Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Waylon woke before dawn, the room still blanketed in darkness. He lay still for a moment, listening to Frankie’s soft, even breathing beside him. She hadn’t moved much in the night—too exhausted, he figured, from everything that had happened. He hated that she had to deal with any of it, but at least now, she wasn’t dealing with it alone.
Careful not to wake her, he slid out of bed, grabbed a fresh pair of boxer briefs, sweatpants, and a tee out of his dresser, and got dressed. He padded barefoot into the living room. Snoopy lifted his head from his dog bed, ears twitching, but didn’t get up. Waylon scratched the pup behind his ears, then headed for the kitchen.
His and Frankie’s phones were still where they’d left them charging on the counter. He picked his up and called in to work, saying he needed a personal day and hoping his boss didn’t die of shock. Then he sank onto the couch. He rubbed a hand over his face. He opened his texts to type a message to Shane to let him know what he’d learned about Derek, but it was unnecessary. A new message from Shane was waiting for him. He saw the timestamp—2:12 AM and sent a silent thanks to his brother for losing shuteye.
Check your email. Call me when you’re up. Got a full dossier on Dr. Derek Sloane.
Waylon’s stomach tightened as he swiped over to his email app. He scrolled through junk mail until he found Shane’s message, tapped the attachment, and started reading.
The first part was the usual background check—current address and phone, all previous addresses, where Derek had grown up, where he’d gone to school, his residency in Chicago. He’d graduated third in his class in medical school.
Waylon skimmed over most of it, slowing only when he got to the section about Derek’s hospital history. His record as an oncologist was spotless. He’d even won a national award for his contribution to oncology care.
Waylon scrubbed his face with one hand. A guy like him, making women uncomfortable, crossing boundaries—there should’ve been something.
Then Waylon found it.
Four years ago, Derek had been disciplined at a hospital in Chicago, his privileges revoked for “unprofessional conduct.”
Waylon’s pulse kicked up.
Derek had challenged the ruling and it went to a hearing. But the person who filed the complaint never showed. Because of that, the ruling was reversed and his privileges reinstated.
Shane had added a note:
That means the hospital was required to file an Action Report with the National Practitioner Data Bank when they revoked his privileges. Then when the witness didn’t show up and he got his privileges reinstated, they filed a Revision-to-Action Report which updated Derek’s record to reflect the reversal. In other words, if another hospital or medical board looks him up, they’ll see both the original complaint and that it’s been undone. A neat little loophole that means technically, Derek’s slate is clean.
And Derek was free to continue stalking women .
Waylon’s jaw clenched as he read Shane’s words.
Interesting enough, Derek hadn’t gone back to the hospital after the hearing. Instead, he’d packed up, left Chicago, and started fresh in Colorado. Waylon smiled ruefully when he read the name of the first hospital to hire him—Milestone Hospital.
“Figures,” he scoffed. A friend of Stephanie’s—a man who Waylon and Elias had saved when he had a heart attack at the rec center—had nicknamed it Millstone Hospital. Their predatory billing practices had left him feeling like they’d tied a millstone around his neck and threw him in the river.
A revocation like Derek’s should’ve raised red flags. Even with the reinstatement, it should have followed him. Should have made hospitals think twice before hiring him, dammit. But it was Milestone; no surprise they didn’t care so long as they were getting an award-winning doctor.
A year and a half ago, Derek had been granted privileges at the hospital and cancer center where Frankie had been treated. Derek hadn’t been her doctor, so he wasn’t supposed to have access to her records. But somehow, he knew her number. Knew where she lived.
Waylon’s grip tightened around his phone.
This motherfucker .
He kept reading, and the reason why Derek left Chicago became clear. Shane had found a restraining order against him filed by a woman named Kathy Rhodes. She didn’t work at the hospital but she’d filed it about a month before the hospital disciplined Derek. Shane had added another note:
I’m going to try and locate her. My thought is that he became frustrated when Kathy Rhodes filed the order, then went after some other lucky lady at the work. He must have intimidated her or paid her off to keep her from showing up at the hearing.
“Son of a bitch,” Waylon said quietly to himself. He sat on the couch, phone heavy in his hand, the words on the screen burning into his brain. Derek wasn’t just some awkward, harmless creep. And Frankie wasn’t his first victim. He was a predator. A careful one. A smart one who made sure nothing stuck to him.
Waylon exhaled hard as he dragged a hand down his face. He needed to tell her. But not now. Not at four in the goddamn morning when she’d barely had a chance to breathe since all this started. He’d let her sleep a little longer, let her have a few more hours of peace before he shattered it all over again with what he’d learned.
He stood and stretched, trying to ease the tension out of his shoulders. Snoopy, still curled up in his bed, cracked an eye open and decided it must be breakfast time. He stretched and trotted over to Waylon, tail wagging, hopeful look in his eye. Waylon couldn’t help but smile at the pup, especially when he went up on his hind legs and planted his front paws on Waylon’s leg.
“All right, little guy. Let’s take you on a quick trip downstairs, then get you fed.”
After he got Snoopy sorted, Waylon padded back to the bedroom. He wasn’t going back to sleep, but he could at least be near Frankie. He stripped down and slipped under the covers, careful not to jostle her. She was curled on her side, facing away from him, her breathing deep and even. He pressed his chest against her back and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her in close.
Frankie sighed softly in her sleep and nestled into him, her body warm and relaxed against his. Waylon closed his eyes, breathing her in, grounding himself in the rise and fall of her chest and the steady beating of her heart. He pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head.
It wasn’t going to be enough to tell her to file a restraining order. Wasn’t going to be enough to tell her that Derek was dangerous.
We have to stop him .
He wasn’t sure how much time passed, only that he lay there, listening to the slow rhythm of her breath, until morning light started creeping in through the curtains.
Frankie stirred. She stretched against him, pressing back into his warmth, letting out a soft, contented sigh before turning her head toward Waylon and blinking sleepily at him .
“Mmm. What time is it?” she murmured, her voice husky with sleep.
“A little after six-thirty is my guess.”
She yawned and rolled over to face him. “You’re awake early.” She studied his face. “I have a feeling you didn’t get much sleep.”
Waylon hesitated, brushing a dark curl from her forehead.
Frankie’s brow furrowed. “Waylon?”
Sometimes it was best to rip the band-aid off quickly. “Shane sent me Derek’s full report last night.”
She pushed up on one elbow, suddenly wide awake. “And?”
Waylon sat up against the headboard. He told Frankie what he’d learned about Derek. “He probably left Chicago because he had a restraining order filed against him. A woman named Kathy Rhodes.”
Frankie’s eyes went wide. “Wait. What?”
“She didn’t work at the hospital,” he explained. “But a month after she filed, the hospital revoked his privileges for ‘unprofessional conduct.’ Then at his hearing, the woman who filed the complaint never showed. So they reversed it, but he never went back.”
“Damn.”
Waylon nodded grimly. “And then he shows up in Colorado and gets privileges here, no problem.”
Frankie sat all the way up now, pulling the covers around her. “Jesus.”
“He’s done this before, Pix, God knows how many times,” Waylon said, his voice low, controlled. “So I don’t ever want to hear you blame yourself again.”
“I won’t.” She sighed. “It’s just automatic, you know?”
“A lot of women do it. I think you’re taught to.” He looked away. “But it’s not on them, it’s only on the men who decide to become monsters. Some woman hurt them, yeah, but so what? A man can choose to move on, like a fucking adult. When he doesn’t, it’s his choice, not hers.”
Waylon pulled Frankie close, pressing a lingering kiss to her temple. “Come on, babe. Let’s get out of bed and get some breakfast in you.”
Frankie sighed against him, her breath warm on his skin. “Only if there’s French press coffee.”
He chuckled. “Do I ever make any other kind?”
“No, thank goodness.”
Reluctantly, she rolled out of bed. He watched as she stretched her arms over her head, her naked body still flushed from sleep. She caught him staring. Smirking as she reached for her overnight bag, she asked, “Like what you see, Beefcake?”
“Always,” he said, completely serious.
Frankie shook her head, biting her lip as she pulled out a sweater. “You better get dressed, or I’ll get distracted.”
Waylon grinned but grabbed a clean pair of boxer-briefs out of a drawer, then pants and a fresh thermal, and went into the bathroom, As he pulled on the shirt, Frankie joined him. He brushed his teeth, then took a swig of mouthwash directly out of the bottle.
Frankie just stared at him, a slightly disgusted look on her face.
He tipped his head back and gargled.
She winced. “That sounds horrendous.”
Waylon spit out the mouthwash, then grinned at her in the mirror. “I could sing opera instead.”
Frankie snorted. “Oh, God, no.”
But it was too late. Waylon launched into an exaggerated, off-key rendition of O Sole Mio, complete with vibrato.
Frankie slapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a squeal of laughter. “Please, stop! Swigging mouthwash right out of the bottle is disgusting, your gargling is bad, but the singing is painful! ”
Waylon wiped his mouth with a hand towel, grinning. “I don’t know, babe. I think I missed my calling.”
“If you mean torturing people with your voice, then yeah.” She grinned back. “Stick to saving lives.”
“Everyone’s a music critic,” he teased, winking at her as he walked out .
Her laughter followed him down the hall. It felt good to hear her happy instead of scared.
The light moment lingered while they made breakfast, but as they settled at the table, Waylon noticed her gaze darting toward her phone, which she hadn’t picked up. Just quick glances, like she was checking on a spider waiting to jump on her.
He poured them both coffee, letting the silence sit for a moment before saying, “So, about today.”
Frankie sighed. “Yeah. The restraining order.”
“You ever filed one before?”
She shook her head. “Nope. But I’m guessing you know something about it.”
Yeah. Too much .
He took a sip of coffee. “I’ll download the forms you need to fill out before we go. I’ve gone with women to the interviews. Sometimes a piece of paper keeps a guy away. Sometimes it doesn’t.”
Frankie watched him carefully. “And when it doesn’t?”
“That’s where Mountain Division comes in.”
She blinked. “Mountain Division?”
Waylon nodded. “Me, Elias, Shane, Gabe, Bear, and Ben. We look out for women and kids who’ve slipped through the cracks of the system. Restraining orders help, but some guys don’t give a damn about them. So we step in.”
Frankie sat back. “You told me the day Derek showed up, we can take care of that. Is Mountain Division like… a vigilante group?”
Waylon huffed a small laugh. “If you want to call it that. But we make damn sure men like Derek understand there are consequences for their actions.” He set his mug down. His voice softened. “We helped a woman around a year ago. Felice. She was married to a guy named Preston. Real piece of shit. He controlled her, beat her, made her think she had nowhere to go. The second she decided to leave, we made sure she got out safely.”
Frankie’s fingers tightened around her mug. “What happened?”
“She told him she was filing for divorce and he beat her up real bad. We stepped in, helped her get a restraining order and served it along with divorce papers, set her up in a safe house at Watchdog while we moved his shit out of their house. He tried to stop us.” Waylon grinned at the memory. “Didn’t go well for him. He was arrested for assaulting an officer. Now he’s serving time for embezzling.”
Frankie looked confused. “But not for beating the shit out of his wife?”
Waylon shook his head slowly. “Nope. Felice was lucky she had proof of the embezzling.”
“Or she’d still be living in the safe house,” Frankie surmised.
Waylon leveled his stare at her. “No, she wouldn’t be. We would’ve made sure of that, one way or another.”
Frankie let out a slow breath. “I understand.”
Waylon’s gut tied itself into a knot. “Do you…have a problem with that?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not.”
Waylon closed his eyes and exhaled. Thank God .
“How is Felice now?” Frankie asked when he opened them again.
“She’s safe. Free. She’s taken shooting lessons and self-defense classes. Her life isn’t perfect, no one’s is. But it’s hers now, and she’s a lot happier.”
Frankie nodded, then stared down into her coffee. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “I hate that this is even necessary.”
“Me too, Pixie,” Waylon said. “But it is.”
She pressed her lips together, then let out a deep sigh. “It is.”
Waylon reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I’ll be with you the whole way.”
Frankie nodded. “Thanks, Beefcake.”
They finished breakfast. More than a few scraps had found their way to the floor where Snoopy hoovered them up. Waylon cleared the table and added the dishes to the ones from the night before in the sink. Frankie wanted to help, but he insisted on cleaning them himself while she filled out her paperwork.
As he washed and rinsed, his thoughts drifted back to the day they’d helped Felice. He grinned, remembering how he’d lost a bet to Elias.
That damn bus .
The memory surfaced so abruptly that Waylon almost dropped a plate. It had been over a year ago, but suddenly, it was there —the crowded bus, the gorgeous woman laughing so hard it lit up the whole damn place, the podcast about some woman stumbling into a fucking penis museum.
He chuckled under his breath, even as he felt a little guilty thinking about another woman he’d been seriously attracted to. But no wonder he was falling for Frankie so quickly. Even if she didn’t have those luscious curves, she had the same kind of laugh. The same mischievous spark in her eyes. The same…dark…hair…
He stopped scrubbing as he tightened his grip on the dish.
It’s not possible .
If it was Frankie, wouldn’t she have recognized him when they met at the first Adventure Buddy meetup? Said something about the bus, like maybe ‘Hey, can I have my earbud back?’
The earbud. Holy shit . He’d held onto that damn thing for weeks, played with it like a worry stone until he’d forgotten all about it. Where had it ended up?
Do I still have it?
Don’t be an idiot. It wasn’t her. Forget about it.
He went back to scrubbing the plate, then rinsed it. His mind wouldn’t let go of the memories, instead deciding to oh-so-helpfully fill in some details. He’d been on his way to work. It was dreary and freezing outside because of an early cold front. The podcast was about a woman traveling the world on her own?—
Like Frankie wants to do .
—who ended up in Iceland. She went to a penis museum— no thanks —then a punk rock museum, which sounded pretty cool.
But he couldn’t take his eyes off the woman on the bus. She lit the entire fucking day up. She made him want to forget about going to Cocks and Strippers for another one-night stand, and ask her out instead. Go on an actual date. Hell, go and check out Iceland together. Maybe have something real again.
Something real again? Are you serious? Stop lying to yourself. Love isn’t real. Besides, you’re thinking about a woman who didn’t care enough to stick around, so she took off.
No. He was thinking about two women who took off. Who didn’t care.
Only, where he’d made the wrong decision with Camille, he’d made the right decision with the woman on the bus. Mostly. Except for the earbud.
If you do find the earbud, fucking toss it in the garbage like you should’ve that day.
He finished cleaning the plate, grabbed the last one, and scrubbed.
Love isn’t real. It isn’t. It isn’t .
He rinsed the last plate.
Yeah, stop lying to yourself.
Because you love Frankie.
He had shut that thought down before, on the night they made love the first time. But there was no shutting down the way he felt, then or now. He was in love. Madly, stupidly, deeply in love with the Adventure Buddy he never wanted. He had been since the moment he laid eyes on her. Hearing her laugh sealed it in his heart.
But where did he first see her and hear her laughter? At the rec center…or on the bus?
Ask her .
He scoffed. How was he supposed to do that? Hey, were you that sexy woman I met on the bus last year? That would go over well.
Maybe he could ask her if she ever rode the bus. To the hospital. Where she had her surgery a year ago. Shit. It lines up .
Waylon put the last plate in the dishwasher and hit the power button. Before he could stop himself, the question was halfway out of his mouth.
“Hey, kind of a weird question, but?—”
He turned, dish towel in hand, his gut twisting with anticipation.
Frankie stood frozen, staring hard at the box containing the lingerie. Waylon hadn’t opened it, not wanting to upset Frankie any more than she already was the night before.
His stomach dropped. “Frankie?”
She slowly turned to him, her expression tight.
“It’s the damn note,” she muttered. “I keep thinking about it, even more than the stupid lingerie. I told myself it was just a gross overstep.”
She opened the flaps, and Waylon watched her whole body stiffen. She’d looked fine five seconds ago, but now she was pale. Furious.
She took out the note and showed him.
I can’t wait to see you in this. You’ll be stunning.
—Derek
“Motherfucker,” Waylon said, jaw tightening.
Frankie set the note down slowly, deliberately beside the box. her breath measured like she was containing a nuclear detonation. “I am done . I am sick of random men thinking they can send me lingerie or dick pics or tell me how I’m really feeling.”
Waylon’s anger softened just enough to let admiration slip through.
“I am taking him down ,” she said. “To-fucking- day , Waylon.”
“Damn right you are.” He took her in his arms. “Except you’ve got one thing wrong.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” She looked fierce, like she would chew right through him if he tried to stop her. Fucking turn-on .
“It’s we . We’re taking him down. You, me, Shane, Elias, hell, all of Watchdog. We’ve all got your back, Pixie. ”
For a moment her eyes shone as the realization set in. She wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
Her eyes hardened again. “When does the police station open?”
“Police don’t handle it. Lawyers do. We need to go to the Protective Order Clinic at the Justice Center.”
“So when do they open?”
“Soon. We’re lucky it’s Tuesday morning. They only hold interviews Tuesday mornings and Wednesday afternoons. If we’re lucky, you’ll get a hearing today and it can go into effect right away.”
“And if not?”
“You’re not in immediate danger, like if you were living with him, so we’d go before the judge tomorrow or Thursday. Maybe Friday.”
“Wow. They make you wait.” She shook her head and looked disgusted.
“System sucks, babe.”
“Then let’s make sure we get an interview today.”
“Let me call Kyle and see if Snoopy can hang out there. We’ll pick him up when we’re done.”
Frankie beamed at him. “Perfect.”
She started pulling on her cowgirl boots while Waylon headed to his bedroom to make the call in private. He wanted to ask Kyle for a favor, one he didn’t want Frankie to hear. He disconnected with a smile—Kyle was more than happy to help out.
Frankie had leashed Snoopy and she had the car carrier under one arm. Waylon barely had time to grab his shoes as Frankie marched over to the closet. She pulled out Waylon’s winter coat and threw it on. Her hands immediately went into the pockets.