His pained eyes squinted at her. “No. No. First, you tell me why in God’s name you shot me out of that damn tree?”
“Shot you...” She paled when he groaned and lowered his face to the grass. “I...I shot you?”
“Ah, yeah.” James groaned. “Son of a bitch...”
Adrian felt faint for a moment, then shook her head. Don’t panic. As he rolled onto his side in agony, her hands fumbled over his chest. “Tell me where I shot you.”
“In the ass!” he nearly shouted, reaching for the back of his left thigh.
Her mouth dropped open briefly as she bent over his hip to inspect the area. “How did I manage that?”
Panting, he leveled her with something that looked like a glare and a grimace all wrapped up in one red-faced, teeth-baring package. “You know, you could have just knifed me in the back. It would have been quicker, less painful.”
“I didn’t shoot you on purpose!” Adrian informed him none too gently. “The squirrel was stealing from my bird feeders again and I wanted to teach him a lesson, but he crossed over into your yard and I wasn’t letting him get away.”
“A squirrel?” he asked, eyes peeling wide in disbelief.
“Yes, a big, bastard squirrel who’s mission in life is to drive me completely insane!”
James leaned away from her. “Oh, I think you’re already there, sweetheart.”
“Let me see,” she insisted. When he cringed away from her again, she made an exasperated sound and dug her hand into his knee to keep him still. “We need to find out how bad it is.”
“I can tell you how bad it is.” He groaned again. Sweat beaded on his brow. “What did you shoot me with, anyhow?”
“Kyle’s BB gun,” she said as she unlatched his belt buckle and struggled with the button of his jeans.
“Great,” James said, lifting a hand in defeat before scrubbing it over his face. “I have metal BBs lodged in my ass.”
“Hold still,” she said as she tugged down the zipper and carefully peeled the denim from his hips.
“Listen, baby,” he said, voice still tight with pain. “There are easier ways to get a man out of his pants. You don’t have to snipe them out of trees.”
Her hands fumbled. James. Naked. She had not thought this through. “I—I need to see the wound. You’re simply going to have to take them off.”
He wheezed a laugh. “Jesus. You’re blushing.” As she met his eyes, he grinned. For a split second, beyond the beard, the mop of tousled hair and the red face, she saw the seventeen-year-old boy he’d been. “You’ve seen me naked before, Adrian.”
She looked away. “That was years ago.”
“You weren’t shy about it then. As a matter of fact, you undressed me faster than I ever could’ve managed myself.”
“You’re obviously delirious,” she said grimly as she lifted his arm over her shoulders. “Come on. Stand up and lean into me.”
What mirth there was in his eyes vanished as she helped him into a standing position. Planting his hands on her shoulders, he hissed, squeezing his eyes closed. “Ah, shit,” he breathed, lowering his face into her hair.
She stood stock-still as his ragged exhale blew over her tresses, holding onto his hips to keep him steady. “You okay?” she asked quietly.
“Mmph.” His low voice grated deep from his chest. “Yeah, I just need a shot of morphine and a bottle of Jack Daniels.”
Adrian frowned. “You gave up drinking.”
“I know,” he growled. “Damn you, woman. I’m gonna have to call my sponsor.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay, well. I’m going to get these jeans off you. Just...try to be still. Can you do that?”
“Mmm,” was his only reply.
Choking back the small lick of excitement she felt as she tugged his zipper the rest of the way down, she gripped the waistline of his jeans and gently pulled them down over his hips. Underneath, she found black boxer briefs. Huh. He wore plain boxers back in the day, she mused. Then she scowled. That was exactly the sort of thought she did not need.
Jesus...he had the thighs of a Viking. Sucking in a quick breath, she refocused on her task and, making sure he was planted solidly on his feet, circled him.
She’d always liked that space there...just above the waistband of his boxers where his back met...well, a very nice butt. She had to fight not to trace her finger over the line of his spine or the sweet dimples on either side just above the black band of his underwear. Bending over, she found the entry site in his left buttock through the boxer briefs. “Oh,” she said, touching it gingerly. “I got you good, didn’t I?”
“Maybe some moonshine,” he muttered. “Some of ol’ Witmore’s moonshine would be great right about now...”
Adrian braced herself for her next task. “Just try and stay still, James.” She grabbed the waistband of his boxer briefs.
He hissed and pulled away her hands.
“What?” she asked wildly. “What did I do?”
“Nothing,” he admitted. “It’s...your hands are like ice cubes.”
“Oh.” Adrian splayed her fingers apart and frowned at them. She didn’t know how they could possibly be cold. She felt warm all over. Clearing her throat, she went back to tugging at the waistband. “I’ll pull these down only enough to see the wound.”
“Yeah,” he drawled. “You keep telling yourself that, baby.”
Adrian’s teeth gnashed as she revealed the round, upper curve of his buttocks. “Call me baby, woman or sweetheart one more time and I’ll go back for that Winchester.”
James managed a short chuckle. “You’re right. I think I like li’l mama better.”
She made a noise in the back of her throat. Finally, she peeled the boxer briefs back to find the entry wound. “Um...”
“Bad?” he asked.
Without answering, she quickly moved the waistband back up to the small of his back and tugged his jeans up, coming around to his front to button and zip them quickly. “Do you have your wallet on you?”
“Yeah,” he said, brow puckered. “Why?”
Adrian licked her lips. “Because I’m taking you to the emergency room.”
* * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, James fought the grappling hands of dread as Adrian pulled into the parking lot of Thomas Hospital. “I told you, damn it. I don’t need to go to the emergency room.”
“And I told you that the pellets are buried too far in your cheek for me to remove.” She parked the car and unbuckled her seat belt. “We’re here now. You might as well stop whining about it.”
As she got out of the car, James eyed the front of the hospital. His heart rate doubled. No. Not yet. Not this way. When the passenger door opened, he gripped the bar over his head. “I’m not going in.”
“Oh, my God, men are such babies!” Exasperated, she reached in and gripped his arm, making his weight shift from the careful lean he’d been utilizing to keep from applying pressure to the wound.
Pain rocketed through his lower extremities and he cursed a blue streak. “You’re a heathen,” he growled through his teeth.
“And you’re a bonehead,” she retorted, pulling again. “Now, unless you plan on sitting on the right side of your ass for the rest of your godforsaken life, get out of the damn car.”
He grabbed the open door, ignoring her helping hands. He stood up on the pavement next to her. Swallowing another groan of pain, he closed his eyes, waiting for the sharp nettles to abate. “I hate you.”
“You can press charges later,” Adrian told him evenly. She closed the car door, locked it and then tucked herself against his left side to take some of his weight. “Slow,” she said as they hobbled together to the whishing automatic doors.
Again James had to lean far to the right in the hard chairs of th
e waiting area. Then he was forced to strip at the waist for the triage nurse who had hands as cold as Adrian’s. By the time he was allowed to lie on his stomach on a bed behind a curtain, his mood had descended into even fouler territory, especially when he was forced to refuse pain meds. “Trust me,” he told Adrian when she protested the decision. “It’s for my own good.”
She sighed but said nothing more as they waited for the doctor. James tried to calm his racing thoughts as taut silence descended upon them.
Maybe it would be somebody else. Who was to say she worked the ER anymore? If he was lucky, she’d retired to a private practice somewhere far, far away...
In this case, luck wasn’t with him. When the curtain swept back and the woman in the blue scrubs appeared, James met the cold gray eyes of Dr. Mavis Irvington straight on and watched as her steps toward the bed hitched at the sight of him.
“James,” she said in obvious surprise.
He did his best to sit up without grimacing. “Mom.”
For a space of several heartbeats, no one moved. Even Adrian had frozen. Then Mavis seemed to recover, lifting her chin as she pulled air in through her sharp blade of a nose. “How are you?” she asked—the question he knew was routine for every patient. He had a feeling the words didn’t sound quite so clipped to strangers.
James shrugged. The place between his shoulder blades itched. In fact, suddenly he itched all over. Itched to be anywhere else but under the gray study of those discerning eyes. “All right, I guess.”
“Good,” she said with a tight nod. She turned to Adrian and her head rocked back slightly in surprise once more. “Adrian.”
Adrian’s eyes lowered. “Dr. Irvington.”
Mavis recovered from her shock relatively quickly and offered something of a smile. “It’s good to see you, dear.”
Adrian gave a nod. “You, too. How’s Dr. Irvington? Er, I mean, the other Dr. Irvington.”
James winced. The other Dr. Irvington was his stepfather. Dr. Stephen Irvington, PhD. The man Mavis had married a mere ten months after Zachariah Bracken died.
“He’s doing well,” Mavis replied. “Thank you for asking.” Approaching the bed, she asked, “Now...why don’t you tell me what happened?”
James’s gaze lowered to the floor. There was something pressing...no, sitting on his chest. He was having a hard time breathing. Ah, hell. Sitting here on a gurney facing his mother in his boxer briefs was way more painful than a gunshot wound. Why had he allowed Adrian to bring him here?
He listened with only half an ear as she explained haltingly what had transpired. If his mother was amused, he couldn’t tell from her responding hmms. As she approached the bed, putting on her gloves, she said simply, “Let’s see it.”
That hurt, too. She’d said the same thing years ago when he came home from bicycle riding with a banged-up knee or when he fell out of another tree in the backyard of his childhood home and broke his wrist. She’d said it often, in fact, as his daredevil streak led to hundreds of cuts and scrapes and, on more than one occasion, worse things. Only there had been kindness in her eyes then, and no lines in her face.
She looked as ashen as he felt. And those weren’t wrinkles in her forehead. Her brow was pulled tight, like his. As if she were in pain.
Yep. This reunion was shaping up to be just as painful as he’d imagined it to be.
As James stood to remove his underwear, Adrian cleared her throat from behind him. “Um, I’ll just wait out here.” She quickly retreated to the other side of the privacy screen.
As soon as it swept back into place, Mavis asked, “What do you think you’re doing, James?”
Placing his elbows on the raised bed, he lowered his face into his hands. “It’s not what you think.”
Mavis hissed indignantly as she swabbed the entry wound with antiseptic. “You’re not home five minutes and you go straight back to where you were before. Harassing Adrian Carlton.”
“We live next door to each other,” James explained, fighting for patience. “And I’m the one who’s been shot. She’s unharmed, as you can plainly see.”
“Unharmed.” Mavis sniffed. James jerked under her ministrations. He tried to tell himself she wasn’t purposely hurting him. “She’s been anything but unharmed by your interference. Why do you think I hired a private detective to find you?”
“You what?” James asked, straightening. The forceps dug in and he crumbled back to the bed. “You hired a PI?”
“Yes, right after you left,” she admitted. “You know, Adrian wound up in the ER with dehydration? Turned out, it was hyperemesis gravidarum.”
“What the—ah!” The question melted quickly into a cry of pain. Something metal clanged onto the tray beside the bed.
“Severe morning sickness,” Mavis said, matter-of-factly, except for the edge trimming the words. “A certain number of women, not too many, are more negatively affected by pregnancy hormones than others. Adrian is one of them. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who’d gotten her into such a state.”
“So you hired someone to drag me back?”
“Yes,” she said. She was swabbing him again. He tried not to think about blood. “I was determined to make you return and, for once, face up to your responsibilities.”
“Why didn’t you?” James asked curiously, turning his head.
She didn’t meet his gaze as she bandaged him. “It took some time, but he found you. Stealing cars and helping smuggle them out of state. I knew you had a misguided streak. But, after everything, I still never thought you would have turned to a life of out-and-out crime.”
“I didn’t see much choice,” he said, “then, at least.” He sighed. “You still...you should’ve found a way to tell me.”
“So you could ruin the boy’s life, too?” she asked. “I don’t think so.” Stepping back, she snapped off a glove. “Keep your weight off the wound for two days. Use over-the-counter pain medication to treat the discomfort. It will be tender for a week, maybe more.”
James straightened, pulled up his pants and watched her dispose of the pellets. “Mom?” When she finally gazed back to him, he frowned. God, she looked tired. His heart gave a none-too-gentle squeeze. “I would’ve come back. I would’ve done them right. Both of them.”
Mavis weighed him. “What’s sad, James, is that some part of me wishes I could believe it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what, exactly?”
“A lot,” he replied. “I’m sorry for leaving. I’m sorry you had to know what kind of life I fell into. But I got out of it.” He hesitated, then pushed the words out. “I stopped drinking.”
She blinked. Her eyes lowered to his chest. “Well, that’s something.” He raised a brow as her eyes latched onto his again. “How long?”
“Four years, three months. Give or take a few days. I joined AA. Just like Dad.”
She nodded. Her throat moved on a swallow. “I’m glad. He worried you would fall into the same pattern he did. He worried so much for your future, James.”
“I know,” he said, and his voice sounded choked. “He was right to.”
“You’re so much like him,” she said in something close to a whisper as her eyes raced over him.
He saw the wet sheen in her eyes and began to cross to her. “Mom—”
Mavis stepped back, bringing him up short. She pinned him with a sharp look. “I can’t, not yet.”
James would have gladly taken another bullet over her reaction, given the choice. It took him a moment to speak again evenly. “I’m opening a garage in town.” He rubbed his neck, blew out a breath. “I know you were never really into the things Dad and I did with cars, but he used to talk about opening up a place like this. You should come by and see it. If you want.”
Mavis lifted a noncommittal shoulder. “
We’ll see.”
Knowing that was the only promise she could give him, James jerked a nod and veered toward the privacy screen. “Say hi to Stephen for me?”
Behind him, Mavis gave a short, sour laugh. “You don’t mean that.”
He peered at her over his shoulder, memorizing her face. As if he needed to. “Maybe I do. Maybe I’ve changed.” He hesitated, weighing what he wanted to say next against what they would both be comfortable with. I love you. He settled for, “Thanks for the patch-up,” instead.
“James.”
“Yeah?”
Her face was a mask of warning now. “Don’t do anything stupid. That boy’s been through enough, and Adrian’s been to hell and back herself. The only thing you have any right to give either of them is peace.”
James felt the bite of the words, down to the quick. Without a goodbye, he passed through the curtain and escaped.
* * *
“ARE YOU OKAY?”
Adrian looked over when a minute passed and James said nothing in return. He was leaning against the car door, the muscles of his face taut and his eyes drilling into the window, not seeming to see much as they passed through the streets of downtown Fairhope.
She licked her lips and faced the windshield again, stopping at an intersection. “Serves you right, you know.” When he turned his head to her, she raised her brows. “For not telling your own mother you were back in town.”
“Yeah, I’m a real asshole.”
The defeated words made her eye him in concern as he turned back to the window. “Well. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I haven’t spoken to her in eight years, Adrian,” he said in a flat voice.
Eight years. The thought of not speaking to Kyle for half that long twisted Adrian up inside. “Why not?”
“Because I thought the whole lot of you were better off without me.”
“You were a fool.”
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