by Cindy Gerard
“She’s the one who got the three of us back together.” So that had pissed someone off? Or maybe they’d pissed someone off since they’d reconnected?
“Who knows that one-eyed jacks hold special meaning to you?” Green asked.
“Other than you guys?” Coop shook his head. “Family. Close friends.”
“And apparently, someone with an ax to grind,” Green added with a concerned frown. “We can talk more back at HQ. You’ve got to get out of the cold, brother.”
“Fine,” Coop said, unable to stall a bone-rattling shiver. “But no one else needs to know that I took a little shrapnel today, okay? No one.” He would not be pulled off active duty for some BS minor medical incident. He needed to get to work and figure this out.
“And Mike doesn’t need to know about any of this, either.” He lifted a hand toward the playing cards and the bullet casings. “Not until . . .” His voice caught when he thought about Eva, fighting for her life. Possibly dying. “Not until Eva’s out of the woods,” he said, determined that she would make it. “He’s got enough to deal with.”
“He’s going to be pissed if we keep him out of the loop on this,” Santos pointed out.
Yeah, he’d be pissed, all right. “I’ll take the heat,” Coop said. “But I won’t put any more on his shoulders. Not right now.”
He glanced at the cards again. Specifically, the queen of hearts. “We need to get a protection detail at the hospital ASAP.”
Green pulled out his phone and made it happen.
“Mike will realize they’re guards, but he’ll be okay with it. And for God’s sake, everyone watch your back. This may be about the four of us, but you all may be considered targets by association.” The blood oozing out of the bandage the EMTs had applied to Santos’s arm was proof of that.
His shoulder hurt, and suddenly, he couldn’t stop shivering. Whatever the shooter’s reason was, one thing was clear: Anyone who would set up something this elaborate was on a mission.
Which meant he wasn’t finished with them yet.
7
Rhonda hated hospitals. Fear, anger, despair, helplessness, loss—every desperate emotion possible funneled through her as she stood outside the entrance of Inova Fairfax Hospital. The antiseptic smell, the shush of soft-soled shoes on polished tile floors, the blips, beeps, and alarms of the monitors on the life-support machines in the ICU—just pulling up in front of the building brought back memories that made her lungs seize.
She stood outside, long after her red Mazda was driven away by a young man with a valet tag on his coat and a flirty grin on his face, totally impervious to her distress.
The bitter cold finally prompted her to move. She drew sharp, icy air into her lungs, watched her exhaled breath drift away in a white fog, then forced herself to walk through the lobby doors.
Only for Mike and Eva would she do this. And she had to do this.
She glanced around and spotted a volunteer at a desk several yards away. Her heels clicked on the tile as she headed for the desk, reminding herself how lucky they were that the only level one trauma center in northern Virginia was just ten minutes from where Eva had been shot. She wouldn’t have made it this long otherwise.
After the police and all the alphabet agencies had finished questioning the team members who’d been at the restaurant, they’d all returned to work—except Taggart, who’d been treated and sent home to rest. Thank God he hadn’t been hurt worse and that Cooper was in one piece, too.
At a quick team meeting, Cooper had given them all a rundown of what happened and what they had found at the shooter’s hide: the exploding grenade, the four playing cards, the bullets. And he’d made them all swear not to reveal anything about the cards and bullets to Mike.
A personal vendetta, he’d said, looking grim. And the killer was still out there.
His words had chilled her more than the winter wind. She’d immediately started working up a profile on a possible killer. But like everyone on the team, she was distracted and on tenterhooks, waiting for news of Eva’s condition, fearing the worst every time their operations manager, Peter Davis, appeared in their office doorway in his wheelchair or fired off an e-mail.
“She’s hanging in there . . .”
“Unfortunately, there’s been a setback. She was rushed back to surgery . . .”
“No, no word yet . . .”
“She made it through the last surgery, but let’s not get our hopes up too high . . .”
Hour by hour, minute by minute, Rhonda attempted to work, but more often than not, she gravitated to the other team members, who wandered in and out of the break room, looking grim.
After she’d clocked out, Rhonda had driven straight to the hospital despite the demons that tried to best her. What if Eva died? She couldn’t live with herself if she hadn’t come. Though Eva had made it through the first ten hours, she still wasn’t out of the woods.
“Hey, Rhonda.”
She jumped and spun around.
Oh, God. Cooper was the last person she wanted to see.
“Hey,” he said more gently, his brows furrowed as he searched her face. “You okay?”
He reached out and touched her arm, and for a moment, she wanted to lean into him. A weak, stupid moment. Why did he suddenly have to be Mr. Nice Guy, instead of the hotshot jerk who showed up every day at work?
She couldn’t deal with him now. Not when it took every ounce of willpower to keep from leaving the hospital.
Without a word she continued toward the volunteer desk, determined to ignore him.
She knew he was following her, because his boot heels clicked half a beat behind hers. Black cowboy boots, the leather worn and formed to his feet, but always polished within an inch of its life.
An inch of its life.
An inch of her life.
An inch of Eva’s life.
She shook off the scattered thoughts. She was not going down that road.
“Rhonda?” he said again. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. What are you doing here?” It came out like an accusation, when all she really wanted was for him to leave her alone.
“What do you think I’m doing here? I’m checking on Eva. Wait.” He caught up to her, gripped her arm, and spun her around, fear in his eyes. “Has something happened?”
When she saw the tortured look on his face, she felt like an ass. She also felt herself soften. He cared deeply for Eva and Mike. And he’d risked his life today trying to hunt down the shooter. “No, no news. I just got here. I haven’t heard anything more than Peter’s last update.”
“Still touch and go,” Peter had said, after calling the team together just before they all left for the day. “According to the surgeons, the next twenty-four hours will tell the tale.”
Cooper said nothing now, his hands stuffed back into the pockets of a black wool pea coat, the collar up against the cold outside, a gray cashmere scarf looped around his neck. With his hair mussed by the wind and his cheeks ruddy from the cold, he looked as if he’d walked off the deck of a whaling ship docked in some exotic port or onto a shadowy wharf and into a dark and foggy night filled with intrigue and danger. At the very least, he looked like a model or an actor promoting expensive whiskey or designer aftershave or—
“Rhonda?”
The unease in his voice jerked her back to reality again. She couldn’t keep checking out like that. She had to face—
“Are you sure you’re all right? You don’t look so good.”
“Wow.” Her knee-jerk response was snark, because they both did it so well. And so often. And because she didn’t know how else to cover her unsettling reaction to him and her discomfort at being inside a hospital after almost eight years. “I can see how you got your rep as a heartbreaker. You could charm a girl senseless.”
“You know what I meant. You do
n’t look like you feel well.”
Her frayed emotions finally got the best of her. “My friend is fighting for her life. So no, I don’t feel real good about that.” The bite in her tone hung between them like the cheap shot that it was.
“She’s my friend, too,” he said quietly, and she felt as if she’d kicked a puppy.
She knew Cooper and Taggart thought Eva walked on water, and Cooper was like a protective big brother to her.
And as unsettled as she felt, this wasn’t about her. It was about Eva.
“I’m . . . sorry.” She touched a hand to her forehead, realized that she still wore her gloves, and slowly tugged them off. “I hate this. I hate that I’m here. That you’re here. That we have a reason to be here.”
“And you’re scared.”
“For Eva? Damn straight.”
She stood there, drawing deep breaths to pull herself together, while he walked over to get the directions to Eva’s room.
“Come on.” He took her elbow gently. “Let’s stop by the gift shop before we go up. Eva loves lilies.”
The thought of the smell of flowers was the tipping point.
She looked around wildly for a restroom. One hand pressed to her abdomen, the other cupped over her mouth, she sprinted toward the door. She barely made it inside before violently throwing up.
• • •
A balloon bouquet in hand, Coop stood silently beside Rhonda as they rode the elevator to the third-floor ICU.
The Bombshell was a frazzled, emotional mess. She’d gained a little of her color back, but when she’d walked out of the restroom ten minutes ago, she’d been so pale he’d steered her unceremoniously to a bench and made her sit down.
She hadn’t made any protest, but the look on her face said “don’t ask.” So he hadn’t. He’d just fished in his pocket for the little pack of breath mints he always carried and held it out to her.
Her hand had been shaky, so he’d tipped a mint into his palm and held it out to her instead.
“Thanks.” She’d popped it into her mouth, then closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall.
It hadn’t taken a psych degree to figure out that she’d needed a little time. A little space.
A woman as strong as she was, a woman as strong-willed as she was, would be horrified that she’d shown such vulnerability. Especially to him. She always put on a good show of being tough and not liking him much, so breaking rule number one—never let ’em see you sweat—had to be eating at her pretty hard about now.
And while she’d clearly been embarrassed to lose her cookies, it had made him respect her more. And like her a little more, too—and damn, suddenly, he was the one who needed space.
“Take some time,” he’d said. “I’ll be right back.”
Then he’d gotten up and headed for the hospital gift shop.
“No flowers,” she’d managed to say, faintly but with great conviction.
So . . . she had a bad thing for flowers? And she clearly didn’t like hospitals. Had she lost someone important to her? Someone she missed so much that she erected walls to make sure she never got that close to anyone again?
Oh, for God’s sake. He was way overthinking this.
He glanced at her now in the elevator. He hoped she could keep it together when she saw Mike. He needed strength from his team right now, not weakness.
The doors opened, and he immediately spotted the two men Green had sent over. The guys were pros; they knew how to fade into the background, and to the untrained eye, they did just that. He was glad to see they were blending in and that Mike and Eva were being protected.
“You sure you can do this?” he asked Rhonda. “There’s no shame in sitting this one out. You can wait over there.” He nodded toward a small waiting room. “I’ll get a full report from Mike and give it to you straight.”
She breathed deeply, squared her shoulders, and walked toward the nurse’s desk. “I’m fine now,” she said, pulling herself together with guts and determination. “You don’t have to worry that I’ll upset Mike or Eva. I’ve got this.”
And as she calmly told the desk nurse their names and asked about Eva, Coop knew that she did. The Bombshell was back, in charge, and bent on seeing this through.
But as they approached Eva’s room and his chest tightened, he suspected that she was much more in control of her emotions now than he was.
8
If Rhonda hadn’t double-checked the room number, she wouldn’t have known it was Mike sitting behind the glass ICU wall.
She couldn’t muffle an involuntary gasp. Beside her, Cooper reached for her hand, his own shaking as it grasped hers. She didn’t even think about pulling away. Sometimes hanging on was the only thing that made sense.
Mike had pulled a straight-backed chair up to the hospital bed. He leaned forward, his eyes closed, his forehead pressed against the mattress, his hands clasped between his thighs. Haggard. Drawn. A man defeated.
Eva lay unconscious and unmoving, the pallor of her face little contrast to the white sheet covering her. Both arms were impaled by IV lines that administered medication and fluids and God knew what else. She’d been intubated; the ventilator sighed and wheezed, helping her breathe. Monitors over the bed tracked her heartbeat, blood pressure, respiration, and temperature, while the IVs beeped and the pumps sighed and clicked.
“Why is she restrained?” Cooper sounded horrified.
“For her protection.” Rhonda pulled her hand away as old memories arose. “If she wakes up, she might be scared. They don’t want her pulling at the vent tube or her IVs.”
“Just give the door a light tap,” a dark-haired nurse in pristine white said as she walked by, sensing their hesitation. “He’s not asleep. You’re on the visitors list, so I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.”
When they continued to stand there, still in shock, the nurse tried again.
“I can take those for you, if you’d like,” she added, with a nod toward the balloons that now seemed sadly frivolous. “They’re not allowed in ICU, but I can have them taken to the children’s wing. They’ll love them.”
Without looking away from Mike, Cooper handed the balloons over.
“Thank you,” Rhonda whispered as the nurse walked away.
“I’ve never seen him like this,” Cooper whispered when they were alone again. “Not even after Afghanistan. Not even after . . .” He let the words trail off, clearly shaken.
Since it was clear that Cooper couldn’t do it, she lightly rapped on the glass with her knuckle. At first, she didn’t think Mike had heard her. Then he slowly lifted his head, stared for a long, desperate moment at Eva’s deathly still face, and finally turned toward them.
She knew what hell looked like. Knew what it felt like. And looking at Mike now, she understood exactly what he was going through.
• • •
Coop watched Mike slip out of Eva’s room and quietly slide the glass door closed behind him.
One of the staff must have given him a scrub shirt, because that’s what he was wearing along with the jeans he’d had on when Eva was shot. Dark blotches of blood stained the worn denim.
“You look like hell,” Coop blurted out, because man, oh, man, he was suddenly as worried about Mike as he was about Eva. His eyes were bloodshot; the circles beneath them were big enough to use for target practice. “You need to get some rest, bud. And I’m betting you need food, too.”
“I’m fine.” Mike dragged both hands over his jaw and stifled a yawn that made him a liar.
“Like hell.” Coop clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go get you something to eat, at least.”
When Mike only stared at Eva through the glass, Coop looked to Rhonda. She read his helpless expression and, bless her, took over the good fight.
“I can stay with her, Mike,” she said gently.
“Why don’t you let Jamie take you to the cafeteria for a sandwich or some soup? A change of scenery might revive you a bit.”
For the first time, Mike turned his attention away from Eva. He looked first at Coop and then at Rhonda. “I must look really bad, if the two of you agree on something.”
“You aren’t going to be any use to her if you keel over from exhaustion,” Coop said firmly, though his heart felt as if it was being squeezed in a tight fist.
“I know you mean well, but back off on the double-teaming, okay? I’m not going anywhere. The staff brings me food. I’m getting by.”
Coop bet that Mike barely touched the food. And “getting by” was a gross exaggeration.
“How’s she doing?” Coop finally asked.
“There’s been no change.” Mike sounded as close to defeat as a man could possibly get. “She’s not progressing, but she’s not slipping back, either. Since they took her back in for a second surgery to stop that bleeder, she hasn’t come around.”
According to the report Peter had given them, they’d had to open her up from stem to stern in the initial surgery. They’d removed her spleen, sutured her liver, given her multiple units of blood, repaired other internal damage done by the bullet, and sewn her up.
They’d taken every safeguard possible to ward off infection and had thought she was making progress. Then her blood pressure plummeted without warning, and they’d realized she was bleeding internally. That’s when they’d rushed her in for the second surgery.
Coop felt helpless and scared for both Eva and Mike. If . . . God, he didn’t want to think about it, but if Mike lost Eva, he wasn’t sure that Mike would recover. Or if he did, that he’d ever be the same again.
“Is that . . . normal? That she hasn’t woken up?”
Mike cupped his nape with both hands, then stretched muscles stiff with inactivity and stress and waiting. “I don’t know. I get a lot of double-talk. I don’t think they know, either.”