, Sam collapsed against a nearby pickup. The slick metal felt cool against the bare skin of her trembling arms. The damn orange tabby had nearly given her a heart attack. Rolling her eyes heavenward, Sam took a deep breath and smiled ruefully when the interloper brushed against her jean-clad legs. She glanced down at the ferocious feline, squatting to stroke it as it began to purr.

  “Well, you might be feral, but you’re not exactly what I was expecting.” The tabby was huge, sleek and muscular with the proud arrogance of a tom. Obviously he’d been around neighborly people before, or else he knew a sucker when he spotted one, because he rolled over on his back and scooted from side to side, begging for a belly rub. “Ham,” Samantha accused softly when he executed a full back circle, digging his sharp claws into the blacktop to push himself along. The rumbling from beneath his fur grew so loud that she had to laugh. If this was the predator she’d been sensing then she needed to dial the paranoia down a notch. The cat flipped onto his feet in a move so graceful it defied the laws of physics, strolling over to poke its snout into the canvas bag which had dropped at Sam’s feet.

  “Nosy.” She gathered up the loose change, half-eaten Milky Way, and borrowed library book which had spilled from the purse, mentally chastising herself for letting the foggy night breed visions of horror. She had enough problems without creating fictitious monsters lurking in the dark. “There’s nothing in there that would interest you,” she assured the animal.

  With a last pat on the friendly feline’s head, Sam unlocked the door to her car and headed for the dump she’d been calling home.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THERE was a box in front of Donnie’s door. Shifting the small sack of groceries which she’d just picked up at the mini-mart around the corner, Samantha stooped over to study the writing on the outside of the brown cardboard. She thought that maybe it belonged to one of the neighbors and had been delivered to her apartment by mistake, but SAMANTHA MARTIN was written in clear block letters in the upper left-hand corner. There was no return address, no postage, no bar codes or distinguishing marks.

  Whoever had delivered it, it hadn’t come through the usual channels.

  Feeling that chill again, Sam glanced sharply down the hall. Her brother’s apartment was on the first floor of what had once been a turn-of-the-century townhome, now subdivided into four dark, irregular little dwellings. He shared the lower level with an eccentric, nearly blind elderly woman, so Sam had little hope that her neighbor had seen anyone coming or going. Upstairs was a struggling artist who painted unfortunate depictions of famous Charleston landmarks on old bricks and sold them down at the Market, and a man whom Sam was pretty sure sold his body when he wasn’t selling drugs. All in all, it wasn’t the friendliest environment, and she couldn’t imagine any of the building’s inhabitants leaving her any kind of neighborly gift.

  Aside from her fellow tenants, no one except her employers – both at the bar and at the company she’d stripped for �
�� knew that she’d taken over Donnie’s lease. And any mail which came her way was delivered to the post office box she’d rented. Discounting Justin, a handful of nurses and a couple of girls who worked with her at the bar, she didn’t think that anyone else in this town even knew her full name.

  So who the hell could have left a box addressed to her in front of Donnie’s door?

  Feeling that familiar prickling of skin along the back of her neck, Sam scooped the box – which was light – into the same arm with the sack of groceries. With her free hand she worked the deadbolt on the battered wooden door.

  She turned it back immediately when she was on the other side.

  Uneasy, Samantha deposited both the box and the food onto the tiny piece of laminate that served as a kitchen counter, flipping on the switch which bathed the whole living area in florescent light. It didn’t take much – the entire place was basically one big room, except for the tiny bathroom which had been added to make it rentable. Inching forward, Sam peered around the door into the tiled environment, satisfied by the absence of anyone lurking behind the shower curtain.

  This place her brother had rented six months ago still smelled slightly of old gym socks and moth balls – an unpleasant combination to which she would never grow accustomed. But as she glanced around for signs of anything out of place, she noted that it was at least clean, and as orderly as she’d left it. The plaid sleeper-sofa sagged in the middle and the tiny dinette had seen better days, but in the way of men her brother had purchased a large, flat-screen television to dominate the small room. Sam picked up the remote and punched the button to turn it on low, suddenly feeling the need for some background noise in the otherwise silent apartment.

  After gathering up the remains of the morning paper, whose headlines continued to speculate about the whereabouts of the mayor’s AWOL teenaged daughter, missing since July, Sam pushed a wayward lock of hair from her eyes and returned her attention to the box. Feeling a bit like Pandora, she had the uncomfortable suspicion that opening it would lead to a whole host of problems she hadn’t foreseen.