Chapter 4 For the Fairytale
Chapter four
For the Fairytale
Lance had to admit, his previous encounter with local star-wearing patrolmen didn’t leave him all too interested in talking to the man who’d just kicked Lynnette from his room. Even if he’d recognized that she was about thirty seconds from initiating her own departure.
He squared his shoulders the best he could from the hospital bed and met the older man’s dark gaze. It wasn’t hard to see the man was trying to stare Lance down, intimidate him, but the guy needed more than a few extra decades and an equivalent number of inches around the waist to make it happen.
Lance kept his mouth shut and waited.
The man in the wrinkled uniform rested his hands on his gun belt and blew out a breath. “I’m Morty Parker, Sheriff of Leeland County. You met a couple of my deputies yesterday.”
Uh-huh. “As a matter of fact, I did,” Lance confirmed.
When Lance gave nothing else, Morty rolled his jaw and said, “I need to go over some things with you about yesterday’s events.”
Lance raised a brow. “No disrespect, Sheriff, but aren’t you a little outside your jurisdiction?
I’m pretty sure I heard this hospital’s in Klamath.
” He was being a dick and he knew it, but after the way Deputy Parker had behaved the previous day, he suspected a little passive-aggressive pushback was the least the man deserved.
As predicted, the challenge did not go over well. “The incident in question occurred in Leeland County, son,” Morty said in a patronizing tone.
Lance hardened his expression and his voice. “You’re neither my father nor my CO. You can address me as Master Gunnery Sergeant Blackburn.”
Morty scoffed. “That’s a hell of a mouthful. How ‘bout I call you Lance?”
“You cool with people dropping the title you worked your ass off for, Morty?”
Morty’s bushy silver brows pinched. “I’m the sitting sheriff, boy. Don’t get smart with me.”
“You think ‘cause I’ve been honorably discharged that my title lost its weight?” Lance challenged.
“How about you call the nearest USMC office and ask? Ask for the proper way to address a motherfucker who gave seventeen goddamn years of his life for this country and wore his insignia with pride. And while you’re at it, ask what happens when you repeatedly look that same man in the eye and call him boy. ”
Morty’s nostrils flared. “You threatening me?”
Lance smiled. “No, Sheriff. When I threaten you, you won’t question it.
What I’m doing is offering you an education on respect.
Just because I’m in this hospital bed right now does not mean my rank means any less than it did twenty-four hours ago.
We don’t lose our ranks when we’re discharged.
If I died today, my rank would be carved into my fucking tombstone.
So yeah, it’s a mouthful. It’s a mouthful I bled for and I won’t apologize for that. ”
Morty didn’t look like he appreciated Lance’s abridged lesson.
He’d probably appreciate the long version a lot less. But the hospital might frown on that, too, and he wasn’t looking to make those kinds of waves.
Morty leaned forward and latched onto the frame at the foot of Lance’s bed. It was hard to tell if he thought the pose was intimidating, or if the man just couldn’t stand upright for more than a couple of minutes under his own power. The glare in his eyes didn’t waver, though.
That was probably the highest compliment Lance could currently pay him.
“Listen, Blackburn,” Morty said, blatantly disregarding everything Lance had said, “it’s come to my attention that you and a friend of yours opened fire in my county yesterday. On a scene where two people ended up dead.”
Lance blinked. Waited.
Morty left the words hanging.
Lance scoffed hard. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
“I don’t take manslaughter of any kind as a joke.”
“Well, you should talk to your deputies about that,” Lance returned. “But I’m guessing one of them’s your boy, right? The charming prick who wasted valuable time bullying the victim and then proceeded to hide his fat ass behind his cruiser when the shooters pulled up?”
“You’d best watch your mouth, boy,” Morty snarled.
Lance let his own irritation show on his face and simultaneously fed a spark to the machines tracking his vitals.
He’d keep the spike gradual enough to seem believable, but he was well and truly done with Sheriff Asshole.
“You don’t come into my recovery room, disrespect me, even remotely imply that I had jack shit to do with those deaths, accuse me of being in the wrong for defending civilian life with a fucking handgun, and growl at me when I tell you the truth.
I am not the one who’s gonna roll over and take the blame for your people’s fuck ups.
You know goddamn well I didn’t kill those punks, or anyone else yesterday.
” He drew a breath and let the readings spike higher.
Morty’s eyes slid to the machines for a single moment.
“Matter of fact, if anything, it’s your department’s fault I’m in this fucking hospital right now,” Lance said.
“So go ahead. Piss me off, Morty. Disrespect me again. Accuse me of shit we both know I didn’t do.
You’ll shit your pants with the lawsuit I will bring down on your ass.
” He sucked in a dramatic breath to accommodate the increasingly loud machinery.
“That what you want? The evening news to splash your mug across TV with the headline ‘small-time sheriff picks a fight with decorated Marine’?”
Morty shoved upright and took a step to stride around the bed, on the side with Lance’s wounded leg. “Quit running your mouth, you washed-up dog,” he spat. “You’re nothing but a—”
The door flew open again, Lynnette and two other nurses rushing into the room.
“We’re not done here!” Morty snapped at them.
Lance let his head drop back against the pillow.
“The hell you aren’t,” Lynnette replied sharply as someone else silenced the machines. “You’re upsetting our patient. It’s time for you to go, Sheriff.”
Morty bristled, and for a long second, Lance thought he might do something stupid. Instead, he straightened himself and cut a look back to Lance. “We’ll continue this another time.”
Lance let his eyes close, knowing there were multiple pairs of ears attuned to their exchange. “Not unless you wanna meet that lawyer, Morty.”
Lynnette ground her teeth as she tried to tune out Claire’s attempts at flirting with their patient. Claire was the only other nurse still in the room since the sheriff had departed and the worst of the crisis seemed to have passed, and her remaining would have been fine—if she were working.
Hell, even if she were observing.
Lance seemed to have restabilized himself pretty quickly after Sheriff Parker finally took his charming self out of the room.
He’d closed his eyes and done some deep breathing and calmed as fast as any practiced meditation allowed.
It really was amazing the effects stress had on the body. Especially the already wounded body.
Lynnette was just about done when she heard something too odd, and too wrong, to ignore.
“Do you mind?” Lance asked, a tone of awkward discomfort in his voice. “My arm’s going numb from the way you’re sitting on me.”
Claire giggled and said something like oops.
Lynnette barely kept from dropping whatever she was holding as she spun to see what the hell was happening not five feet behind her.
And her eyes blew wide. She haphazardly set down the tablet and half ran around the bed, to the side where Claire—supposedly a certified, registered nurse—was fucking sitting.
On the bed. With a patient. Partially on top of the patient.
Worse, the empty-headed gossip wasn’t sitting just anywhere. She was sitting on his goddamn IV line.
Lynnette didn’t even bother with words or niceties, she just grabbed hold of her colleague by the bicep—which was a nicety, really—and hauled her physically off the bed.
Claire let out a startled yelp, then immediately attempted to tug free and exclaimed, “Hey! What the hell? Let me go!”
Lynnette dragged her all the way to the open door and spun her around as if it was a dance move. “Get out. Go do something useful.”
Rage reddened Claire’s overly made-up face. “You can’t throw me out of a patient’s room! You’re not my boss!”
Lynnette grabbed hold of the door, physically barring Claire’s way back in, and lowered her voice but made no effort to modulate the glare on her face.
“I’m the only one here thinking like a damn nurse.
If you aren’t interested in working, go home.
But what I will never allow you to do in my presence is cause harm to a patient, do you understand? ”
“Harm?” Claire repeated, incredulous and oblivious. “How was I—”
Lynnette slammed the door in her face. It didn’t lock on the patient side, of course, but it was still damn satisfying. She exhaled and kept her hand on the knob for a couple of seconds, waiting to see if Claire would try to burst back in.
Instead, Claire stomped past the window, moving in such a rush that her hair billowed behind her.
Good. They would surely argue more later, but Lynnette didn’t care.
She turned and hurried back to Lance. In his case, at least the IV was really only attached for preventative purposes, but that didn’t lessen the issue. And it took her no time to find that sex-brained Claire had crimped the line so badly it couldn’t pop itself back into shape.
I really should have punched her.
“Damn, sorry,” Lance said. “I didn’t realize she was actually sitting on anything other than me. Which was awkward.”
Lynnette blew out a breath. “You have nothing to apologize for. She was the one behaving inappropriately.” She moved swiftly to detach the line from him, and then from the bag. “I’ll report her, but you are more than welcome to complain, too, if you feel compelled. It’s entirely your choice.”
He hummed. “Are you gonna get in trouble? For putting hands on her?”