Seamus shoved Megan out of his way. “Okay, that’s enough, Joss. What happened between me and Megan is none of your damn business. You want to rip into me, fine, have at it. But you don’t say another word to her or your husband won’t be the only one bleeding in here today.”
“Shut up, all of you!” Conlan roared. “Joss, you might want to remember that Megan just helped save his life, too. Focus on Rafferty and leave Seamus to me.”
Then he turned on Seamus. “As for you, take care of your patients, including Rafferty. I’ll stay with you because Joss asked me to, not because I don’t trust you to do your best by them.”
His face gentled when he finally got to Megan. “Strip off that bloody gown because I suspect that’s your daughter calling for you.”
Conlan was right. Phoebe was her priority, but still she hesitated. “Seamus?”
There was exhaustion in his stance and great sadness in his face. She instinctively reached out to him, despite everything needing to offer him some kind of comfort. When he flinched and stepped back out of reach, her heart hurt.
“Go on, Megan. I’ll be…here.”
She left. And if anyone noticed the tears streaming down her face, they didn’t say so.
“Boy, when you decide to screw up, you don’t mess around.”
Seamus opened an eye and stared across the exam room at his unwanted companion—or warden. He wasn’t sure which Conlan was at the moment and didn’t really care. He figured he was only hours away from being dead or thrown out on his ass. He was too tired at the moment to worry about anyone but himself.
Well, except for Megan. Right now he’d give anything to be back in his apartment, pretending that the hours they’d shared there were more than just a momentary lapse in judgment. He’d known better than to involve her in his problems, and yet he’d managed to drag her right down into the muck with him.
Evidently ignoring Conlan wasn’t going to work because he sat up straighter and tried again. “Are you ready for that talk?”
“Does it matter whether I am or not?”
“Not really.”
He stood up. “That’s what I thought. Let’s take this party back to my quarters. I’d kill for a cup of coffee.”
“Fine. Let me tell Joss where we’ll be.”
Seamus walked through the clinic and was glad to see the waiting room was empty. Once he’d gotten Rafferty taken care of, he’d had a steady stream of patients requiring his attention. Conlan had kept his promise to Joss and stayed with him every step of the way, stepping out only when the patient was female and required a physical examination.
As Seamus headed for his quarters, he was surprised to see the light on in Megan’s office. He quickly learned there was a good reason for that.
“Megan, what are you still doing here?”
She looked up from the file she’d been reading. “I work here, remember? Unless that’s changed.”
A rush of unexpected warmth gave him a new surge of energy. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to.”
“Make no mistake, you’ve got some explaining to do, mister, and not just to me.” She frowned. “I swore never to let another vampire into my life, but it seems I must trust you on some level. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have spent all those hours in your bed.”
She picked up her pen and began making some notes, leaving him standing there staring at her in bewilderment. She still trusted him?
When he didn’t immediately leave, she asked, “Was there something else?”
“Uh, no.”
“Okay then.” Then, she closed the file and reached for the next one on the pile. “And, Seamus, don’t make me regret last night. Life doesn’t offer many gifts like that.”
What could he say to that? He’d never been anyone’s gift before, and now was sure as hell the wrong time and place for it. He let himself into the apartment and started raiding the refrigerator. Since it looked as if he’d survive the day, he might as well eat something.
By the time Conlan strolled in, Seamus had thrown together a couple of sandwiches, but he had to take care of one more thing before he sat down.
“Go ahead and eat. I’m going to check Rafferty’s vitals and give him another dose of medicine.” He left without waiting for Conlan to respond. If the chancellor still wanted to babysit him, fine.
Joss looked up from her magazine when Seamus walked into the room. “What are you doing now? Where’s Conlan? I thought he was told to stick with you.”
“He was. He did. Right now I’m going to check on my patient and give him something for the pain.”
A hoarse voice entered the conversation. “I’m done being a pin cushion, Fitzhugh.”
Joss and Seamus both turned to see Rafferty blinking up at them. Although clearly still feeling the aftereffects of everything that had been thrown at him, the vampire looked coherent.
Joss hurried to his side. “God, Rafferty, you ever scare me like that again, and I’ll operate on you myself—and without drugs.”
When the vampire laughed, he winced in pain. Seamus offered them his back as he filled a syringe with Rafferty’s medicine, to allow the couple a private moment.
A few seconds later, Joss cleared her throat. “Uh, Seamus, you can turn around now.”
He walked around to Rafferty’s other side and swabbed his arm with alcohol. The older vampire glared at the needle.
“Is that necessary?”
“Yes, it is. But on a happier note, barring unforeseen complications, it should be the last dose through a needle. You can take pills after this if you need them.”
“Good. Now when can I go home?”
“With luck, the day after tomorrow you’ll be out of that bed and hobbling around on crutches.” He quickly injected the meds and covered the spot with a cotton ball. “When you can manage to walk from here to the front door without hurting yourself, you can go home.”
“Why not tonight?”
“Because I need to keep an eye on your surgical site, and Joss needs to get some sleep. She’ll need all the energy she can muster to wait on you hand and foot once you’re back home.”
“I like the sound of that.” Rafferty gave his wife an evil look. “And how long can I milk that for?”
“As long as you feed regularly, making it fresh blood whenever possible, you’ll be completely healed in a couple of weeks. So take advantage of every minute you can.” He winked at Joss.
“Hey, he’s hard enough to live with as it is, Seamus. Don’t encourage him,” Joss protested, although she was smiling down at her husband.
He needed to put some distance between himself and them, both physical and emotional. “Conlan wants to talk to me, and then I’m going to get some sleep. After that, I’ll sit with Rafferty so you can go home, Joss.”
Before Seamus reached the door, Rafferty spoke again. “Seamus?”
“Yes?”
The vampire struggled to lift his head up so he could glare at him. “Thanks for saving my leg and, most likely, my life. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to kick your ass for you once I’m off the crutches.”
He could feel the cold steel in Rafferty’s gaze from across the room. “Fair enough.”
It was too much to hope that Conlan would’ve given up and gone home. But no, he was firmly ensconced on Seamus’s couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table. Memories of how that couch had been put to use flooded through Seamus’s mind as he picked up his sandwich and dropped down on the opposite end from Conlan.
At least Conlan held off on starting his inquisition until Seamus had devoured everything on his plate as well as two packs of blood. By now, he was well past caring if Conlan or the whole damn world watched him feed. When the second pack was empty, he tossed it aside.
“Okay, the condemned man has had his last meal. Fire away.” Not that he was in the mood for answering questions.
Conlan shifted to face Seamus. “So it turns out you’re a doctor, and not just a medic after all.”
There was no us
e in denying it. “Yes, I’ve finished medical school, but I was asked to leave before I completed my surgical residency. I was specializing in orthopedics, but had extensive practice in general surgery before starting my last round of training. The school refused to grant me my credentials, so the part about being licensed as a medic is true. They didn’t even want to give me that much.”
“Want to tell me the rest of the story? I’ll find out one way or the other.”
“Do you really think confession is good for the soul, Conlan? Because no matter what I say, I’m guessing you’ll toss me back out the gate and probably in broad daylight. However, for Rafferty’s sake, you might want to wait until I take the stitches out.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass.” Conlan was clearly not amused. “As much as I’d like to oblige your death wish, I’m not the judge nor the jury around here. Rafferty and Joss will decide what happens to you from this point on. None of us take well to being lied to, no matter what the reason. I might think the boss is a pompous jerk most of the time, but I do respect what he’s trying to accomplish here.”
His right hand flashed out and caught Seamus by the collar, jerking him halfway across the couch. For the first time, as he got in Seamus’s face, the chancellor let his anger show, along with his powerful fangs.
“You bastard, I actually liked you. Hell, I gave my approval on your application even though I knew there was something off about your story, that you were hiding something. The only reason you’re not bleeding right now is because you’ve saved the lives of two people I care about.”
Seamus instantly responded with all the belligerence of an irate male vampire in his prime. He broke Conlan’s grasp on his shirt and shoved the chancellor back to his own end of the couch.
“Yes, I lied, but at least I was actually more qualified than I claimed to be. I’ve never used my medical skills to do harm.”
True enough, although he’d been damn tempted. Frustration and something that felt an awful lot like shame had him wanting to punch something. Or somebody.
Before he gave in to the urge, he lurched to his feet to put the narrow distance of the small living room between them. Both he and Conlan were breathing hard, the inborn aggression native to both species hard to contain.
Finally, Seamus forced himself to speak. “I had my reasons for why I lied, Conlan. Reasons that have nothing to do with you and everything to do with Rafferty. That’s all you need to know.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, boy! Everything around here is my business. I won’t rest until I know the truth. The sun’s already up, so I know you’re not going anywhere for a few hours. I’ve got a couple of my men and the transport mechanic checking over Rafferty’s vehicle. If I find out there’s more to this than a simple accident, you’d better hope you’ve got a watertight alibi.”
The anger faded into shock. “You suspect it was sabotage?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m not ruling it out.” Conlan cracked his knuckles out of frustration. “But Rafferty’s transport was practically new. That the brakes would fail in the one vehicle that he drives all the time might be a coincidence, but I’m thinking not.”
Who else would’ve had it in for Rafferty? Banan, but he was out of reach at the moment. “Let me know what you find out.”
“Oh, believe me. You’ll be the first to know.”
Now wasn’t the time for this. Until they knew for sure if the wreck had been an attempt on Rafferty’s life, there was no reason to try to convince Conlan that Seamus hadn’t been involved.
“Look, I told Joss I’d catch a couple hours of rest and then send her home. You’re welcome to sack out on the couch or in one of the exam rooms if you want to stay close by. We’ll all think better when we’re not running on empty.”
Which reminded him, Megan was long overdue to be heading back to her cottage.
“Banan Delaney’s gone, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, he had just boarded the turbo when I got the call about Rafferty. Why?”
“I wanted to make sure it was safe for Megan to go back home.”
Conlan’s expression turned sour. “Yeah, and that’s one more reason I want to kick your ass from one end of the estate to the other. I shouldn’t have been the last one to learn about the poison. I’m still sorry I didn’t throw the bastard under the turbo as you suggested.”
He took a step in Seamus’s direction, his fists clenched. “Megan’s a nice woman and deserves someone who’ll treat her right. You understand me?”
Seamus agreed on both points. “No arguments from me.”
“Tell her I’ll take her home and check the place out for her if she’d like me to.”
“I’m sure she’ll appreciate the offer.”
As Seamus headed out the door to tell her, he realized that for the first time he regretted being a vampire rather than one of the other two species. At least if he were a chancellor, or even a human, he would be the one to escort Megan and her daughter safely back home.
Instead, despite his superior strength, he was stuck inside and unable to keep his lover safe from harm.
The sound of Seamus’s door echoed down the hallway. Megan immediately put her hands back on the keyboard to look busy. The last thing she wanted was for Seamus to catch her daydreaming, especially about him. She’d meant what she told him about still trusting him, but that was true only up to a point. He had some serious explaining to do. After that, she’d make up her mind how far her faith in him would extend.
Her traitorous body clearly had no such reservations. As soon as he appeared in the doorway, all she could think was how much she wanted to brush his hair back off his forehead and how good that stern mouth had tasted when he’d kissed her.
“Hi, there.”
“Hi, right back to you.”
She shut down the computer and stood up as she was hit with a powerful urge to walk straight into his arms. “Was there something you needed?”
“Conlan has offered to see that you and Phoebe get home safely.”
Conlan, but not Seamus. Okay, so much for those daydreams.
As if sensing the direction her thoughts had taken, he added, “The sun’s up.”
“Oh, then, that makes sense. It will feel good to get out of these same clothes.”
Seamus’s smile changed from friendly to something far hotter. “I wish I could go along and help with that.”
So did she, despite everything that had happened, but she couldn’t give in to temptation. Not until she knew more about what was going on. And Seamus knew it, too. His smile disappeared and the blue of his eyes turned icy.
“Seamus, I can’t…”
“I see. That’s okay.” Although it clearly wasn’t. He retreated back into the hallway. “I’ll get Conlan for you.”
And coward that she was, she let him walk away.
Chapter 11
The smart thing would be to let him walk away, to rebuild that wall of caution between them. Maybe it was because she was so tired, but she wasn’t feeling all that bright at the moment.
“Seamus! Come back!”
She sensed him still out in the hallway, trapped between his apartment and her office and unsure which way he wanted to go. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her.
“Please.”
He reappeared in the doorway but made no move to come back into the office.
“What now, Megan?”
He sounded so tired her heart ached. She came around the desk and walked straight toward him. At first he only watched her, but at the last second, he held out his arms. God, it felt so good to be gathered in close to the strength of his chest, to let his warmth engulf her.
“I’m sorry, Seamus.” She leaned her head back to look him in the eye. “I know you have good reasons for…whatever you’ve done.”
“Call it what it is, Megan. I’ve lied to Conlan, to Rafferty and to you. And if circumstances hadn’t forced my hand, I would’ve gone right on lying to all of you.”
It all came down trust, something she’d had in short supply these days. So what could she say to him without giving either one of them false hope? She had to try.
“I had my own secrets, Seamus. If you hadn’t been there when I arrived, I would’ve died. But even so, I was in no hurry for everyone to find out that I have poor taste in men.”
Oops. She dropped her head back down against his chest with a sigh. “Sorry. That came out wrong. I meant to say I had poor taste in men. Before coming here. Before I met you.”
To her surprise, Seamus laughed. Then he crooked his finger and used it to tilt her face back up toward his. “How about we just admit we’re both too tired to be having any kind of serious discussion right now?”
While he spoke, he focused on her mouth, as if waiting for something. Permission, maybe?
“Okay, I’ll go along with that idea, provided you figure out something else we could be doing right now besides talking.”
“How about this?”
Then he kissed her. At the first brush of his lips across hers, the stress of the past twenty-four hours disappeared. His kiss was everything she wanted and not nearly everything she needed from him. Now wasn’t the time to push for anything more.
Slowly, he broke away, saying without words that he regretted having to do so. “Conlan’s waiting. Go home. Get some rest.”
“I’ll be back tonight.”
He shook his head. “The clinic’s closed tonight, except for emergencies. You’ve been through a lot. Take it easy and spend some time with Phoebe.”
“But…”
He put his finger across her lips. “But nothing. I’ll have my own big baby to take care of, or have you forgotten that I’ve got Rafferty staying in the clinic? How long do you think he’ll like being confined to bed?”
She giggled, mainly because he wanted her to. “Okay, but if you need me, call.”
“I will. Now get packed up. I’m going to get some sleep so I can send Joss home to rest.”
“You’re a nice man, Seamus Fitzhugh.” She raised up to kiss his cheek.
“No, I’m not, but I’m glad you think so.” Then his expression turned serious. “I hope nothing you learn about me changes your thoughts on that subject.”
Vampire Vendetta Page 14