Chapter 3

three

Kane

The doors to the hospital’s emergency department roll open as I near. It’s been two years since what happened to Wrenlee, happened. I’ve not quite gotten over it.

Digging someone you care about from their grave, not sure what you’re going to see when you do, isn’t something a person just gets over. Watching your brother fall to his knees, shredding his fingertips as he screams her name, branding it on the wings of a violent prayer—isn’t something a man lets go of. At least, not me.

That day changed me. I’ve always been protective of the people in my life, the ones I really care about. Now, I’m a little overbearing, I can admit. But my family understands it, and they deal with it. Gracefully.

I become more overbearing when one of the guys leaves the girls behind for any reason. Right now, Ian is home with his grandmother. After losing both parents in a fire at a young age, Ian had been raised by his maternal grandparents. His grandfather had passed only last year, and now his grandma is ready to make the move into something smaller. A community, she says, where she’ll have other people around more.

So, he took the week to tour such communities with her in New York, as the city has always been her home and she’s unwilling to leave.

“Kane.” Dr. Palmer lifts his chin in greeting. “Candace is with a patient right now, but she’ll be out soon.”

“I can wait.” I lean into the large circular desk that sits sprawled in the center of the ER, flashing a flirty smile at one of the other nurses. She’s blonde, but it’s not the kind of sunshine caramel that’s been dominating my mind for the last week.

We’d been at the club in support of a new band the label had signed. Most times when we’re out, we get plays for our attention that can be on the extreme side. It was fun for a while. I took most of the women up on their offers, especially after Wrenlee, when I’d been trying to drown visions of her death-gray skin from my mind.

When the sunshine girl had collided with me, begging me to help her, I’d thought it had been a play. I’d thought that until I caught the fear in her eyes. Raw fear. Toxic.

Then when ass-face appeared in his suit, a vicious possessiveness in his eyes, I knew it wasn’t a play. She’d been in trouble, and I’d wanted to help.

Only, as I walked her out to her rusted car with the scent of her like caramel drizzled over roasted marshmallow, sun, and sand caught in my lungs, the memory of her tiny body pressed to mine, I’d wanted to do a whole lot more than help her. I’d wanted to keep her with me. Ensure she was safe and stayed that way. Protect her. Shield her.

Apart from my own mother, Wrenlee, and Candace, no woman had sparked that protective instinct in me. But once sparked, it’s not easily extinguished.

The sunshine girl hadn’t just sparked that instinct, she’d fucking doused gasoline over the wick before tossing a flame. Letting her drive away from me without even knowing her name had carved a chunk out of my self-control. Not hiring a P.I. to investigate the license plate number that burned in my mind to find her identity and if she was okay, had been chipping at the remainder of my self-control all week.

The only thing that kept me from acting was the fact I’d be no better than a stalker if I did. What the fuck was wrong with me that I even memorized her plate in the first place? That shit wasn’t something the average man did. But I did that crap all the time. Took in the little details, noted them, committed them to memory. Tried to burn those memories to cinders with sex and booze and the melody of something dark and rough and intoxicating. Tried to obliterate the very serious, sometimes scares-the-shit-out-of-me monster that lurks beneath my flesh with the face of a player, the tone of a joker, the one-night, good-time guy.

But that’s not me. Not really.

Sometimes, I fucking hate my mind.

The curtain to my left shifts and I catch sight of Candace. Her mass of tight curls is twisted into a bun that’s seen better moments as she scuttles across the floor in her squeaky white runners, making grabby hands absent of the black polish she’d once been known for. Now, the only time I see that polish is when she’s in the crowd at a show, dolled up to look like Ian’s rocker princess.

Here in the ER, you wouldn’t recognize her.

“Gimme, gimme, gimme.” I lean in to kiss her cheek before I hand her the coffee. She sighs in pleasure as she throws back a long sip. “It’s been. A. Day.”

“Yeah?”

Bobbing her head exaggeratedly, she gives me ‘you have no clue’ eyes. But I really don’t have a clue, so I give her a chin dip to agree. “When’s the shift up?”

I know when her shift should be finished, but she’s always doubling up when Ian’s out of town. I figure there’s a good possibility she’s done that today.

“The usual. Three.” Her eyes shift to the side as a doctor enters through a curtain. When her face falls, I frown as she gestures to the curtain where the doc disappeared. “I want to see that patient through, though. So, I might stay late. Even if just to make sure she’s okay.”

It’s not my place to ask about the patients in this ER, but there’s something about the way Candace is looking at the curtain that has my gut clenching uncomfortably. For some reason, I want to know who is behind that curtain and how they put that look in Candace’s eyes.

It’s not that Candace isn’t a softie, because despite the shell she paints in shellac over every inch of her exterior to keep from feeling too much, most of it still seeps in to infect the ooey-gooey center. Though we all pretend she’s a cool cucumber, untouchable by most everything. Tough as rock. Hard as granite.

“Yeah?” I try not to sound too interested, leaning an elbow into the counter as I lean over it to give the charge nurse a wink. They all love me, here. I’m careful to flirt with all the ladies equally, and even some of the men I know swing that way. I might not swing that way, but if I’ve learned anything, those men can be a hoot if you’re in for a good time. And I’m always up for a good time—at least, that’s what I want the world to see.

Old habits die hard.

When Miranda gives me her eyes, blushing cherry red under my stare, I ask, “Tell me I’m not breaking my best friend’s heart when I tell him Candy, here, is crushing on some dude in the ER.”

Candace hits me in the arm. “Jerk.”

I waggle my brows at Miranda, and even though she’s worn her wedding rings for the last thirty years, she gives me a cheeky grin of her own. But when she leans in, there’s nothing cheeky or even fun-filled about her words. “Really is a girl behind those curtains, like Candy said.”

“Honestly, guys,” Candace whines. “I don’t understand this Candy, thing. I don’t even eat candy.”

We ignore her as Miranda gestures to the two officers standing on the other side of the curtain. “They’re here for her.”

My face changes, brows falling as my protective instincts kick in and I straighten. “She a criminal?”

“Not from what I can tell. She’s the victim of a violent break and enter last night.” Miranda leans over the desk. “She won’t talk. But that’s not unusual for victims of assault.” Sadness crosses through her eyes. “Candy’s got a soft spot for victims like this, after what happened to your friend.”

A flash of scraped fingertips, cold dirt, and death-gray skin flash in my mind. Before I can restrain it, I flinch.

Candace touches my arm. “We’re all scarred by that day.”

I shake my head, more to shake out the vision than anything else.

“Your girl now—she won’t talk to the police?”

“Won’t talk to anyone. Just says she’s here to get stitched up.” Miranda sits as the doc moves on the other side of the curtain, his shoes coming into view. She has the sense to look a little bashful as she whispers, “We shouldn’t be discussing the patient, though.”

I flash her another flirty grin, because it’s not the first time I’ve overheard conversations about patients between the ER staff. It’s also not the first time I’ve actively been a part of these conversations, being a frequent visitor, and all. The docs and nurses alike enjoy when I pop by. They enjoy it more when I do something like order in pizza for everyone, because Candy is family, and I enjoy treating my family.

Still, I can’t help myself as I look over my shoulder at the curtain where the girl who has pulled Candace’s heart strings lays in a hospital bed. The doc is about to leave the room, I can tell by the way he’s talking to her. I don’t know why, but I can’t look away as I wait for him to exit—for a glimpse into the room—of the girl behind the curtain.

Like Candace, a damsel is my weakness. Nothing sends my protective streak into overdrive quite like a woman in trouble. A woman hurt is something else altogether.

I’m capable of things. Dark, disturbing things when it comes to a man who has hurt a woman or child. The shell I keep around the monster I was raised to hold behind the bars of sanity cracks, a little of the black leaking through. Its mission—total destruction.

The curtain parts. The doc moves through the slit, and it falls quickly back into place, but I saw.

I saw her.

Sunshine waves a blood-streaked mess around a face that is swollen black and blue.

The girl I haven’t been able to get out of my head for a week.

The sight is a shock to my system. It connects with the shell, shattering it. The bars bend and the monster breaks free.

I’m moving before anyone can stop me. Before sanity has a chance to wrangle back the dark demon and root me in common sense.

I flip back the curtain and see both eyes blink wide before she winces at the pain of movement, the tensing of the stitches that close the cut above her puffy left eye taut. Her face is bruised and swollen, but it’s her. Without doubt.

And she is—mine.