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CHAPTER THREE
KANE LOCKED THE back door to O’Riley’s, pulled on the handle to be sure it was secure. A light spring rain dotted his hair and shoulders, the sky an inky black. He breathed in the cool, damp air, but it did nothing to soothe the edginess inside him.
A couple blocks away, a car revved its engine before the sound faded and all turned silent again. When he’d lived in Houston, his night would be in full swing at 3:00 a.m. He’d take whatever party he’d started in the clubs back to the apartment his old man kept in the city, but rarely used. Outside, sirens would blare, alarms would sound. Inside, he’d do whatever it took to forget how much he hated his life.
How much he hated himself.
Three in the morning in Afghanistan meant being hyperalert to every sound, every slight movement, as adrenaline rushed through his body. The occasional shout or, on more than a few occasions, the pop, pop, pop of automatic gunfire, shattering the night. Or else it meant spending the night in the barracks, stuck in the halfway point between sleep and wakefulness. Always fitful. Always on edge.
It’d taken him months after leaving the service before he could sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Longer before he’d become accustomed to 3:00 a.m. in Shady Grove. The quiet. The absolute stillness.
The peace.
It was that sense of calm that was getting to him, threatening to drive him crazy. There was something inside him, a restlessness he’d never outgrown, pushing him to keep moving. Job to job. Town to town. Woman to woman.
Afraid to stop.
Palming his keys, he turned the corner of the building and stepped into the alley. Slowing, he frowned. Apprehension tightened his spine. His scalp prickled with unease. The instincts he’d developed as a wet-behind-the-ears recruit in boot camp, the ones he’d honed during his eight years of active duty, kicked in. Call it a premonition, intuition or good old paranoia, but he knew he was being followed. Watched.
So much for the whole peace thing.
His muscles tensed. His grip tightened and the sharp edges of the keys dug into his palm as he glanced around. The light above the door leading to his apartment didn’t do more than illuminate the entrance and throw shadows on the pavement. Kane did a slow turn.
Nothing.
Blowing out a breath, he forced his fingers open. He was getting paranoid. Small-town living. It got the best of people. Wherever he ended up next would have to have cars and bright lights and tall buildings. And people. Plenty of them.
It was easier to lose yourself in a crowd.
Mreeow.
A yellow cat darted out from behind the garbage cans. Kane didn’t jump—but it was close. The cat took off across the parking lot, its tail down, ass swinging side to side as if its back legs were unable to keep up with its front ones.
As if it was trying to outrun itself.
Kane knew the feeling.
He tipped his head back and shut his eyes as the rain cooled his face. Inhaled to the count of five, then exhaled until his lungs were empty and his head light.
But the hunger inside him remained. The need, not quite as desperate as it had once been, a constant presence, a reminder of what he’d almost lost. It was nights like these where he was most vulnerable. Times when he was alone with his thoughts. His memories. When the monster inside him reared its head, demanding to be fed no matter the cost. No matter who got hurt.
Kane ground his back teeth together until his jaw ached. It was the middle of the night and he’d just spent nine straight hours on his feet followed by another hour of setting chairs onto the tables and scrubbing the bar’s floor and bathrooms. Exhaustion tugged at the outer edges of his consciousness, reminding him it’d been over twenty-four hours since he slept. He should go inside, drag his sorry ass and weary body up the stairs to his apartment, then into bed.
But he’d been here before, too many times to count. The setting might change—different town, different apartment and bed—but the plot remained the same. He’d spend hours tossing and turning while the sneaky, hypnotic voice of his past whispered in his head, testing his willpower. Tempting him into giving up. Into giving in to his body’s demands, just this once.
He whirled around, and with long, determined strides crossed to the small garage in the corner of the parking lot. He unlocked the side door. Inside, he pressed the automatic opener, then swung his leg over the seat of his bike while the garage door lifted. No, sleep wouldn’t come tonight. Rest never came. Not for him.
He started the motor, revving the engine a few times before shooting out into the street, not bothering to lock up behind him. The wind blew his hair back. Rain stung his cheeks and eyes. At the corner, he barely slowed, then took a hard right, his rear wheel swerving for a moment on the wet pavement, much as the cat’s back end had done.
Unlike the stray, Kane had learned he couldn’t outrun himself or his past. But for a few hours, he could outrun his demons.
* * *
“HELLO?” ESTELLE MONROE called as she poked her head into the doorway. “Anyone here?” She waited a beat. Then two. “Hello?”
Silence.
She frowned. She didn’t even want to think about why he wasn’t home, safe and snug in his bed in the middle of the night. A man who looked like Kane, with his rough edges and bad-boy attitude, never lacked for female companionship.
Her mother had warned her years ago that if Estelle was going to love Kane, she couldn’t be jealous of his flings, the time and attention he gave other women. She had to learn to share him.
And console herself with the fact that he always, always came back to Estelle.
With an inner shrug, she walked into the dark apartment, slipping her key into the front pocket of her jeans.
She felt a little bit like Goldilocks.
She even had the blond hair. Well, Goldilocks minus the breaking and entering, running into angry bears and eating porridge, of course.
She’d never had porridge but it did not sound very tasty.
Hefting her backpack onto her arm, she took a cautious step only to hear Kane’s stern voice in her head.
Lock the damn door.
Even in her imagination, he was a grouch. That man needed more laughter in his life. For Christmas this year, she was so getting him the entire set of Friends DVDs.
She flipped the lock, then pulled out her phone and used its light to guide her around a tall-backed chair to the squat lamp on a table next to it. She turned it on.
And wished she hadn’t.
Por dios...
Because it couldn’t hurt, she crossed herself, too, since it seemed to go with the prayer and all. Or, at least, she gave a close approximation of the way she’d seen her best friend—ex-best friend—Pilar do it. If ever there was a good time for genuflecting, this was it.
Bare walls, ratty carpet and god-awful furniture he’d probably bought secondhand, though she’d explained to him time and time again it wasn’t sanitary. The apartment itself was tiny, a living room that opened into a kitchen and a short hallway. The man lived like a hermit or something. There were no decorations anywhere, no pictures on the wall of her or the rest of his family. Lord knew he didn’t have any friends to take snapshots of. Nothing even matched, for Pete’s sake.
Well, she decided, lifting her pack—and her chin—higher as she headed toward the hall, she’d just have to stick it out. The alternative was simply unacceptable. She skirted a particularly disgusting-looking stain on the floor. Honestly, though, she should get hazard pay.
It took her only a moment to find his bedroom. She probably should take a shower. But his bed looked so inviting with its heavy blanket and soft pillows. More importantly, it looked clean. Something she could achieve herself tomorrow.
She quickly changed into her oversize Texans jersey and slid beneath the covers. Her phone buzzed. Mouth tight, she checked the message.
I’m so sorry!!! Please call me!!!
Message number thirty-six. And those were just the ones Pilar had sent since Estelle landed in Pittsburgh’s airport a few hours ago. Pitiful.
With a flourish, and a great deal of glee, Estelle deleted the message and tossed the phone onto the other pillow. Pilar obviously didn’t understand that Estelle was not going to forgive her. Ever. There weren’t enough exclamation points, sad-faced emojis and sobbing voice-mail messages in the world to make up for what she’d done.
A betrayal like that was unforgivable.
She inhaled sharply, the sound loud and mournful in the silence. What if...what if her mom thought the same thing about her?
Queasiness turned her stomach. A nasty, sick taste rose up in her throat. Coated her mouth.
Breathing through her nose, she shook her head. No. They were two totally different things. Pilar had gone behind Estelle’s back with her secret texts and phone calls to Chandler, making sure she was there to keep him company when Estelle was busy.
All Estelle had done was be nice to Adam, her mom’s fiancé. Yes, she’d flirted, but it hadn’t meant anything. Surely her mom would understand that. She and Estelle were best friends, Mama always said so. There was nothing, nothing Estelle could do that would make Meryl stop wanting her. Stop loving her.
Estelle snuggled down until the blanket was up to her chin and said a prayer.
Just in case.
* * *
CHAR LOOKED UP from the computer at the nurses’ station to see Leo—back for the third time tonight, lucky her—push a gurney into room 4, his hair and clothes wet. She caught sight of the patient’s muddy, damp jeans and worn biker boots, the length of the legs, the size of the boots telling her their latest guest was a man.
She turned her attention back to the screen. Frowned when a cool breeze caressed the back of her neck. She rubbed at the spot but the tingling sensation remained. Looking up again, she tipped her head to the side, narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. There was something familiar about those legs, those boots. She knew him, she realized, walking around the high counter.
Then again, she knew most of her patients. All part of living in the same small town she’d grown up in. It was a blessing, being able to help those she cared for.
It was a curse when they were beyond help. When all she could do was offer comfort, try to ease their pain. Hold their hand while they slipped away. Then comfort the loved ones they’d left behind.
This guy didn’t seem to be in that situation. No codes had been called. Thank God.
“What do we have?” she asked Leo as he stepped out of the room. She’d been with a patient and had missed the EMT report given while they’d been en route to the hospital.
Jocelyn Deems, a fellow RN, brushed past them with a wave. She would take the patient’s information, get him registered into the computer system and determine the priority of the patient’s treatment based on the severity of his injuries.
“Male, age thirty-four,” Leo said, flipping through his book of notes. “Single vehicular accident on Songbird Lane. Patient took a corner too fast and lost control of his motorcycle. A passerby called it in, said the patient was on the side of the road, unresponsive. When we got there, he was conscious and had managed to sit up on his own. Suffered contusions and abrasions, possible concussion, rib injuries, as well as a likely fracture of right arm.”
Char winced. “Ouch.” She tried to look over his shoulder at his notes. “Intoxicated?”
“No, thanks,” Leo said with a grin. “I’m on the clock.”
“Ha-ha. I meant the patient.”
“My best guess based on years of experience and, of course, my infinite wisdom would be no.” Though a blood test would tell them for sure. Leo flipped his book shut. He had a thing about people reading his notes before he’d transcribed them into an official report. “So you won’t have to deal with a drunk puking all over your clean exam room.”
She blanched. “It was reflex, okay?”
His grin turned absolutely wicked. “Sure. Some people just can’t handle certain smells. Or sounds. Or stomach contents being—”
“I get it,” she said. “Jeez, you lose your cool one time and you never hear the end of it.”
Most cases she handled without a problem. Blood, even copious amounts squirting from one of the main arteries? Keep pressure on it. Broken bone sticking through the skin? Make the patient as comfortable as possible and send them up to X-Ray. Mangled flesh, infected cuts, snotty noses, puss-oozing polyps? No problem.
But no matter how hard she tried, her stomach rebelled each and every time a patient puked. Oh, she did her job. Made sure the patient was taken care of, called janitorial to clean up the mess.
Then she’d head to the nearest bathroom and promptly lose whatever she had in her stomach.
It was annoying. Interfered with her doing her job. But mostly, it was humiliating.
“Nurse!”
At the sharp bark, Char jumped and whirled around. She saw Dr. Stockdale—with her linebacker’s build and coarse gray hair pulled back in a severe bun—bearing down on her and Leo. The physician’s high-stepping, arm-pumping walk clearly said, I move at this incredible speed because I am superior to you in every way.
A belief she never let the people who worked with her forget.
“You need to give her your best De Niro,” Leo whispered out of the side of his mouth.
Char didn’t take her eyes off the older lady. Kept her own voice low. “I think by this time in her life she has plenty of money of her own.”
He laughed. “Not dinero. De. Niro. As in Robert. You know. You talkin’ to me?”
Char snorted out a laugh, then quickly schooled her features into a calm, expectant expression. “I bet she’d just love that.”
Dr. Stockdale got closer and closer, making it pretty darn obvious she was, indeed, talking to Charlotte. Char leaned back, realized what she was doing and that it could be construed as intimidation, and straightened. “Yes, Doctor?” she asked, all pleasant and professional.
Ha. Take that, you old biddy.
Dr. Stockdale, clearly not grasping the concept of personal space, didn’t stop until the toes of her ugly brown pumps bumped Char’s sneakers. “Why hasn’t my patient been taken up for a CT scan?”
“And which patient would that be?” Char asked, sounding quite reasonable. Easy enough to do when compared with the doctor’s strident tone.
Dr. Stockdale waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the west hallway. “My patient in room 9.”
“I’m not actually the nurse for that patient,” Char said. “But I’d be happy to find out who is and they can check on the delay for you.”
“Oh, never mind,” Dr. Stockdale snapped, already whirling around, the hem of her mid-calf-length skirt hitting Char’s legs. “I’ll do it myself.” She searched the empty hallway and, despite there being no other people around, bellowed, “Nurse!” as she stormed off.
“I’m not sure which one is worse,” Leo said. “Her or Hamilton.”
Dr. Nathan Hamilton’s resignation from the hospital—due to an icky and completely perverted incident involving a consenting twenty-two-year-old certified nursing assistant, three silk ties and a few chairs from the X-ray wing’s waiting room—had led to Dr. Stockdale being hired.
It still ticked Charlotte off. Not that Hamilton had quit—she thanked God for that. But that, despite the numerous complaints filed against him, he hadn’t been fired.
“You only say that because Dr. Hamilton—” also known as Hands-On Hamilton, as in he-got-his-hands-on-everyone “—didn’t try to grope you on a regular basis,” Charlotte told Leo.
“Don’t be too sure about that.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Oh, really? Do tell.”
“Sorry,” he said as his partner, Forrest Young, stepped up to them. “I don’t spill sordid details with a woman unless she buys me dinner first.”
“You want to know something about this joker?” Forrest asked her, wrapping his arm around Leo’s neck. Forrest, as homely as Leo was handsome, was a favorite among the E.R. staff due to his laid-back disposition and sense of humor. “You just ask me.” He grinned and squeezed Leo’s neck, causing Leo’s head to bob. “I know all his secrets.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she told him as Jocelyn came out of the room. Leo untangled himself from Forrest’s grip and they left with a wave. Char turned to her coworker.
