Night Watch

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Put it down,” Amber said, her voice ringing clearly. “Just put it down and then we’ll talk. Okay?”

  “No,” he said. “No!”

  Was the guy with the knife someone Amber knew? He was wearing a suit, but it was wrinkled and dirty and even torn—as if he’d been sleeping in it for about a week. His hair was a mess and he had several days’ growth of beard on his face. He looked as if he’d been on some kind of binge. Having worked in hospital emergency rooms for years, Brittany had seen that plenty of times before—seemingly average guys looking like homeless bagmen after spending even just a few days living on the street, drinking or doing God knows what kind of drugs.

  “Steven, how badly are you hurt?” Amber called to the man on the ground, but if he answered, it wasn’t more than a whisper.

  From the sounds he was making… “He may have a punctured lung,” Brittany said. She spoke directly to the man with the knife. “I’m a nurse. This man is injured, possibly quite seriously. Please let me help him.”

  “No!”

  Andy pushed his way out of the crowd and met her over near Amber.

  “Don’t go near him,” she said to him in a low voice.

  “Don’t you, either,” he countered softly. “What is Wes doing?”

  Wes was still moving, slowly and calmly, as if he were just taking a stroll, toward the man—who had just noticed him.

  “Stay back!” the man said, his attention now split between Amber, Britt, and Andy—and Wes.

  Wes held out both of his hands, keeping them low, at his waist. It was more of a gesture of reassurance than surrender, especially since he kept moving toward the guy. “If you don’t put the knife down, someone else is going to get hurt, and I’m afraid it’s going to be you.”

  “Let’s try to distract him,” Britt said in a low voice to Amber and Andy. “If he’s paying attention to us, it might be easier for Wes to get the knife away from him.”

  Amber pulled off her shirt. “Hey!”

  “Well, okay,” Britt said. “That’s one way to do it.”

  It was going to work. Wes was forgotten as the man stared at Amber’s perfect body.

  As Britt watched, Wes dropped his relaxed posture. He was ready to spring, as soon as he got close enough….

  But two of the bouncers who’d been working the gate chose that exact moment to come running up.

  One of them reached inside of his jacket and drew a gun. “Drop your weapon!”

  The man with the knife barely even glanced at them. He took a step toward Amber.

  “Freeze!” the guy with the guy’s voice went up about an octave. “Move again, and you’re a dead man!”

  God, if this bozo with the gun shot at the bozo with the knife and missed, he could very well hit Wes.

  The bozo with the knife took another step toward Amber, and Wes moved. Fast.

  “Hold your fire!” he shouted.

  He was a blur of motion as he came at the knife, doing some kind of fancy kung fu type move that, oh God, definitely broke the guy’s arm.

  The knife clattered to the ground, and Wes deftly kicked it away.

  Britt, Amber and Andy ran for the injured man—Steven, Amber had called him.

  But the guy with the knife had to be on some kind of mind-altering substance. The pain from his arm should have taken the fight out of him. But it didn’t.

  Brittany had seen that in the E.R., too. Men with bullet wounds that should have made them pass out from the pain, having to be strapped down to keep them from attacking the doctors and nurses who were trying to save their lives.

  He charged Wes, knocking him down and crashing them both into some lounge chairs.

  Britt made herself focus on Steven. Yes, he’d been stabbed in the chest as well as the arm.

  “I don’t want to die,” he gasped. “I was just standing there. I didn’t even see the knife.”

  “You’re going to be okay,” she told him as she worked to stop the flow of blood. “I promise. You’ve got one lung that’s still working fine. I know it feels like you can’t get enough air, like someone’s sitting on your chest, but you’re not going to die.” She could hear the sirens as an ambulance approached. “Andy, go out to the gate and tell the paramedics it’s a chest wound.”

  He ran.

  She could hear the sound of more lounge chairs crashing as behind her the fight kept going. Please God, don’t let Wes get hurt, too. She had to battle her desire to look away from Steven, to make sure Wes was still all right. Trust him—she had to trust him.

  But then she heard a splash as Wes and the crazy man went into the swimming pool, and she knew—just from the conversations she’d had with her brother-in-law—that that was intentional.

  Wes had brought the man into a Navy SEAL’s natural habitat, so to speak. Most people panicked underwater, but Wes would be right at home.

  The paramedics ran up, and Brittany moved back to give them the space they needed. The police were finally here, too, thank God.

  She could see Wes in the pool, still underwater. How long had they been down there?

  Andy came to stand beside her. “You need to take off those gloves and wash your hands.”

  She nodded, letting Andy lead her back toward the cabana, where there were changing rooms and bathrooms. She needed to do more than wash her hands—she needed to get out of this bloodied dress. But her full attention was still on that swimming pool—at least until Wes broke the surface with another splash and a huge gasp of air.

  Thank God.

  The crazy knife man was more than half-drowned, and the police helped Wes get him out of the pool, where he lay coughing and sputtering as they handcuffed him.

  Wes pushed himself out of the pool in one athletic motion. He was dripping wet and his uniform clung to him.

  As Brittany watched him, he looked around and registered the fact that Steven was being taken out on a stretcher. He saw Amber, who came toward him, her shirt back on. But he kept looking, scanning the crowd until…

  Bingo. He relaxed visibly as he found her and Andy.

  She held up her gloved hands, and pointed to the cabana.

  He nodded, then turned to listen to whatever it was Amber was saying.

  “Do me a favor?” Britt asked Andy. “Go see if Amber has any clothes in my size. I doubt it because she’s much smaller than me, but I’d love it if I didn’t have to wear this dress home.”

  Andy nodded. “You were great, Mom. And Wes… Man, he’s, um, he’s pretty impressive.” He cleared his throat. “I couldn’t help but notice that you and he have, uh… Well, I just want you to know that I think it’s great. Honest. I know I’ve teased you a lot about, you know, when are you going to get me a dad and all that, but I wasn’t serious. I just… I want you to be happy, and it sure seems like this guy makes you smile, so…”

  Oh, dear. “Andy, we were just pretending. He gets hit on when he wears his uniform, and believe it or not, he’s not interested in mindless sex.”

  “He is interested in you,” Andy told her. “If you want to call it pretending, that’s fine. If that’s how you want to deal with it, but…he’s not pretending. You should see him look at you, Britt. That’s not make-believe.”

  She sighed. “Andy…”

  “Get washed up,” Andy told her. “I’ll check with Amber about some clothes.”

  Oh, dear.

  Brittany took off her gloves with a snap and washed her hands and arms with lots of soap.

  Andy was going to be disappointed when Wes went back to San Diego.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  “BRITTANY, YOU STILL IN HERE?” Wes called as he went into the cabana, pulling off his soggy jacket.

  Amber’s bathhouse was the size of a small country, and it was set up like a locker room in a really tony health club. There were big mirrors on walls that were painted in the colors of the southwest. The toilets were in individual rooms, and there were separate areas for changing, as well as a room-size closet tha
t held bathrobes and bathing suits of all shapes and sizes.

  There was a row of sinks, and inside of one, soaking in water, was Brittany’s dress.

  God, what a shame. It was a great dress, but in his experience, blood didn’t wash out very easily.

  However, if her dress was here, that meant she was wearing…?

  Hmmm.

  Wes could hear the sound of water running, and he unbuttoned his wet shirt as he headed toward it on shoes that squished.

  This was definitely going to be interesting.

  She’d kissed him. It wasn’t a very big kiss, sure, but she had kissed him. Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—he hadn’t gotten a chance to kiss her back. He’d been about to, though. He’d been that close to covering her mouth with his and kissing the hell out of her.

  There was one central shower room in this cabana, with lots of stalls. They were separated from the main part of the room by shower curtains. He stopped in the open archway. “Britt?”

  “I’m in the shower,” she called out. “There were bathrobes a-plenty, and my dress was worse than I thought, so…”

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am, thanks.”

  Can I come in to make absolutely sure? He clenched his teeth over the words.

  “I’m a little off balance, though, and very, very grateful that Andy wasn’t standing over where Steven was when this guy pulled out that knife. Can you imagine, just standing there at a party and suddenly…whammo. Stabbed in the chest.” Brittany poked her head out from behind the curtain, giving him just a flash of her bare shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  He must’ve been staring at her stupidly, because she added, “Are you hurt?”

  “Uh, no,” he said. “No, I’m…a little off balance, too, I guess.”

  “That was some fancy move you did, Jackie Chan, getting him to drop that knife,” she told him with one of those million-watt smiles.

  He laughed. “Yeah, well, it was actually pretty sloppy. Jackie would have been appalled. But it got the job done.”

  “Are you really all right?” Her eyes skimmed his body, lingering on the open front of his shirt and his bare chest beneath. She frowned. “God, you’re going to get some bruise.”

  He looked down, and sure enough, there was a purple mark forming right beneath his ribs on his right side. And here he’d thought she’d been ogling his ripped physique.

  “You didn’t even know that was there, did you?” she accused him.

  “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “It’s going to.”

  “Nah. I’ve had worse.”

  “Take off your shirt,” she ordered him.

  Wes laughed. “What are you going to do, give me a physical right here?”

  “I want to make sure you’re okay,” she said. “I am a nurse.”

  “You’re a naked nurse,” he pointed out. He peeled his shirt off his arms. “You want to check me out? I’ll come in there and you can check me out. That way I can check you out, too, make sure you’re really all right.”

  “I’m not the one who was wrestling with a lunatic.” There was a flush of pink on her cheeks. “Besides, after Amber did her little show-and-tell, I’ve pretty much decided that no one’s ever going to see me naked again. Wait a sec,” she ordered him and snapped the curtain shut.

  The water ran for a few more seconds and then went off. The towel that was hanging over the curtain rod disappeared as Britt said, “Seriously though, I thought she was very brave. I’ve decided it’s okay if you marry her.”

  Wes laughed as the curtain opened with a screech.

  “Follow me,” Brittany commanded, as if she were wearing an admiral’s uniform instead of a towel that just barely managed to cover her.

  “I don’t want to marry her.”

  “Well, that’s your loss, then. She’s beautiful and she’s courageous.”

  “Not to mention rich.”

  “There you go. And she’s definitely your type. I bet we could get her to dance on a table with very little effort. She obviously has no trouble with the naked part.”

  “I still think I’ll pass, thanks.”

  Wes trailed her back to the room with the bathing suits and bathrobes hanging in it, watching water drip from her hair onto her shoulders as they went. She had incredible shoulders and gorgeous legs and…

  She took a terrycloth bathrobe from one of the hooks and put it on. With her back to him, she slipped out of her towel, and fastened the front of the robe. It went all the way down to her calves and completely covered her shoulders. What a shame. Although he still could get quite a bit of mileage out of the fact that she was naked beneath that robe.

  As he watched, she rummaged through the drawers and pulled out a bathing suit, tossing it to him. “Put this on, hero-man. Andy checked with Amber’s housekeeper and all these suits are up for grabs. There are T-shirts in one of the drawers, too.”

  Wes draped his wet jacket and shirt over a bench and started to unfasten his pants. “So the good news is that I won’t be needing to make any additional demonstrations about the ineffectiveness of that wall in keeping anyone out,” he told her.

  Obviously, she hadn’t expected Wes to drop trou right there. “Oh?” she asked as she turned her back to him, looking through the women’s bathing suits as if they were tremendously interesting.

  “This guy got into the party by hopping the wall,” he told her as he kicked off his shoes and peeled off his socks. “The police already found part of his jacket—it caught on one of the spikes and tore on his way over. Amber is now convinced that she needs additional security.”

  “But at least this guy is in custody now,” Brittany said. “Right? I mean, I know there’s still a threat from all the other crazies out there, but—”

  “This isn’t the guy we were worried about,” Wes told her as he stepped out of his pants.

  “It’s not?” In her surprise, she turned to face him, but then quickly turned around again.

  Wes caught sight of himself in one of the mirrors on the wall. His boxers were white—they had to be under his uniform’s white pants—and when they were wet they became pretty damn transparent. He quickly skimmed them off and pulled on the bathing suit she’d given him.

  “Are you saying that this guy isn’t the guy who was in Amber’s garage that day?” Brittany asked.

  “Apparently not. She says she’s never seen tonight’s guy before in her life. You can turn around now,” he said. “I mean, you could’ve turned around before. You’re a nurse, right? What haven’t you seen before?”

  Brittany came toward him, her eyes narrowing as she caught sight of another bruise that was forming on his left thigh. He’d hit one of those lounge chairs and was pretty sure he broke it. The chair, that is. Not his leg. It took a lot more than that to break a Skelly’s leg.

  But, “This one hurts,” he admitted.

  “Turn around.”

  He obeyed. “My shoulders feel a little rug burned. I landed on my back on the concrete a few times and skidded, you know? That guy was an effin’ maniac, and he had a few pounds on me, so…”

  He felt her hands, cool on his shoulders. “You’re a little red, but it doesn’t look too bad. We can put some lotion on it when we get home.”

  God, he liked the sound of that we.

  “You’re sure you didn’t hit your head when that happened?” she asked. She came around in front of him, exploring the back of his head with the tips of her fingers, checking for any lumps or bumps.

  Jesus, that felt good. It would feel even better if she was kissing him when she did that.

  He took a deep breath. “Look, Britt. About before—”

  “I know,” she said, stepping away from him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I just got caught up in the make-believe. It wasn’t real—I know it’s not real. You don’t have to worry about that, and you don’t have to say anything else.”

  Well, jeez, he sure as hell wasn’t going to sa
y anything now, especially not, I’m dying to kiss you again.

  It wasn’t real, that kiss. Okay. That made sense. It didn’t make him happy, but it made sense.

  “Do you think Ethan’ll mind much if we leave pretty soon?” he asked her instead.

  “Ethan?” she asked.

  He swore. “Did I really call him Ethan? Andy. I meant Andy. God, I’m losing it.”

  “Who’s Ethan?”

  “He was my little brother,” Wes told her. “There’s something about Andy that reminds me of him a little, you know?”

  Was. He saw from her face that she caught his use of the past tense. Of course she had. He had a feeling that Brittany caught everything.

  “I’m going to go see if I can set up something with Amber for tomorrow,” he told her before she could say anything or ask any more questions. “If Andy doesn’t want to leave now—if you don’t want to leave now, I could always call a cab.”

  “I’d like to leave, too,” she said. She held up a tank suit. “I’m going to borrow a swimsuit from Amber. I feel a little funny going home in just a bathrobe. I’ll be out in a sec, okay?”

  She went into one of the changing rooms, and he brought his wet clothes out to the sinks and attempted to wring them out.

  “Did you find everything you need?”

  Wes turned to see Amber watching him. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah. Although, Britt said something about T-shirts.” He forced a smile as he gestured to his bare chest. “I feel a little underdressed.”

  “Men who are built like you shouldn’t be allowed to wear shirts,” she said. And damn, wasn’t that weird. Lana’s little sister was giving him a definite “Come on, baby” look. She hadn’t given him a second glance before this.

  She led the way back to the room with the bathing suits. “Steven’s going to be all right. I just called the hospital.”

  “That’s great.” Of course, maybe he was just imagining her interest. He decided to experiment. “You know, women who look like you shouldn’t be allowed to wear shirts, either,” he countered.