Chapter 13 Up to Speed #2
Lance chuckled and tossed the crumpled bag at his buddy.
“Then I guess it’s your job to give me the report, Foxy.
You know I like my details.” And he would prefer them soon, because he was itching to break away and make that call.
Not that he had a damn clue what he’d say once he got her on the phone.
Would she refuse if he asked her outright on a date?
Would his chances be higher if he made up some bullshit to justify meeting?
It was hard not to lose himself down that rabbit hole in the moments before Foxe composed himself for a proper reiteration of events.
The uptick in missing women in the surrounding counties was largely suspected to be due to the surprising presence of the Veracruz Cartel, a powerful but still fairly new cartel that had overtaken their own region of Mexico before—apparently—climbing North.
Sex trafficking was only one of the many hellish trades they dealt in, but it lined up with the problem in question.
Jenna’s nineteen-year-old female employee had gone missing shortly after Lance had landed in the hospital, and it was confirmed the cartel had taken her when Jenna herself was abducted and taken to the same location.
A small, debatably lucky break—at least one girl was saved.
The Leeland County Sheriff’s Department, the law of the land for Jon’s hometown of Misty Glades, seemed to be in deep with the Veracruz.
Which almost explained Morty’s blabbering nonsense about not wanting Lance to ‘fuck up what he had going on’.
On the bright side, there seemed to be one deputy who’d shown signs of being clean.
A man named Raph Dennison, whom Jon had called in to clean up the scene and arrest the survivors after rescuing Jenna.
So, the problem of the department was slowly abating, between the takedown of its crooked authority figures and the pending legal hammer.
But the issue of the cartel remained. That meant PJ, whatever the fuck birds he might throw at them, and whoever else he had left to run amok with. It was possible they’d pull up stakes and move on, even. That would be a problem.
Jon had called in three of their former Marine buddies to help root out the threat.
Plus, they had Army Alex, who’d volunteered and apparently stepped up.
That made six with Lance out of the hospital.
Six against however many cartel assholes might have slipped across the border and made their way up from California.
Lance let his head tip back for a moment after Foxe was done, his mind processing.
He understood Jon wanted to put down roots locally in the long run.
That was why Jon had approached him about the search and rescue business.
And with Lynn being local, Lance saw no reason not to go all-in on that.
So, they needed to make a good, solid impression.
He straightened and cracked his neck, a grin splitting his face. “Sounds like we’re about to have some fun.”
Laundry was done. Her refrigerator and cupboards were fuller than they’d been for the entire length of time she’d been renting the apartment. Her floors were mopped, dried, and sparkling. Her picture frames had been dusted. Even her damn toilet was clean.
All of that, and Lynnette was bored. The type of bored that only fed into her frustration.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been unemployed.
Probably when she’d still been in college.
She had changed employers a few times, sure, but always by choice or with notice.
Time to prepare. And for as glad as she was to be away from Gavin Bishop and the bizarre hatred of Claire, Lynnette was furious over losing her job.
Everything about why she’d been fired was unfounded.
No one could prove their allegations, because the allegations were false.
But she also couldn’t disprove them, because the technical opportunities were there. It was the nature of the job.
What I need is a lawyer. It was ironic that she’d only just the other day cashed in her favor with Lilia. But no way in hell was she going to ask Lilia to drop that case, not with how big it had blown.
She needed a lawyer and a new source of employment, swiftly.
Her meager savings wouldn’t last for long.
And the whole situation would get worse if she was forced to call her dad and explain to him what had happened.
Rather, if she had to tell him before she could wrap the story up with a happy ending.
Lynnette sighed and slumped into her sofa.
Her open laptop mocked her in its silence from its resting place on the coffee table.
The idea of the research that awaited her felt more daunting than it should, and something like exhaustion weighed her down.
She’d told herself to give the hospital’s CMO twenty-four hours to respond to her message.
Twenty-four hours had passed and she’d heard nothing.
That probably said everything. Hadn’t she already known their aim was to protect the reputation of their precious surgeon?
She drummed her fingers restlessly on her thigh.
She needed that video. That meant she needed to get in touch with Lance, somehow.
Jenna probably has a way. Through Jon, if nothing else.
But Lynnette hadn’t had it in her yet to tell her best friend about her firing, and she didn’t know how she’d avoid that conversation if she found herself face-to-face with Jenna.
She also didn’t know why she was hiding from it.
Just call your friend. Don’t be a coward.
She hadn’t deserved the firing. The accusations against her were false. There was literally no evidence to support the claims. Moreover, if she quietly accepted the punishment without pushback, after all the fighting she’d previously done, that would make her look guiltier than anything else.
Finally bolstered into action, Lynnette straightened and reached for the phone that also rested on the coffee table. Her fingers were nearly touching the device when it lit up with an incoming call from an unfamiliar, out of area number.
She jerked back on some weird reflex and stared at her phone as it rang. Seconds passed while she argued with herself, gave herself a hard shake, and finally snatched the device off the table. She brought it to her ear with a quick swipe of her thumb. “Hello?”
“Lynn! I didn’t hear your voice at all yesterday, it was horrible. Did you miss me?”
Lynnette paused, staring straight ahead into the familiarity of her rented home but seeing none of it. She knew the voice at her ear, but her brain needed a moment to place it. It felt wrong hearing that warm masculine tone in this context. Her brow pinched. “Lance?”
He chuckled. “Surprised?”
Of course I’m surprised! “How did you get my number?”
She swore she saw him shrug as he replied, “Jon, I think. Maybe Jenna. Honestly, everything was kind of one endless blur once the police arrived to deal with Morty, so I’m not sure which conversation it was where I nagged it out of them. There’s no harm now, though, right?”
She almost laughed, and it was the moment she took to fight the amusement down that Lynnette realized her body had begun to relax. Just at the sound of his voice, faintly distorted, through the phone. That seemed bad. “That question is a little bit too suggestive.”
“That was nothing, sweetheart.”
She balked as a flush stole through her. “We both know you didn’t miss your nurse.”
He clicked his tongue. “I don’t miss the hospital, or being stuck in a bed with wires taped and poked into me, or dealing with all the other staff members and their outward assholes.”
She snorted.
A grin brightened his voice as he continued.
“But I do miss my favorite nurse. The one who gave a shit, and kept it real, and shared lunch with me.
You might know her—beautiful, auburn hair, about five-seven, brown eyes with these sparkling golden flecks inside, and the most fucking mesmerizing freckles splashed across her cheekbones, just below her eyes. Thirty-eight of ‘em.”
The blush she’d felt earlier paled in comparison to the full-bodied heat that consumed her as he finally went quiet.
Her mouth hung open, but no words formed.
She couldn’t even draw breath. Sweat broke out along her skin as her heart thundered in her ears.
What he’d said was simple, arguably, but nothing about it felt simple.
When she finally found her voice, all she could blurt was, “What the hell is mesmerizing about freckles?”
He barked out a laugh and she could too easily picture his relaxed expression and that gleam no doubt shining in his pale green eyes. If either of them had features worth waxing poetic about, that person was him. But she was going to keep her lips firmly shut. “They’re part of you,” he said.
That was it. That was his entire explanation.
Lynnette had never been so grateful for the visual privacy of a phone call in all her life, because there was no stopping her body’s reaction to his words.
And the tone of voice in which he’d spoken them.
She’d never been so affected. It was drizzling outside and chillier than the past few mornings had been, but suddenly she was oppressively warm.
The kind of warm that made her want to tie up her hair and peel off her usually comfortable clothes.
Then there was the deeper ache, inside, that she did not want to think about.
She dragged in a hard breath. He was my patient. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed her body to get a grip. Aloud, finally, she said, “Has that line worked for you often?”
“Never really bothered with cheesy lines before,” Lance replied.
Lynnette huffed. “You expect me to believe that?”
“At the risk of painting myself in the wrong colors,” Lance said, “you are, without a doubt, the most respectable woman I have ever pursued. So, while I gather you would appreciate the straightforward approach as a general concept, you deserve the effort of something a little more than me flashing a dimple and suggesting we ‘see where this goes’.”
Her stupid lungs failed her again. She pushed to her feet and forced her body to move, just to try and excuse the rapid thumping of her heart.
“Is that what you want? To ‘see where this goes’?” She knew what all his words meant, but the notion that he was saying them to her—after how they’d known each other not forty-eight hours prior—was absurd to her.
It made it difficult to wrap her mind around.
“You say that like it’s unheard of,” he teased.
“Lots of patients have hit on me,” Lynnette responded, the frantic energy consuming her mouth and causing it to run faster than her brain.
“Making passes at the nursing staff is a very common way for people to distract themselves from the uncomfortable situation that landed them in the hospital and whatever feelings they have about it. So, it happens regularly. But that’s never about me.
I’m a stand-in, and as soon as they’re free, I’m a memory they quickly let go of. ”
“Is that your way of saying you figured I’d forget about you?” he asked the question quietly, with an odd calmness that only further unsettled her.
“Of course. And I never would have taken it personally.” The words certainly should have been true, but for some unfathomable reason, it hurt to push them out.
Lance made a low, vibrating sound that didn’t quite qualify as a hum. “You at the hospital today?”
She winced at the question. Of course, he didn’t know.
There was no reason for him to have learned that she only lingered at the hospital those last couple of hours because they had special circumstances to adhere to.
He might have glimpsed her de-scrubbed before he was truly released, but it was only natural he’d assumed she had merely clocked off.
And she wasn’t sure he had even seen her.
“No,” she said. “Catching up on chores at home.”
“Don’t suppose you’d tell me where that is?”
“Why would I?”
“How’s a guy supposed to take his girl out if he doesn’t know where to pick her up?”
Lynnette sighed. “You shouldn’t even be driving on that leg, anyway.” Another thought occurred to her and she frowned. “Since when do you have a car? Locally, I mean.”
“Jon called some buddies into the area,” Lance replied, his voice grinning again. “They rented a couple. They can spare one.”
She rolled her eyes. “Setting aside the legality of that, again, it’s too soon for you to be driving on that leg.”
“Well, I don’t have a place to offer to let my modernist girlfriend pick me up from, so we’re gonna have to stick with the old-fashioned approach.”
Her knees nearly buckled and she caught herself on the back of a kitchen chair. “When exactly did I become your girlfriend?”
Of course, he laughed. “Wednesday.”
Her mouth opened to uselessly repeat his confounding response before the answer clicked.
Wednesday was the day she’d brought him lunch.
The day she’d run to his room—to his presence—to hide from the overwhelming upset Bishop had caused her.
The day she’d stepped, just the tiniest bit, out of line.
The day she’d let him comfort her with his touch, even if only a little.
It was that memory, his strong fingers coming to rest on her shoulder in a steadying press and a simultaneously gentle reminder that she wasn’t alone, that cracked the wall she’d worked so hard to build around herself.
She replayed the way she had reached up and taken hold of his hand, not to toss away his touch, but to hold on to it.
Wednesday. Shit. He wasn’t wrong.
Lynnette heaved a breath and spoke before she could overthink the response that followed her weird, astounding, highly concerning revelation. “Why don’t we just meet up somewhere and … see where it goes?”